[arocks]

We have been using Trello for about two months and it is amazing how even the non-technical users could now finally "visualize" the project life cycle.

Trello is disarmingly simple and like (early) Twitter, does one thing and it does it really well. This leads to users invent all sorts of use cases for it (again like Twitter).

Trello, if it becomes wildly popular, can finally pull companies from the "Gantt chart" mindset we borrowed from Manufacturing to a more collaborative model. Plus with all the cards being visible to everyone by default, the unproductive role-based access measures will be also rid off for good.

[rodolphoarruda]

> it is amazing how even the non-technical users could now finally "visualize" the project life cycle.

We sell tailor made wedding dresses online. We use Trello to control all steps of the order-to-delivery process. Our pre-sales and post-sales teams share the same cards organized by bride name.

[kamaal]

Trello is great, I feel it will greatly influence teams which require collaboration and status tracking.

But the way I see it, a lot of discipline with be required to 'update' it every now and then. Some thing that I felt will always be a problem with any process. Every time a process like this springs up, I get enthusiastic then the enthusiasm wears away.

So as far as I'm concerned I still feel nothing really beats managing project from a notebook. You can't really get any thing as flexible and a limitless creative tool called pen/pencil on any electronic device. And the ability to just express your ideas as they are on paper is unbeatable.

GTD was life changing. Kanban boards are not.

[freehunter]

I have, use, and love my digital note pad, the Asus EeeNote. While it was only sold in China and has since long been discontinued, it is an amazing device for me and tracking my life and my projects. What the device is basically boils down to a Wacom digitizer laid over a black and white screen with a Linux kernel powering the backend (and Qt powering the front-end). While it was still supported, it offered automatic uploads of your files to Evernote, though it has not been updated since Evernote changed their sign-in process so this no longer works. It does have a micro SD card slot and an incredibly old version of Firefox (Firefox 2 I think). Since it is a Wacom tablet, you can rest your hands on the screen all you want, and the screen is textured so it feels almost like writing on paper. It can also be plugged into a PC and act as a Wacom digitizer on your screen for Photoshop, OneNote, or anything else you need to use a pen for.

Unfortunately it was never sold outside of China and was quickly discontinued. Other markets got the Asus PadFone instead, which was more expensive and not nearly as simple as a digital notepad. What you describe (a notebook, with lament over collaboration) could be solved with a well-supported device like the EeeNote. It truly is as flexible and limitlessly creative as a pen and paper [1]. It's a shame Asus never gave it a real try.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/tYQlX1C.jpg

[Davertron]

That's all fine and good if you're the only person working on the project, but when you have multiple people involved, you need something more than a notebook.

[__alexs]

> Trello, if it becomes wildly popular, can finally pull companies from the "Gantt chart" mindset we borrowed from Manufacturing to a more collaborative model.

A more collaborative model, that we also borrowed from engineering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System#Common...

[rschmitty]

Man TPS... been a while. While studying mechanical engineering in college we learned about TPS in an industrial system's engineering class.

The professor, I think a little bitter that it became known as Toyota's always like to say it was an American idea. At the time American auto was fat happy and lazy, not seeing the need to eliminate "muda". William Edwards Deming was trying to get his "lean" ideas across to American auto mfg, but they weren't interested.

He went to Japan/Toyota and and that team is where the Toyota Production System came to be. This is also a major factor in how Japanese autos really kicked the crap out of American for so long. Only once American autos realized how bad they were getting beat up did they finally put an effort into getting lean and started to study the TPS. You can see how long its taken them to (arguably) catch up.

Japan honored his teachings with the naming of their highest manufacturing award: The Deming Prize. A former Deming Prize winner, Yoji Akao taught similar ideas and now that is a high award for American quality, the Akao Prize

Anywho, just thought it was a cool story

Now you know why we like to say kanban and kaizen so much!