Over the years I’ve used Jira, Workfront, Smartsheet, and Azure DevOps as my project management tool on various instructional design teams. I consider myself tool agnostic so my guidance can be applied to any platform you use to organize your team’s work.
Here are some tips and tricks for using a project management tool as part of an ID team:
- Break your work down into feature and story cards. A feature can be a longer initiative that lasts up to a quarter, and stories are the individual tasks that represent you doing the work.
- Automate incoming tickets to arrive in your backlog. Create some sort of Service Request form that sends an email notification as well so nothing gets overlooked.
- Integrate tools or use the same platform as much as possible. I also perform retros in my PM tool so I can link action items to user stories.
- Create user story templates for common steps in the process. For my team, that looks like a Savvy Start card, as well as Alpha/Beta/Gold, Edit, Publish, and Promote cards.
- Make the work visible and pull up your Kanban board on weekly calls like syncs or standup. You want to put eyes on the work as frequently as possible.
You can apply the advice above to any PM tool, and there are SO many out there! The animal shelter I volunteer for uses Asana. Each dog has a story card that moves through columns like Intake, Kennels, Foster, Adoption, and Rescue.
This just shows the tools can be used in whatever way you can imagine. Even if they were created for software development, you can still get utility by setting up your account in a way that works for your instructional design team.
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