Managing organically growing projects
Many of the web-based collaboration/project management applications out there today are great in visualizing a project and to keep track of tasks within that specific project. It is common knowledge that as time goes by a project may grow both in size and in the number of people involved. It’s also very common that you will need to involve people from different functions in the same project. And that’s when the teams hit a brick wall.
Other web-based tools do not manage these real life “project” problems in a good way. It doesn’t take long before you realize that your project is becoming too big for the tool you’re using and you need to look at other alternatives. Some tools that can seemingly scale are way too expensive and complex, as also difficult to implement. With Favro, we wanted to build a tool that is easy enough to start with and implement but something that scales well for team of teams collaboration. We believe that the depth and hierarchy of Favro is much more thoroughly thought out, and more suited for projects that tends to organically grow with time. To get right to the point, I would like to start with explaining the hierarchy in Favro and why it can make a big difference in taking care of complex project needs.
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You could say that Favro is built on four levels: Organization, Collections, Boards/Backlogs and Cards. The first layer is your organization. As a user, you can be part of as many organizations as you like but “what happens in your organization stays in your organization”. Within a specific organization you then create collections. Collections in the screenshot below represents different functions within an organization, but run free with your imagination, a collection could be a team, an office, a squad, a large project etc.
Within your different collections, are your boards and backlogs. What really makes Favro stand out here is that you can have as many boards and backlogs as you want, visible at the same time in the same view. Let’s see how this could be useful: Let’s say that you have two teams within the same function and there exists some dependencies between these teams. In Favro, you then set it up really easy by giving the teams separate boards so that you know which board is representative for each team. Then when a task (represented by a card within the board) is in need of cross collaboration you simply move that card from one board to the other, which duplicates the card so that is lives within both boards at the same time. As shown in the screenshot below.
This may sound like a small thing but such a cross-collaboration aspect is very much needed in modern organizations who strive to be agile, transparent and efficient and yet no tool can do this well Now let’s take a step back and talk about the difference between backlogs and boards. When you open a new collection you have the option to create either a board or a backlog. Within the backlog you create cards which also can store cards on sub levels.
A big card can be broken down into several sub parts and you can build on this hierarchy as you like. When you’re ready to work on something, simply pull that card from the backlog into the board. The relationship is always visible on the cards, so even from the backlog level you can easily see which board/boards is that card currently residing. Sometimes the card can be so big that it merits a board of its own, like a big event or something that needs its own workflow and planning. In such cases, it is easy to breakdown that card straightaway into a new board.
The boards in Favro are built like a typical kanban-boards where it’s up to you as as a user to customize the different columns. It could simply be tasks moving from selected to doing to done or it could be more advanced, for example by drawing up a sales pipeline or a recruitment process. Once again let your imagination run free. Every board can be as simple or complex as needed. You add the power to each board by selecting from the list of available “Apps” in the “App Store”. This way you can customize each board to represent the flow or way of working for each individual team.
I mentioned earlier that “what happens in your organization stays in your organization” and that takes us to another feature that makes collaboration using Favro really powerful. A board or an backlog is not bound to stay in just one collection. Without having to invite other members of your organization you can simply add your board or your backlog to another collection and it will be alive and kicking in both collections at the same time. We believe that this is also a crucial functionality when creating an environment that is cross collaborative where people from different functions (represented by collections) can work on the same board at the same time or simply need to have visibility into what the other teams are working on.
Let’s summarize. Favro is built on layers, which can be used when the user is in need of them. Favro can therefore be one simple kanban-board for planning a party or it can suit a cross functional development team working on a AAA game title. Favro has what other simple project management applications lacks in terms of handling projects when they grow, while still retaining the ease of use and intuitiveness.
