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Trello - an effective knowledge management system for a small IT team

When we talk about a knowledge base, we usually represent a complex system in a large IT company or corporation. They use the database to store instructions, documentation, courses, and skill cards. But even small teams need knowledge bases. For example, designers to store links to sites for inspiration, examples for customers, online services for work and articles.



Using bulky products like Confluence is inconvenient for this; small teams are better off with Trello. This simple and practical tool allows you to organize a convenient repository of knowledge in one evening, which is easy to maintain and update. That's exactly what Atman Digital's web design team did and were pleased. How they use the knowledge base in Trello, what are the advantages of this approach and who is suitable, Roman Khorin will tell - CEO of Atman Digital.


Why choose Trello


When a designer carries out a commercial project, he has two questions: “Where did I see this?” and “How can this be done?” An experienced specialist has a visual and visual memory of the projects and services that he developed. Finding a reference (example) and understanding how to implement a project is a simple task for him. But beginners do not have such a memory - they need to constantly study the design of new sites and services. 

Atman Digital has a young design team. After completing several orders, the question arose: “How to organize an exchange of experience in a team?” In order to grow and develop. This requires finding a way to exchange useful services and reference sets - a knowledge base.

We did not have time to build a deep solid base. Since the first projects were in Trello, the team was already familiar with this tool. He was chosen to organize the knowledge base.

The structure of Trello is simple and intuitive: lists, cards, check lists. We easily and quickly organized the base and adapted to it thanks to the familiar interface. At Trello, it’s easy to organize the external links that make up the base of designers. Adding something new to the database is also easy and understandable to the whole team.

How the Atman Knowledge Base Works


The base is hierarchical: it is divided into different categories, each of which has cards with an additional sublevel in the form of check lists.


Board of cards in the knowledge base.

The first level of the hierarchy is workflow separation . All projects start with analytics and continue with prototyping. References and a mudboard are a visual style that can be offered to a client in order to realize the whole project in this style. Further design rendering and several steps that are not in the picture.



When a designer has a problem, he wants to remember what he saw, or use past experience. Problems appear not just like that, but in relation to the workflow, for example, show the customer examples of sites or add a new element to the layout. Therefore, the first level is the separation of tasks.

The second level is the  types of materials . These are cards within a section that can be structured.



At the level below - in the card - a list of materials that we use in the work. In this case, these are sites from which we draw inspiration. This is “elementary knowledge” that can no longer be divided into components.



Atman Knowledge Base Features


It is built on links to other sites and online services. First of all, the visual experience that is online is important for the designer. Using the links, we digitized all the information that we needed as knowledge: examples of work, services, articles, videos, internal documents in Google Docs. Digitized, structured and assembled in one place.

The base is cluttered if you do not follow it. Therefore, we have a separate role as a moderator who regularly cleans the database and adds something new to it.

How does knowledge get into the database? Everyone can add knowledge, but first they go through the “Distributor”. This is a filter that filters out stupid from useful. 



When a team member saw something interesting, he puts it in the “Dispenser” on one of the cards: “It’s definitely useful!” or "May be useful." The materials from the second card are discussed by the team for usefulness.

The moderator regularly enters the database and checks all the links that have accumulated in the "Distributor". Then he decides what to do with them - delete or transfer to another category and add a description if necessary.



A system of reminders and notifications . In the first few weeks of life, the base was filled with emotions. Later, popularity began to fall and there was only one moderator in it - me. To solve the problem, I introduced a system of reminders and notifications.

The main communication channel is Slack. It has integration with Trello. We set everything up so that when you add new material to the Slack team chat, a notification comes. Initially, notifications were sent to designers working chat. When they started complaining that notifications were distracting, we created a separate channel in Slack for notifications and added those who wanted to it.

Every week in phoning, we share experiences, impressions, evaluate the work. At the beginning of each meeting, I remind you of the base - I ask about who added what, what new I learned, what I could offer. During the workflow, I also give references to the database.

What happened well


Structure . The hierarchy from the production process to "elementary knowledge" has shown itself well. The materials are clearly structured and easy to find the link you need. 

Editing . The base in Trello is easy to edit: change text, add new sections, lists, links. Even if someone made a mistake, everything can be fixed.
 
Instructions . We wrote a separate instruction that helps beginners understand how the database works and not break it.

The reminder system encourages the team to use the database, and the “ Distributor ” helps to filter useless materials and not litter the database.

General work. It is convenient when each member of the team can participate in the process. There is no single person who is engaged in knowledge management - everyone helps.

What happened badly


Short descriptions . There is no problem with simple knowledge that can be described in one sentence. But this does not always happen.



For example, in the checklist the first three links are called "The best sites in the world by category." Why are the names the same? What categories? What is the hierarchy number 1, number 2 and number 3 related to? If you explain what the author of the card meant, it will take up too much space, and the checklist format is inconvenient for a massive description.

Crutches for large files . The base is not very convenient for posting videos, photos or text materials. The problem is solved if the files are uploaded to the cloud and leave a link in Trello. But, again, this is a “crutch”.

The knowledge base is open . There is a risk that team members will remove materials from the database or add extra ones, bypassing the “Distributor”.

Broken links . The larger the base, the more links. Some of them eventually become inactive - broken. We do not have an automatic check for inactive resources and sites.

Aggregator articles . The hierarchy of the base assumes that we are moving from general knowledge to "elementary" - to links to a specific resource. Aggregator articles are materials like “12 best services for a designer” or “999 useful sites for inspiration”.

The team has a tendency to add aggregator articles to the database, but they are of no use, they break the hierarchy and ruin the logic. From "elementary" knowledge we find ourselves in this hodgepodge, where we again have to figure out where, what and why.

Without access to the Internet, the database is not available. Trello itself and all links do not work without the Internet. You won’t even be able to download it in advance.

How to improve the system


Our team has access to editing, because so far there have been no incidents with the removal of something important. But if you wish, you can limit the team’s access to edit materials. To do this, create two boards: the base and the "Distributor". Employees will add materials to a separate board, from which the moderator transfers them to the main base. In the main database, restrict the rights of employees to edit. 

Use the tag system in Trello . Tags are colored blocks with names. For example, red means books, blue means links, and green means videos. You can look at the card and immediately understand by color what lies in it. Tags help add an extra level of structuring to the database.

Use more features of plugins. The tool is developing rapidly and for sure there are tools in it that will help you personally.

Conclusions and recommendations


Trello helped organize a knowledge base quickly . All that was left was to collect all the links from the bookmarks.

The knowledge base in the form of links is convenient for the design team - the material is in three clicks. It is also convenient to use as a repository of ideas. Not only for designers, but, for example, for front-end development, as we found out.

The more experienced the specialists, the less often they use the knowledge base . When a person is already full and gained experience, then he uses his own observation. But the base is actively used by beginners and learn faster.

Without a notification system, activity is reduced . If you do not remind, do not create an information background, then the database is used less and less.

Also, activity fell because we migrated from Trello to PlanFix. The workspace is disconnected - it’s more difficult to return to Trello: you have to open a tab and search. If the workspace in the database is not connected with others, then the activity in the database fades.

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