Successfully managing a project takes focus, planning, and a knack for getting things done (GTD). The more moving parts there are, the more organized you need to be. That’s why many teams use tools like Trello boards and Trello templates to manage their workflows. 🛠️
Part of the Atlassian stable of tools, Trello is a visual project management tool for both in-office and remote work, and Trello templates offer a shortcut to planning and managing your projects.
But is a Trello template the best project management template for the job? After all, there are some great Trello alternatives out there. 🤔
Let’s clarify what a Trello template is and how it fits into the wider Trello universe. We’ll explore some useful Trello project management templates and then share some alternatives that might serve you better.
After all, there’s more than one way to tackle task management.
10 Free Trello Board Templates to Track Projects
- What Is a Trello Template?
- 5 Trello Board Templates
- Limitations of Using Trello Templates
- 10 Alternative Trello Board Templates
- 1. ClickUp Kanban Roadmap Template
- 2. ClickUp Project Management Schedule Template
- 3. ClickUp Simple Kanban Template
- 4. ClickUp Agile Sprint Planning Template
- 5. ClickUp Project Post Mortem Template
- 6. ClickUp 30-60-90 Day Plan Template
- 7. ClickUp Business Plan Template
- 8. ClickUp Decision and Change Log Template
- 9. ClickUp High Level Project Plan Template
- 10. ClickUp Eisenhower Matrix Template
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Is a Trello Template?
A Trello template is a pre-designed document that gives you a suggested layout for your Trello board, so you don’t need to come up with it yourself. Simply customize the basic template to suit your needs for your Trello project board and replicate it as needed for other project plans. ✅
Trello boards are task management tools that give you an overview of the progress of your project. They also keep all your team members on the same page and make it easy for stakeholders to see what’s going on.
Trello board templates are designed to provide a clear view of your project objectives, making it easy to schedule tasks and optimize your workflow as much as possible—without reinventing the wheel every time.
Summarize this article for me please5 Trello Board Templates
To give you a better idea of Trello project planning templates, let’s look at some examples of how to use them for your projects.
The Amazing Kanban Project Management Template uses the Amazing Fields Trello Power-Up feature to create a Kanban board and customize it to work for you. The Kanban board makes it easy for you and your team to see exactly where you are in a project and what you’re working toward.
The Project Management Template gives you a structure to build your project plan workflow. Safely store all your resources like specs and project documents, capture questions you need to be answered, and track whether a task is To Do, Pending, Blocked, or Done.
The Premortem Template encourages you to think ahead to consider what would help you stay on track with your project plan and what obstacles might get in the way. This lets you maximize the helpful elements and come up with a plan to deal with potential roadblocks. 🚧
The Agile Board Template helps you get things done within an agile project management framework. It walks you through every step, from planning and execution to reflection and iteration.
The Eisenhower Matrix Task Board gives you a way to prioritize your tasks according to categories. The categories include Important and Urgent, Important but Less Urgent, Urgent but Less Important, and Not Important and Not Urgent. Using this simple template, deciding what to deal with first is easy.
Summarize this article for me pleaseLimitations of Using Trello Templates
Trello templates like these can be extremely useful, especially for small businesses and startups, but they do have some limitations. 👀
For example:
- Inefficient for larger teams: With the recent changes, Trello’s free version limits workspaces to 10 collaborators and may not be the best choice for larger teams
- Tracking multiple projects or projects more complex than those with simple linear flows may be beyond Trello’s functionality
- While it’s effective for task management, those tasks can’t be linked to a big-picture roadmap
- Although Kanban boards are available on all the pricing plans, you only get Dashboard, Timeline, and Calendar views with Premium or Enterprise plans
- Customization options are extremely limited
- Access permissions aren’t simple to control, and you probably don’t want everyone to have editing capabilities on your project boards
- A lot of functionality, like reporting, time tracking, and expense tracking, relies on integrations with third-party tools via the Power-Up feature—and you need to pay extra for many of the Power-Ups
- There’s no native task dependency functionality, so you’ll need another Power-Up feature if you want to see Gantt charts
- Team communication is limited to posting comments on Trello cards
Summarize this article for me please10 Alternative Trello Board Templates
If Trello templates aren’t right for your business, there are plenty of other options out there—and one of the best alternatives to Trello is ClickUp. ✨
ClickUp is ideal for project management. It makes projects easy to plan, build, and roll out, with features like:
- A platform that handles the most complex projects with ease with free templates, visibility into your own board, and the same setup or drag-and-drop features
- Easily switch between the dashboard overview and micro-level task details
- Access to multiple project views, including Gantt charts to track dependencies across all the tasks
- Custom Fields and Statuses that allow you to customize pretty much everything, even if you’re a beginner user
- Permissions that protect the different levels of the project and manage who’s allowed to do what
- Far more built-in functionality and extra ClickUp Integrations are free, including integrations with other Atlassian tools like Trello, Confluence, and Jira
- Live chat that keeps all discussions about your project in one place
- Get reports on all kinds of metrics, from project progress to expense and time tracking 📊
ClickUp covers many other use cases too. Use it as a CRM by your client services helpdesk, an app development tool by your IT department, or a social media management platform by your content marketing team.
In a nutshell, ClickUp is project management and workflow software made easy.
And the many project management templates and productivity templates make it even easier. Let’s take a look at some of the templates that will streamline your projects.
1. ClickUp Kanban Roadmap Template
While Trello shows you all your tasks on any given board, a ClickUp Kanban Board gives you full oversight of your entire workflow in the way you want to see it. You can see multiple project boards at once or just one, and arrange each board in many ways, for example, by priority, due date, status, or assignee.
At the task management level, the ClickUp Simple Task Management Template is comparable to a Trello project management template. It’s ideal for beginners or entrepreneurs who want to manage their daily tasks using checklists.
Where ClickUp really shines is in its ability to show you how the details connect to the big picture. Like the ClickUp Kanban Roadmap Template, which allows you to visualize your roadmap and manage it using drag-and-drop functionality to add or remove tasks. 🛣️
Custom statuses like Backlog, To Do, In Progress, Testing, and Done track the progress of each task. Choose from several views to look at your roadmap from all angles: as a Timeline or according to Priorities or Team Workload.
You can also track time, dependencies, related communication, and much more.
2. ClickUp Project Management Schedule Template
The ClickUp Project Management Schedule Template gives you a clear structure for planning your project from start to finish. Set goals with timelines, then create and assign tasks to get you to those goals. Organize tasks into to-do lists and track their progress using custom statuses.
Trello project management templates have some of this functionality, but ClickUp takes it several steps further. Time tracking and dependencies help you keep your project on track. Plus custom views, like the Gantt, Project Phase, or Risks & Issues View, give you unique insights into your project.
ClickUp also sends notifications to your team members as deadlines approach, optimizing productivity and performance. 📫
This Trello template alternative is ideal for intermediate users who have some experience working with ClickUp.
3. ClickUp Simple Kanban Template
Another intermediate template, the ClickUp Simple Kanban Template breaks your big project down into manageable chunks to track and manage through to completion. Use it to manage your workflows and finish your projects on time and in style. 😊
Tasks are divided into columns according to status—To Do, In Progress, or Done—much like in Trello’s project management templates. Workflow rules automate how tasks move from one column to the next, saving you time and effort.
One advantage of ClickUp is the customizable dashboard functionality, which allows you to choose the level at which you’d like to view reporting—for example, a high-level overview or detailed information.
The visual layout means you easily see each team member’s daily tasks and exactly where they are in the process, leveling up how you manage team resources and time more effectively.
4. ClickUp Agile Sprint Planning Template
The agile project management framework is a highly effective way to get things done fast—and while Trello templates can handle getting things done, ClickUp excels at agile methodologies. 🏆
The ClickUp Agile Sprint Planning Template is ideal for planning complex sprints with tight deadlines and dealing with any potential issues or risks well in advance. Use this template to get clear on your tasks, timelines, and dependencies, and communicate them to your team.
Manage your Resources Workload and Sprint Backlog items while keeping an eye on the time you have left to complete your sprint. When you track progress visually, it’s easy to adjust quickly if things don’t go according to plan.
5. ClickUp Project Post Mortem Template
The ClickUp Project Post Mortem Template gives you a structured format to capture everything you’ve learned from a project so you gain from both your successes and your failures.
Designed for more advanced ClickUp users, this template captures what worked and what didn’t in your project plan and gives you insight into trends or patterns. From there, it’s easy to identify areas for improvement and any underlying problems, so your next plan is smarter and more efficient.
While there’s a similar Trello project management template, the ClickUp’s post mortem template allows you to track the progress of issues with custom statuses, like New Entry, Investigation, Unresolved, and Resolved.
Also, view your project information in a choice of formats, such as by Status or Pending Tasks, and capture what you’ve learned on the built-in Insight Input Form. 📝
6. ClickUp 30-60-90 Day Plan Template
The ClickUp 30-60-90 Day Plan Template guides you to set goals, identify your milestones, and put action steps in place to reach them. Although this template is designed to support new hires to quickly find their feet in their new role, it works for anyone as a project management template for the next three months. 🗓️
With a clear vision of what needs to be done in that timeframe, break that down into weekly planning and daily to-dos so you stay organized and on track.
Going beyond what the similar Trello template offers, the ClickUp version features custom statuses like To Do, In Progress, Waiting on Client, or Complete to track exactly where each task is in the process. You’ll also be able to see your tasks as a calendar, track time and dependencies, or chat with colleagues directly on the ClickUp platform.
7. ClickUp Business Plan Template
The ClickUp Business Plan Template is a must for entrepreneurs and small business owners. It walks you through getting clear on every aspect of your business strategy, starting with your mission, vision, and team.
You’ll also do a thorough market analysis to identify your competitive advantages and plan your sales, marketing, and operational strategies. Milestones and metrics measure your project resources and progress to help you identify risks early on, so you can plan for them. 🚩
This template has several advantages over the equivalent Trello project management template, such as Gantt chart capabilities for you to plan out your action steps and give them due dates. Custom statuses and fields, like To Do, In Progress, Reference, Approved, Needs Revision, or Complete, tell you exactly what’s happening with each step.
Once your project plan is organized, view everything from the perspective of your business plan, or choose to see it according to topics, timelines, or status.
8. ClickUp Decision and Change Log Template
In today’s world, things change rapidly—and if you want to keep up, your business needs to evolve too. The ClickUp Decision and Change Log Template is an intermediate-level template designed to capture your decisions, along with any backup data that supports those decisions. This improves transparency and accountability and ensures all stakeholders are informed every step of the way. 💪
As a step up from a Trello template, you can turn those decisions into trackable tasks with a timeline, document their impact and the final decision that’s made, and assign them to team members. Custom Fields clarify what category of decision it is—for example, a Process, Budget, or Manpower decision—and Custom Statuses tell you whether a decision is To Review, In Review, Approved, Declined, or Abandoned.
9. ClickUp High Level Project Plan Template
Successful project planning is complex but the ClickUp High Level Project Plan Template simplifies the process and gets you going quickly. It also clarifies your goals, identifies stakeholders, and sets expectations for all your team members, so everyone’s on the same page and can focus on the tasks at hand. 🎯
Start with a high-level overview of all the phases of your project. Then set up tasks with due dates and assign them to team members. Track those tasks every step of the way with Custom Fields, like Copy Stage or Design Stage, plus Custom Statuses like To Do, In Progress, and Deployed.
As always, ClickUp has several advantages over Trello project management templates, not least the multiple view options you have available, including a Deliverables List, Timeline, Graphic Designer Board, and Copywriter Board.
10. ClickUp Eisenhower Matrix Template
When you have a lot on your plate, it’s not easy to decide what to focus on. The ClickUp Eisenhower Matrix Template solves that problem, reducing your stress levels and improving productivity. 📈
Use the built-in Whiteboard to brainstorm and capture all your tasks and assign them to categories by urgency and importance, so you always know exactly what your highest priorities are. Then create tasks with due dates that align with those priorities, so you get the most important work done first. View your matrix at a high level to get an immediate visual overview or drill down into any quadrant to see the details.
While the Trello template only shows your priorities in swimlanes, in ClickUp you can see them in swimlanes, sorted by statuses like To Do or Done, as a task list, agenda, or a Whiteboard matrix.
Summarize this article for me pleaseMaster Your Projects with ClickUp Project Management Templates
Trello is a well-known and reputable project management tool and Trello templates can give you a good head start on your project, but they’re not the only option—or even the best one.
ClickUp is a fully-fledged project management and productivity platform that offers everything Trello does and so much more. With templates that cover every aspect of project management, plus Custom Fields and Statuses to help you track categories and progress, you’ll always be on top of what’s happening. Add to that a choice of multiple views of your project plan and ClickUp is hard to beat. 🥇
Sign up for free with ClickUp today, and take your project management—and your business success—to the next level. 🙌
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