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Which tool are you using to manage your designtasks per project and how do you organize them?

4 years ago from , Creative Director at Qikker

Hello DN,

I'm working at a small agency (16 ppl) and am currently creating a better structure for the designprocess. I have two questions:

Which tool do you use to manage your designtasks?

I've tried a lot of different things and currently a Notion kanban board works best. Downside is that you don't get a good overview of the projects because each project has it's own board.

How do you organize the designtaks?

I do not want to be too specific with the tasks because them we are spending a lot of time organizing the tasks. Therefor we currently break them into chunks of 3 / 4 hours so that we can make a quick estimate how much days something will take.

Looking forward to reading your replies.

19 comments

  • Marc EdwardsMarc Edwards, 4 years ago

    I am absolutely loving this combination:

    • GitHub Issues for actionable items and single tasks.
    • GitHub projects boards and GitHub milestones for big picture targets.
    • Twist threads for discussion, usually prior to opening GitHub Issues for the tasks.
    9 points
    • Bart Claeys, 4 years ago

      Exactly how I work!

      1 point
    • Fabian ValkenbergFabian Valkenberg, 4 years ago

      Interesting choice. Why does work best for you? Never thought of Github as the place for design progress / tasks

      0 points
      • Marc EdwardsMarc Edwards, 4 years ago

        It’s really important to separate Git (the scary version control used by developers) from GitHub Issues (the awesome and very friendly web based service for discussions around a specific topic).

        You don’t need to use Git to use GitHub Issues or GitHub projects. I’d say GitHub Issues or GitHub projects are as easy to use as any other similar service. They’re incredibly enjoyable to use if you like Markdown, too.

        If you also use Git, the integration is amazing.

        2 points
    • Mike A.Mike A., 4 years ago

      So you have a separate repo for every project and there are related tasks (issues)? Would love to hear more detail...

      0 points
      • Marc EdwardsMarc Edwards, 4 years ago

        Yep, that’s pretty much it. One repo per project, and all related actionable items (adding features and fixing bugs) are added to GitHub Issues and assigned to a person. You don’t even need a Git client installed to use GitHub’s website.

        0 points
  • Joseph Berthelot, 4 years ago

    Airtable for literally everything. Start out by building all of your columns like a spreadsheet and switch to a Kanban view automagically if you prefer. Use formulas to calculate hours and such and use their awesome Blocks feature to create charts and basically anything else you can imagine. Plus it integrates with any app you use either natively or via Zapier.

    Airtable is by far the best app I've found in the past couple of years.

    2 points
  • LX LavalleeLX Lavallee, 4 years ago

    I couldn't live without Trello, now I know it has its downside depending on your context.

    If not, I haven't really used it, but you might want to try basecamp for small teams, I heard it works wonders!

    2 points
  • Jesse PenicoJesse Penico, 4 years ago

    I've started using Things for project management/to-dos and note-taking (and I love it) + a few internal tools that I'm required to use.

    2 points
    • Anton StenAnton Sten, 4 years ago

      +1 for Things. Especially love their Quick Entry with Autofill. Perfect for automatically adding tasks (& reminders!) for emails or Slack messages.

      0 points
  • Derek Rudd, 4 years ago

    i use monday.com. works very well for our needs and is crackhead easy to use.

    1 point
  • Thomas WilhelmThomas Wilhelm, 4 years ago

    Mainly JIRA, however I personally add Things for minor tasks where no board is available.

    0 points
  • Paul Bunyar, 4 years ago

    I work on an in-house team in financial services. Currently we use Robohead. It's pretty powerful and probably pricey. We almost selected FunctionFox, but at the time Robohead provided more flexibility in building project briefs and reports. I would take a close look at FunctionFox to see if it meets your needs.

    0 points
  • Adam Koniuszewski, 4 years ago

    I am using Todoist and it works well for me. I have projects lists and subtasks organised in groups (e.q. Backlog, Doing, Next week etc) within them.

    0 points
  • Woofy Doggy, 4 years ago

    I've searched for a good task management app for long time to ease my tasks workflow, and so far the best are ClickUp and Airtable, fully customizable, cheap, great looking UI, and as a designer I do appreciate a great looking interface. However, there's also FileMaker if you're into highly custom solutions, but at a significant price range.

    0 points
    • Fabian ValkenbergFabian Valkenberg, 4 years ago

      Nice! First time I hear of ClickUp, looks pretty neat. What is the role of Airtable in your process?

      0 points
  • Kyle Y, 4 years ago

    A fucking ancient tool called "Basecamp". it's unfortunately what we use at my company and it is so old and terrible. Trello and Jira are vastly superior.

    -1 points
    • i. Sundsethi. Sundseth, 4 years ago

      Hah. Yes, I remember Basecamp from the bad old days... I'm no fan of Jira either, but it works (and Atlassian has made some great strides with their mobile apps.) Trello is not extensible but is super simple to use and is great for breaking down a large release into manageable chunks.

      0 points