How can you use Trello to inspire innovation in your team?

1 Create a board for brainstorming

One of the first steps to inspire innovation is to generate as many ideas as possible. You can use Trello to create a board for brainstorming, where you and your team can add cards with your thoughts, questions, and suggestions. You can also use labels, attachments, comments, and checklists to enrich your cards with more details and feedback. A brainstorming board can help you capture and organize your team's input, as well as identify potential opportunities and challenges.

2 Use power-ups to enhance your board

Trello's power-ups are additional features that you can enable on your board to add more functionality and integration. You can use power-ups to enhance your brainstorming board and inspire innovation in different ways. For example, you can use the Voting power-up to let your team vote on their favorite ideas, the Custom Fields power-up to add more information and criteria to your cards, or the Google Drive power-up to link your cards to relevant documents and files. You can also explore other power-ups that suit your team's needs and preferences, such as Slack, Calendar, or Automation.

3 Apply the SCAMPER technique to your ideas

SCAMPER is a creative technique that helps you generate new ideas by modifying existing ones. SCAMPER stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. You can apply the SCAMPER technique to your brainstorming board by creating lists for each of these categories and moving your cards to the appropriate list. For example, you can substitute an element of your idea with something else, combine two or more ideas into one, adapt your idea to a different context or problem, modify your idea to make it better or different, put your idea to another use or purpose, eliminate something from your idea that is not necessary or useful, or reverse your idea to change its perspective or direction. By using the SCAMPER technique, you can challenge your team to think outside the box and explore new possibilities.

4 Invite feedback and collaboration from others

Another way to inspire innovation in your team is to invite feedback and collaboration from others. You can use Trello's sharing and permission settings to make your board public or private, and invite other users to view or edit your board. You can also use Trello's @mentions and notifications to communicate with your team and other stakeholders, and ask for their opinions, suggestions, and questions. By inviting feedback and collaboration from others, you can expose your team to different perspectives and insights, and improve your ideas based on constructive criticism and support.

5 Experiment and test your ideas

The final step to inspire innovation in your team is to experiment and test your ideas. You can use Trello to create a board for experimentation, where you and your team can design and conduct experiments to validate or invalidate your ideas. You can also use Trello's features to track your progress, results, and learnings. For example, you can use the List Limits power-up to limit the number of cards in each list, and create lists for your hypotheses, experiments, outcomes, and next steps. You can also use the Butler power-up to automate your workflows and actions, such as moving cards, adding labels, or sending reminders. By experimenting and testing your ideas, you can learn from your failures and successes, and iterate on your solutions.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?