How do you handle dependencies between cards with Trello?

Question

I was wondering how people handle dependencies between cards in Trello.

If one of the cards needs to be Done before work can begin on another one, what do you do? These cards are big features, each having a checklist and different people working on them.

Answer 1

Trello does not have an official way to handle dependencies. The best thing to do is to have a "Waiting" list where you keep all the cards that are waiting on some other piece of work. If this becomes unmanageable, it's probably a sign that the board needs to be split up.

Answer 2

I've been wrestling with this too. The best solution I've found at this point is a checklist item to post a note on the dependent card. Manual process but it doesn't take that long and usually there is some communications that would help "passing the torch".

I've found by doing it this way it provides a prompt of what to do and and an automatic notification to the person assigned to the dependent card. No need to try and "train" anyone.

Answer 3

Trello doesn't (currently) have a way to link items directly to each other.

The approach that works for me is to use a "waiting" -label on items that are stuck. This way they can maintain the context that their lists provide. And since items can have multiple labels it doesn't conflict with any existing labels either.

Of course, if your lists don't contain any context worth maintaining, a separate list for waiting items works well too.

For updating the state of the dependent card, I suggest Bob Snodgrass's answer of adding a checklist item for each prerequisite card, that says "Add note on dependent card X when complete". Or if you need further organization, you could even create a "Dependencies" -checklist on the dependent card with items for each prerequisite card. Then people completing the prerequisite card can just go mark their card as done.

The best feature of Trello is how it keeps all the features simple - so that's probably why there's no dependency, since it would make things more complicate. That said, I think a feature to link items (if kept simple and clear) would be a wonderful addition, as it is a basic element of keeping work organized.