Evolution of Trello with Gaurav Kataria at Atlassian Team ’24

This is Textron tv. Hi, I'm, its Ashley here at Atlassian TV 24, talking about one of my most favorite topics around Trello. An a Trello user for, I dunno, close to a decade, maybe even a little bit longer.

So it's great to be talking with you. Is it head of product for Trello? Is that That's right.

Yep. I'm head of product for Trello. My name, pronounce Your name.

Gura. Goov. Thank You very much.

Very happy to be here. Thanks for having me here, Mitch. It's Great.

So I don't know if we have enough time to talk about all this stuff I'd love to talk about. Yeah. Um, how, how long have you been working with Trello or Been helping?

Uh, I've been on Trello for over three years. Okay. Yeah.

So for fourth year running? Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. Uh, Trello has been around for almost 13 years. It's an amazing product, uh, has been around a long time.

Uh, we have had like over a hundred million people create a Trello account. Uh, it's kind of one of the most downloaded apps on app store, play store, so, uh, very ubiquitous used around the world in 20 languages. Yeah.

The nice thing is it's so easy, it's so approachable to get into. It's got kind of a low friction to start just doing a to-do list for my own workflow or my small team or scaling it up. Yep, Yep.

Absolutely. And I, I, I think, uh, we all are used to a lot of pieces of software today. I mean, we live in SaaS, world software as a service.

Uh, in a typical company, people may be using 50, a hundred different software applications, but typically when we are describing a typical company, people using a hundred applications, you're thinking about a worker. Those, like a typical knowledge worker sitting at a desk sometimes with like two monitors and managing technic. It has to be the technical, like a tech worker or, or even, uh, like a very professional knowledge worker sitting at a desk with multiple screens and, uh, juggling between different apps.

But we have, uh, users that are out there in the field, like, uh, people use Trello, uh, when they're on the go, like roofers standing on a roof and construction workers, they're using Trello on their phone to manage their workflow. So it's not only a tool for knowledge workers, it's a tool for all workers in all kinds of workflows. Uh, I mean, I know, Mitch, you mentioned that you, uh, your kind of, uh, company uses Trello and you are all on the field and interviewing people on the go.

Maybe you can tell us like how you use St. Trello in your organization. Great.

Great question. Yeah. Um, well, everything, right?

Everything we do in, in, uh, Textron runs on Trello Mm-Hmm. In terms of workflow. Yeah.

Um, used in a lot of different ways, but one of the primary ways is whenever a sales order comes in, Atlassian would like us to come and do this project with them, or be on our webinar or produce a spec, a special event for them, whatever it is. Um, usually when you engage with the customer, there's multiple things we're doing. So that all breaks out into, um, cards that go onto different functional boards, team boards, and that could be anybody from the person who's planning and orchestrating a virtual event to a content piece that research might need to run, or a webinar that we're producing or an interview someone signs up to, and to do an interview on Tech Strunk tv.

And then we all have our workflows inside of our board. Some of them common, some of them unique to that kind of work custom piece of content. So it doesn't happen until it's in Trello in many cases for us, That, That, but you don't get there overnight too.

You really kind of start with this is the, we're having trouble orchestrating this so many times and it's swed, but it's just too complex to replete it. Yeah. Reliably.

And so let's figure out a way to automate it. Yeah. Oh, one of the things I want to ask you about is my introduction with to Trello is because it was follows Kanban, right?

Yeah. It's a visual workflow. That's right.

Matter of fact, that's why I introduced it to, uh, the Techron. com is one of our biggest sites. Yep.

It's like, well, we're gonna talk about visual workflow, let's do with visual workflow. So worked with Trello Mm-Hmm. Is that still true?

Is that one of the, you know, one of the appealing factors of why Yeah. You wanna use Trello? Absolutely.

Absolutely. And, uh, I mean, I could say like, we are all, each one of us is different in terms of our work style and preferences. And, and some people are very kind of, let's say linear, methodical, like they like a very structured workflow.

Uh, and then some people are kind of more kind of right brain creative or, or they're more special in, in terms of thinking about their work. Like, in their mind they're like, okay, there's something I need to do and that's top left on my Trello board and something that I'm trying to get to by the end of this week. And that's top left on my board.

So they have that spatial organization and spatial memory. Uh, and, and Trello is that tool. And, and it's like that, whether you use it on, uh, computer or on your phone or you project it on a tv, it always has that visual spatial element to it.

And it's tactile. Like when you move a Trello card, uh, from one list to another list, you get that sense of spatial orientation. So, uh, that has been true for Trello for 13 years.

Uh, and, and we have continued to maintain that. Uh, it's, it's very responsive works, uh, on any device, uh, real time. And when people are collaborating, they're seeing the same thing.

Like you could have, uh, as you mentioned, a news organization where someone is on the ground in Europe and there's an editor in New York, and you are here doing a piece in Las Vegas, what happens? Yeah. And everyone is seeing the same Trello board in real time and, and getting that real time update.

So it it, it's a very, very efficient, uh, product, very spatial and, and visual. Now, since we are talking about visual, let me talk about something new in Trello. Okay.

Wonderful. And you'd say like, what could you do new in Trello? How could it get any better?

How could you make it better? Uh, well, I mean, people love Trello because it's visual and it's colorful. So when we talk about color, it's like the Trello boards are colorful because you can upload your own image and colors and, and the whole, uh, kind of canvas is very beautiful and colorful.

Well, Trello cards, uh, are also colorful because you can create card cover images, you can upload gifs and have motion and, and it's all beautiful. Well, the one thing which wasn't colorful in Trello, we just added color to that. And that's the Trello list or the columns.

So now the board, the card and the columns on the Kanban board are all colorful. And I mean, you would have guessed like Trello has been around for over a decade. Like, we have made it as colorful as we can, but no, there was still one more place.

And that was the columns and the list, uh, that we have added color to recently. And, uh, our users love that. Like, that's what they have been asking for from us, that, uh, the reason they come to Trello.

I mean, there are many to-do list type, uh, applications in the world. Uh, there's no dearth of them, but the reason, uh, everybody comes through Trello is because it's so easy to use. It's visual, spatial, tactile, and we are making it more visual, more colorful.

Uh, so that's, that's been our journey. And, uh, we like it that our users love it, and they tell each other about it. And, and it's been a wonderful journey for Trello.

Interesting. You, you would think, oh, adding color. Yeah.

No big deal. Right? Just add color.

Why, why is that an important thing? And and what I would share is even like, gamification of our work, right? Right.

So the, uh, the confetti, the confetti visual animation, when you move something into the done column Yep. I've had more than one person say, oh, that's so cool that I just feel so good about my own. Yeah.

Yep. And, you know, it's, it's enjoying, yeah. It's not making the next tool, the next drudgery.

It's making this tool not only helpful, but also it's fun to work with. Absolutely. It's much rather than staring at a Yeah.

White column list spreadsheet. Yep. That's, you know, 80 columns wide or Yep, yep.

8,000 columns wide, some of it. Yeah. Um, but having an environment where you enjoy working.

That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Absolutely. So our journey has been pretty much continue to keep Trello very accessible, user friendly, and we never want to compromise that, uh, because that's what makes Trello so special and more visual and more colorful. Um, the other thing which we can talk about is we are in the world of kind of generative AI and kind of making Trello.

I Had the timer going, how long before we talk about generative ai? Exactly. Now you Made it under the wire, you're Good.

Yeah. Now is the time. So, uh, something that we recently launched in Trello is, uh, generative ai where, uh, if you have a Trello card and you're typing something as a description, the generative AI can assist you with kind of, uh, uh, adding more description to the card or adding more details to the card.

Now, that's a use case that almost every application in the world has tried to kind of mimic in a way that, well, if you have to write some text, then can we, can we use generative AI to automatically write that text? Uh, one area where we, we feel like we can push the frontier in Trello, because Trello is very visual, is, uh, not only create like a description in a card, but really understand what is the user trying to accomplish. So sometimes you get an email and it has a bunch of things for you to do, like, uh, a long email, lots of action items.

And oftentimes what we'll do is we'll mark that email, snooze it, or send it to a Trello board, and we are like, okay, I'll come back to it later and, and read it again, and then figure out all the things I need to do. But generative AI can parse that email for all the action items, all the key things that can be done. So that's one area we are working on where like if you get an email, you get a Slack message, Microsoft Teams message, like, can Trello automatically passe that and create your workflow in Trello so you can have cards or checklists within the card based on what's the set of things that you need to do?

Mm-Hmm. So we, we are, we wanna make sure that generative AI is really helping people manage their workflow in a very, very efficient manner. And, uh, I mean, Trello is where people manage their work.

So If you want, I can send you a long list of Zaps, Zapier automations, so you can say, Hey, we can do that. Absolutely. Absolutely.

I mean, we have had Trello users, uh, who have used Zapier, uh, for over a decade and created like, very interesting workflows in terms of connecting their calendar with Trello, Calen, uh, connecting their email and Slack and Microsoft team with Trello and, and any, uh, other kind of, uh, application, like if you're a sales person using Salesforce, if you are an HR person using Workday. So all kinds of integrations can be built. Uh, but with generative ai, now we can do it in a more seamless manner, and we can extract meaning out of a large body of text.

So it's one thing to say like, let's create a Trello card. When you get an email, it's another thing to read that email. Understand that there are 10 subtasks that you need to do that's included in that email, and create a Trello checklist with those 10 subtasks.

So that's where generative AI is actually pushing the frontier of not only automating things by connecting different software tools, but finding meaning in, in every, uh, action item and then breaking it into Subparts. So it's an exciting era. And, uh, we are, I Have a feature request Go ahead.

Yeah. When I'm using Team or Slack or Zoom. Yep.

You know, now you can get recording software that will tell you here's the notes from the meeting, and that's usually it's a set of action items. That's right. Guess what?

We'd love to have that Absolutely. Print those cards for us, make That happen. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we, we get a lot of our action items from these meetings, so certainly, uh, and I mean, Atlassian has, uh, the Loom product that we have acquired, uh, last year.

And, uh, loom Tell folks what Loom is. Yeah. Yeah.

So Loom is an async video communication tool. So oftentimes, uh, and I know you'll be, uh, talking to the Loom team, uh, as well. So, And we use Loom also.

Oh, excellent. Excellent. So Loom is an async video communication tool where, uh, oftentimes people are sending emails or Slack messages, but it's very hard to explain what exactly you, uh, you want to communicate only in text format.

So Loom is the video format in which you, you are almost sending a video postcard, uh, to your colleagues, coworkers, your customers partners, to explain your concepts, ideas in a more visual way. So if you have a bug in your product and you want to show what it looks like, you send a Loom video with that. If you want to feature you, show what you're looking for and expecting and send that, uh, to, uh, your teams and explain that to them.

And, and Loom is a, is a new way of working. Uh, so we'll be working on more integrations between Loom and other Atlassian products. And, uh, I like your feature requests that if you get, uh, some action items coming out of a video, then uh, we can transcribe it, we can extract meaning out of it and, and then create Trello cards and the checklist in Trello cards based on of that, I Have a long list of to-dos that I can send you.

Perfect, Perfect. Test data. Yeah.

Um, you know, it's interesting, we use Loom for, um, like when we're rolling something new out, hey, sales team, here's a new thing. Here's how you do it in HubSpot or, you know, CRM or whatever it might be. It's a great visual way of just three minute sort of, you know, yeah.

YouTube ish kind of video, but built right into your workflow. Absolutely. Which is really great.

Yeah. Well, let's, so, you know, Trello was acquired what, about seven years ago? That's right.

Right? Yep. And of course, when things get acquired, you wonder, is it gonna become Atlassian eyes and what's it gonna, is it gonna be able to recognize it in two years, or is it gonna kinda hold true to what made the product so great that they acquired it?

Yeah. And, and certainly Atlassian is kinda let Trello be Trello If Right, right. Yep.

Use Yep. But there's also so much more we could probably do if there's some connected more connective tissue between Trello and Jira or Con whatever the other Absolutely. So that is a big windup to say, I think you've got some announcements, right?

Yeah. So, uh, like one thing which which you highlighted is that, uh, Trello has been part of Atlassian for seven years, and it has, uh, kind of kept its Trello eness, or its uniqueness in a way, because Atlassian values that aspect of Trello. Uh, a lot of times acquisitions are not successful, products fizzle out, but this has been a successful acquisition for Atlassian.

As I mentioned, uh, we have had over a hundred million users that have created a Trello account. So, uh, Trello has its own unique place in that sense that people use Trello, uh, in a complimentary way to other Atlassian products. Now, one thing which we have been, uh, kind of focusing on is, uh, we want to, uh, help companies standardize on a single, uh, way of working.

And we want to describe that as an Atlassian system of work. So there's kind of some basic, uh, platform level capabilities that every company needs. Like they need to be able to create user accounts, secure them, analytics, reporting, uh, so that's an Atlassian level kind of, uh, platform level capability.

Then every user in a company, every employee in a company needs to have, uh, a project management tool, knowledge management, I talked about video communication, so loom type capabilities. Uh, and then there are specialized capabilities, like if you are in customer service, IT service, you have a service solution. If you're in software development, you have, uh, software development capabilities.

So we are trying to explain this way of working as the Atlassian system of work. And Trello kind of nicely fits into the Atlassian system of work where we want Jira to be the project management tool for the entire company. And we want Trello to be more around individual productivity, personal productivity.

So like every user has, uh, lots of work to do and many, many different tools. Uh, so it's not only about project management because you get emails and slacks and calendar notifications, and you have things in Jira and Salesforce and so on. So Trello can be more of your kind of personal assistant to plan and, uh, plan your work and plan your day.

Uh, and Jira can be the project management solution, uh, for your team. So, uh, as we have announced at this conference, uh, we are made a lot of investment in improving Jira and making it accessible to not just tech, uh, workers and developers, but also, uh, all the creative, uh, people and non-technical people in a company. So we want, uh, JIRA to be that single platform where tech and non-tech teams, so basically the entire company can collaborate together on projects.

Uh, and then we have Jira aligned, which can connect the projects to the company level strategy. Mm-Hmm. So we are trying to standardize on Jira project management and then Jira for, uh, connecting projects to the company level strategy.

And Trello is more for, uh, helping each individual be more productive. Okay. Yeah.

So it sounds like Trello, DNA is kind of transferred into Jira, if you will, in some ways. Absolutely. It's, it's been kind of nice, uh, kind of, uh, uh, helping each product get the best of it and learn from each other.

So, uh, Trello has learned a lot, and Jira has learned a lot. Uh, JIRA has gotten, uh, a lot more visual, uh, as Trello teams and Jira teams have worked together. So if you have used Jira work management, uh, which is now, uh, part of, uh, the Jira experience, and in that we have board backgrounds, uh, we are working on, uh, card cover images, so we, we wanna make sure that project management, uh, uh, brings the best of the visual aspect of Trello.

So Jira has gotten a lot more visual, uh, a lot more accessible. Uh, it's much more mobile friendly. Uh, so, uh, that's been a, a great journey for Atlassian to continue to evolve Jira and make it, uh, useful for all employees in a company and continuing to evolve Trello, uh, for where Trello is uniquely different and complementary to Jira.

Okay. Good. Yeah.

Well, how do you, how do you see this, um, kind of the progression path for maybe some customers are only using Trello, not using Jira yet. Sure. What's that look like?

Do they, are some things going away in Trello that now will be, so you need to be in Jira to do that, or kinda do it in either environment? How does, how do you think that works? Sure.

Uh, so, uh, JIRA is actually used in, in most companies around the world now, there are a few use cases where you could say that, uh, companies were only using Trello, uh, from, uh, freelancers, solo entrepreneurs, small businesses, uh, where, uh, uh, they were not using Jira because, uh, traditionally, like they didn't, did not have, uh, a tech type of workflow. So those use cases are relatively simple. Uh, I mean, either it's like one person or a team of two or three people, and they're just collaborating.

And Trello is, uh, very user friendly for those type of use cases, and that'll remain. So we will continue to, uh, uh, refine Trello and make Trello useful and accessible, uh, for those use cases. Uh, for typically, uh, a bigger team, a more structured team, uh, Trello is not the tool for project management.

And now we know a lot of companies use Trello, uh, try to use Trello for a big project. Uh, but we believe Jira is a better solution for managing and coordinating a big project. And that's why we are helping our customers move to Jira for managing big, large scale projects.

And, and in most cases, they're already using Jira because Jira has been pretty much, uh, present in all organizations, uh, around the world. Uh, JIRA has been around for almost 20 years that It has. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It's kind of tough to do a critical path analysis on Trello. Yep.

Which, you know, is that the right tool to be doing that and that In, right. Yep. Yep.

Yeah, no, I, I mean, we believe it's a very complimentary use case where, uh, every person has a project management need, but every person also needs to, uh, plan their own work, organize their own work, and Trello is a way to plan your own work. Uh, and Jira is a way to manage projects and coordinate, uh, dependencies with other teams. Okay.

Yeah. Good. Yeah.

Is, is, is Trello changing a lot, or is it more Jira changing to be able to take on work in some of the ways that Trello Works? Right, right. No, I, I mean, we could start by saying that the world is changing a lot.

Of course. Yeah. And absolutely.

That's why I'm curious. Hopefully things are always changing, evolving. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And as the world is changing and evolving, uh, we as software people, uh, that are building this software, we have to keep on evolving the software too. So some aspects of Jira, which make Jira so unique, will continue to be there.

Like people, like some sort of, uh, format structure. They wanna standardize workflows in a company, they wanna automate workflows, uh, and Jira is really, really good at that. So we want to preserve that and build other things on top of it.

Uh, on the other hand, Trello was very easy to use. It was very visual, very spatial. We want to preserve that.

So there are aspects of Trello, which we will preserve, but we will also continue to add more things to it. I mean, we just talked about generative ai. So if you're getting an email and you want to track your action items through that, like that's a very typical Trello use case where you want some sort of, uh, extracting meaning out of your email, extracting meaning out of your, uh, slack message or calendar appointment, or your Salesforce action items, or as you mentioned, a, a Zoom meeting action items.

And those things can easily go on, on your Trello board or on your Trello to-do items. Very good. Yeah.

Great. Any other announcements that we're touching on today? Or, or that's enough?

That's a lot happening. Well, we've, we've covered a lot. Yeah.

I was gonna say, and I'll just kind of close off by saying that, uh, Trello was the most visual and colorful tool, and we have added even more color to Trello, more color. So, uh, yeah, there are beautiful card, uh, covers. There are board backgrounds and board colors, and now we have, uh, list colors.

So you can design your own magical workflow in the visual, colorful way that Trello has been. And it's, it's even more colorful and you can use it on your phone, Android, iOS, you can use it on, on web. And then some of our customers just project Trello boards on a big screen, uh, on, on a wall.

Oh, that too. We did that in one of our test labs. Yep.

For that Same kind of thing. Yep. So, AV, it's been, uh, fantastic talking with you.

Congratulations on the announcements and the continued evolution of Trello and your Great, Thank you. Appreciate You stopping by. Thank you.

Thank you for having us. All right. You haven't checked out Trello.

Yeah. Be sure and, uh, do that, of course. Along with Jira.

So we will be back with another great interview in just a moment. Absolutely. Thank you.