Digital tools for workflow and project management
UBC Library
Research Commons
A multidisciplinary hub supporting research endeavours, partnerships, and education.
More from the Research Commons at (UBC-V)
And from the Center for Scholarly Communication (UBC-O)
Modern projects have many different kinds of files, tools, and objects
Common organizing principles
Elements of a workflow
- Communication
- Task tracking
- File tracking (location and version)
- Project overviews
- Project wrap-ups (exporting, transferring ownership)
However you work unfolds chances are you have deadlines, tasks, and outputs.
No tool will do the hard work of deciding how your project should play out.
Questions to consider
- What are your needs?
- Cost - does the free version meet your needs?
- Integrations with other tools
- What happens when the tool is no longer available?
- Are you collaborators all at UBC / in Canada?
- Is the tool hosted in Canada?
Best practices in organising your work
- Plan how you will use a tool before adopting it
- Consider mind-maps or concept-maps
- Read terms of service, particularly around data ownership and export options
- If working on a team, establish who is repsonsible for maintaining the tool
- Develop a consistent and useful file naming system
- Use flexible and relevant file formats
- Use tags but keep them simple
- Set meaningful tasks
- Use templates when available