Planning Your First Project in Project Manager

Project Manager gives an existing project a shape the board can hold: overall goals become epics, each slice of work becomes a task under it, and milestones define the targets. When you're done, the first slice is assigned, estimated, and sitting in To-Do.

Open Project Manager

Open Project Manager from the sidebar. Flow Board, Epics, Ledger, or Timeline are the primary sections. You pick the project from the selector top-right. Only one project is visible on the board at one time, but Lanes will let you compare others (more on that in Lanes). The 4 main views pivot across your project; switching tabs changes how you look at the work, not the work itself.

If the project has never been set up for Project Manager, the page shows Create Project Manager for that project. Clicking Create Project Manager creates the first Doing stage so the board can hold work.

Name each deliverable as an epic

Epics are containers for larger groups of work, ideally focused on one main deliverable. Switch to Epics and click + Epic. The Create Epic dialog asks for a Title — name the thing you'll hand over, such as the portal, the import, or the first invoice run, rather than a folder or a week. A Description and a Lead help the next person, and Priority is optional. Click Create. Different kinds of work belong in their own epics — the four types are covered on Work, Overhead and Flow. The new epic starts in Backlog.

You can read more about Epics in Getting the Most Out of Epics.

Put tasks under it

From the epic, click + Task. The Create Task dialog opens with the epic already selected. Fill in the Title, a Description if the next person needs it, and the Category (required); assign someone or leave it Unassigned, set Est. Hours, and a Priority if it matters. While the epic is still in Backlog, Todo is not offered until the epic is activated. Click Save.

Add the tasks that make the deliverable real, each one something one person can finish. When loose tasks already exist, Add Existing on the epic opens Add Task to Epic — tick the ones that belong, then Add.

Everything under the epic sits in Backlog until you activate it. When the slice is ready to work, click Activate in the epic header. The confirmation says it pushes every child task from backlog to todo — click Activate and the tasks land in To-Do. Tasks you add to an active epic go straight to Todo; the dialog no longer offers Backlog.

If one task has to wait on another, set Dependency on the task's right-hand rail — the field list is on Dependencies.

The epic header shows Items and Scope (the sum of those estimates), and the table under it lists those tasks — the same work Ledger shows for the project.

Stages, if you need them

The first slice doesn't need extra stages — Backlog, To-Do, Doing, and Done are already there. Stages sit inside Backlog and Doing only; they're not a second set of columns for To-Do or Done. A "stage" (also referred to as "swim lanes" in some PM methodologies) can be used as flow gates or control points where managers or specialists like User Experience or Testers go in and evaluate the fitness of the task that landed. A "Deploy" stage might be useful for identifying which pieces of work are ready for production/delivery.

When you do want them, create them under Settings → Stages with a Stage Name and a Type (Backlog or Doing), then open the project under Settings → Projects and add them under Kanban Stages. On Flow Board, spreading Backlog or Doing shows those names as columns. If Stages is not listed under Settings, it is off under Organization Settings → Project Manager (Enable Stages).

The first slice on the board

Switch to Flow Board. The columns are Backlog, To-Do, Doing, and Done, and the new tasks sit in To-Do — each card carrying the epic ref, task ref, title, category, and hours against the estimate.

Cards don't move by dragging. Open a card: under Task Actions, Move to To-Do and Move to Backlog swap a task between backlog and todo. A task reaches doing only when time is recorded against it — it can't be placed there — and Mark as Done appears once it's in doing with that time on the record.

When a task was really the deliverable

If the whole deliverable was typed in as one task, open it and use Promote to Epic under Task Actions. The action is available when the task is in backlog, has no time, and isn't already on an epic; the title and description carry over. Then add the real tasks under the new epic.

How mis-planning reads on the screens

A single task per epic: Tasks on the Epics list stays at 1, the epic's Items is 1 with Scope as that one estimate, and Hours stays empty until it jumps to the whole number when that task logs time.

One epic for everything: Items climbs, the ledger under the epic becomes a mixed pile of deliverable work and everything else, and Hours on the Epics list colors as the pile overruns Estimated.

An epic titled for the week or the phase: the Title on Epics and on the epic itself never names what shipped, and cards on Flow Board carry that epic ref in front of every task — the phase is visible, the deliverable isn't.

With the first slice in To-Do under an epic named for the thing you'll hand over, planning is done. Every field on a task is on Tasks, every field on an epic is on Epics, and the daily moves on the board are covered in Managing Your Flow Board.