Guide for Project Managers
As a project manager, Vanillaround is your control plane. You are responsible for ensuring that specs get written, reviewed, and approved in a timely manner — and that the approval bottlenecks are visible before they become schedule problems.
Your typical workflow
Section titled “Your typical workflow”1. Set up the project
Section titled “1. Set up the project”When a new project begins, you’re typically responsible for:
- Creating the project in Vanillaround
- Inviting the delivery team as Providers
- Inviting stakeholders and the product owner as Clients
- Creating teams for recurring groups of users
- Defining an initial spec page structure with the product owner
Don’t over-invest in structure at the start — a good high-level hierarchy is enough. The delivery team will create detailed sub-pages as they write specs.
2. Coordinate the spec-writing phase
Section titled “2. Coordinate the spec-writing phase”Work with your Providers to ensure spec pages are being written at the right pace relative to the planned development start date. As a general rule, specs for the first sprint’s work should be written, reviewed, and approved before the sprint starts.
Use the changes feed to monitor activity. If a spec area is quiet, check in with the responsible Provider.
3. Track approval status
Section titled “3. Track approval status”Your primary bottleneck will be card approvals. Keep an eye on:
- Cards in Submitted state that haven’t been acted on by the Client
- Cards in Rejected state waiting for the Provider to resubmit
The board view makes this visible. Create a board with columns mapped to approval states and use it as your daily check-in view.
When approvals are stalled, it usually means one of:
- The Client hasn’t seen the notification (follow up)
- The Client has questions they haven’t formalised as a rejection (schedule a call)
- The spec isn’t clear enough for the Client to make a confident decision (ask the Provider to improve it)
4. Manage stakeholder engagement
Section titled “4. Manage stakeholder engagement”Clients often drop out of the approval loop when they get busy. Your job is to keep them engaged without flooding them. Practical approaches:
- Batch submissions: ask the Provider to submit a group of related cards at once rather than one by one
- Set a response SLA: agree with the Client that they’ll act on submissions within two business days
- Weekly spec review: schedule a short recurring session where you walk through pending approvals together
5. Monitor progress
Section titled “5. Monitor progress”Use the Progress section of the project (changes, mentions, client tasks) to maintain situational awareness without being in every conversation.
The Mentions feed shows where discussions are happening. If a page has many unresolved @mentions, it signals a spec that needs attention.
Key dashboards to keep open
Section titled “Key dashboards to keep open”| View | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Board (approval states) | How many cards are pending approval right now |
| Changes feed | Whether the team is actively producing spec content |
| Mentions feed | Where open discussions are happening |
| Project members | Who has access, who may be missing |
Managing across multiple projects
Section titled “Managing across multiple projects”If you manage several projects simultaneously, create a cross-project board that pulls cards from all active projects. This gives you one board to check rather than switching between projects.
See Board Sources for setup instructions.