Multi-Media Company. I'm drowning in "Asana Maintenance" Best practices in my industry?

I’m the project manager at a small production company that has now branched out to a monthly subscription box and a monthly magazine. We also produce live events. I’m looking for:

  1. Template/best working method to manage a monthly print magazine with 3 writers, a layout editor, 2 illustrators, & art director all working remotely
  2. How to get your team to take personal responsibility for maintaining their own projects, and taking the time to flush out their tasks. I end up going into projects and doing all the linking up across tasks, maintaining custom fields, expanding on shorthand notes like “start kickstarter” “do budget” and things like that.

Feel free to move this article if it belongs somewhere else!

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We like the Kanban methodology for content projects and related tasks. With the addition of Boards to Asana you can choose a visual Board layout or List style with sections to keep things orderly.

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It’s nice to meet you, @Audrey_Mehring - thanks for reaching out! I’m the Community Manager at Asana.

Many of our creative clients use Asana for content calendars. I suggest that you visit this thread about content calendars in Asana and also search “template” in the search bar here in the Community. There are a few examples of templates and summary projects here that I think will help you feel more organized with Asana. You might also enjoy this video about how Autodesk uses Asana for editorial calendars.

Regarding personal responsibility, this is a very good question. The Asana Guide has helpful recommendations for getting your team started with Asana. Walking through the recommended flow can be very helpful. I also recommend actively establishing Asana conventions on your team.

Please let us know if any of these steps are helpful.

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Audrey, in my experience, one of the most common mistakes I see users make when they get set up on Asana is neglecting the MyTasks page. Making sure your staff are well training on best practices (let me know if you need help) and know how to use this page is the best way to help them take responsibility of their tasks and projects.

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Hi Paul! Thanks, I appreciate your offer. We have gone over the “my tasks” area a couple times, but people are still keeping their old to-do list… and see integrating as a “hassle” and a “waste of time…” I’m sort of walking the line between letting them do their thing and trying to enforce a few key policies. What would you recommend as the definite “must-dos” and “must-don’ts” (?) of the My Tasks section?

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Having a project for personal to-do’s isn’t really ideal. The best place to use is the MyTasks.

With the MyTasks, it’s best to organise tasks into the three sections (Today, Upcoming and Later). Tasks will then automatically flow through these sections based on the due dates. It also means you can open Asana in the morning and have a clear list of what to do that day.

In term’s of “don’ts” - DON’T leave tasks in the New section. This should be a temporary holding place to keep new tasks before you’ve looked at them. They should then be sorted into Today (if due today), Upcoming (if due within 7 days) and Later (if due more than a week away).

You can also create sub-sections like “High-Priority” by adding a colon to a task name and you can organise tasks even more. But this is a bit more advanced…

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@Audrey_Mehring, in my experience letting your team “do their own thing” outside of Asana is the fastest way to make the whole thing implode. Asana is interesting in that as it becomes the single source of truth in your company and everyone trusts it and uses it, its value increases exponentially.

But inversely, if people start feeling like Asana doesn’t contain everyone’s most up-to-date information, then people just circumvent it. “I’ll just email him or call him since he doesn’t really use Asana anyways.” Everything starts to fall apart.

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We switched from Google Docs for tracking everything about 6 months ago and it’s been wonderful.

I moved everything into Asana myself and deleted the sheet. I told my people how to use the system and we jumped in with both feet.

Having a fall back option is, like @Todd_Cavanaugh said, a recipe for failure.

Now we all love Asana and I use “My Tasks” to direct everything I do.

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@Audrey_Mehring you’re second questions is SO high yield!!!

This case study video should give you some huge take aways into organizing your organization optimially which can generate buy in - Springest uses Asana for GTD & productivity | Product guide • Asana Product Guide

I’d also recommend we get my man @James_Carl in on this “buy in” topic because I know he’s brought it up several times and he’s got a ton of experience in systematizing these things.

P.S. I secretly hope my epic response is enough to allow @Alexis to give me post editing ability for all my typo’s that I forget about until later lol :wink:

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Hi, I have the same question about a publication editorial calendar. The “editorial calendar” template in Asana is for for promotion/advertising, and makes no sense at all for a magazine or other periodical. Is there an example of how to use Asana for a periodical publication, like a magazine (could be either print or digital)? I’ve looked at all the links you cite above, and I’ve been through complete training at my company. Haven’t found anything helpful. So far for this task, Asana is way more time-consuming than its worth. Please help.

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@paulminors glad to see you again on this Forum, you have been a great source of motivation to keep using and believing in Asana. Cheers

Thanks @anon71013317 :grinning:

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We like the Scrum methodology for content our and related tasks. Here we discribed some popular methodologies with their advantades and disadvantages Top 15 Software Development Methodologies - Velvetech

Hi @Kirstin_Pires What did you end up doing for your Editorial Calendar? I have the same question, and I don’t see where your question here got addressed?

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Hi Shonna,

My question was not addressed, that I know of. I’m still drowning in trying to figure out each staff member’s personal asana system. It’s a nightmare. I haven’t figured out a good way to do an editorial calendar. I’d love to discuss if you have ideas.

@Shonna_Lemke and @Kirstin_Pires – I realize it’s been a while since you posted this question. I’m a new Asana user hoping to set up a system for our association magazine. We have an informal editorial review process, and I’d love to find a template before I spend a lot of time trying to set up a project on my own. Thanks for help from anyone!