I am the community manager at Asana. Iām here and Iām listening.
Thank you for listening. I had made similar comments about 2 years and someone had said profuse thanks. Two years hence, asana still hasnāt solved the very basic project management structures from decades ago. Other tools havenāt either, which is surprising to me. I wonder if the design team in these companies (that build collaboration tools) has ever worked in a real project environment in an organization larger than 10 people
Well, one hopes asana will get there some day.
Having used a number of collaboration packages, they all certainly have shortcomings. I think the big question is which one has the ability to enhance their platform to user needs and that begins at the basic structure. I think that sometimes people get caught in the hierarchical names without thinking they are just a hierarchy to be used anyway they deem fit. Organization-Team-Project-Task-Section-Subtask have a lot of flexibiity. I am not as sure Asana is as inflexible as being portrayed. One thing I do agree upon though is that it would be good to have a cross-organizational reporting capability. I know this is possible because there use to be an Iphone app other than Asana that did that. Keep up the improvements @Alexa as I still think Asana is one of the top foundations to build on. It will be interesting when their Enterprise version comes out.
Lots of good points in this thread. One barrier Iām not sure I saw mentioned is that collaboration software is of limited value unless most (if not almost all) teammates use it. So while Asana can still be a great to-do list when used solo, itās hard to get a team humming when some people use it and some donāt. And then even when you manage to convince your whole team to try it together, anything involving someone not on your team reverts to emails and phone calls and you have to start the sales pitch over to bring another team on board. This is where I am in the process now ā my team of 8 is āall inā and loving it. Just 2,492 colleagues to go.
Not to be self-promoting, but a major reason I had the Microsoft Outlook Add-in written was to draw management into the process through Outlook. And it has contributed significantly to accomplishing this. But I realize many of you are not PC users using Microsoft Outlook.
Iām wonder if teams who start with collab apps are more likely to stick with them for longer? I imagine that itās harder to get people to switch onto something different when theyāve already got a defined process to get their work done.
Has anyone tried introducing Asana (or other software) with a very specific purpose thatās owned by yourself or someone else in your? For example, maybe use it specifically for writing meeting notes and action items that can be access by anyone who needs to review them. The idea being that people find value in Asana if they see the value in one of its core competencies.
I bet more people would engage if we had superior project overview dashboards like all the other threads were asking for #JustSaying
This was one of my tactics for some of the more āstubbornā colleagues - itās kind of hit or miss, you have to still be really on top of it and encouraging them. And not every specific purpose works for everyone, so you end up with lots of little items that you have to push with individuals. Itās doable, but a bit of a headache if you have lots of people youāre doing it with.
One of my tactics was meeting agendas - only for meetings I run or take part in - and if itās a one-off meeting (not worthy of a project) then I usually take notes (as I always did) but then Iāve started adding the attendees as collaborators. Whether this is helpful or not, I donāt know, but I think it just kind of reinforces asana.
Hey @Caisha! Been following this convo for a bit and it ended up inspiring us at Asana to publish a blog post around cross-collaboration barriers. Hope you donāt mind, but I quoted you in the article: 5 Cross-Team Collaboration Challenges and Solutions
I completely agree with your statement. We are a non-profit and just brought Asana into our agency about 6 months ago. It has been a long- and sometimes difficult climb of getting everyone on board because non-profits tend to have a different mentality and focus. Too many non-profits do not spend enough time on efficiency because they wrongly assume that the time spent will take away from the people they care for. I have spent MUCH time educating our staff on the fact that increased efficiency, in turn frees up time for serving people. The other BIG problem with non-profits is that computer skills and tech skills seem to be lacking, and there is no money invested in those vital areas. We have been lucky in that we have a couple semi tech savvy Social Workers or the transition into Asana would not have happened.
Wow, hah! Thanks Jessie, what a nice surprise. Great post, thank you for linking and letting me know! Itās such a daunting subject, glad to see more posts about it - always interesting to hear āAsanaāsā thoughts =)
Thanks Caisha, and not a problem!
From another nonprofit employee, I agree @Rita_Potter. When introducing Asana to our team, I talked about cost savings. We donāt often think of efficiency equaling cost savings, but by lowering the amount of time it takes to complete a project and increasing productivity to complete more projects, we are saving on labor costs. Therefore, more money goes straight to our mission.
And such a big yes on lack of technical skills.
I am delighted to have come across such an excellent thread.