Our team is currently moving to Asana. “Asana is a web and mobile “work management” platform designed to help teams organize, track, and manage their work.”
This is a big moment, as we have tried and not adopted various other similar tools including Basecamp, Trello, Google Tasks and Project Management tools within Google Workspace.
However, things are finally moving into place, and with a couple of colleagues alreday familiar with and/or inspired by the platform, we are embarking on the long road to embedding new ways of working in our virtual team.
To say that I’m excited is an understatement. (and a big thank you to Lauren Hanks for extra inspiration).
Training
One of the joys of adopting a new tool for me is the training. I love the process of learning about a new platform from the ground up, and there is plenty of support available in the form of online documentation, courses and online sessions.
I found the online training really helpful, and also completed the self-paced courses. It’s good to get the basics right and I want to get a good feel for what everyone in the team is learning.
Topics like:
- Create Projects and Tasks
- Keep work on track with clear Due Dates, Assignees, and Custom Fields
- How to manage your own to-dos with My Tasks
- How to effectively manage communication with teammates with Comments, Notifications, and Inbox
can open up great opportunities for discussing how we collaborate and work on projects as a team.
Re-imagining my to do lists
I recently blogged about winding down work for 2022 and part of the post was reflecting on and revisiting and pruning my to do lists.
Enter Asana.
I really found it helpful to have to revisit not only what’s on my to do lists but also how they are organised and what I keep where.
As part of my coaching with clients I often work through different models of prioritising work but I haven’t reviewed this for myself recently, so this is definitely going to be a priority as part of my transition.
I am considering some new lists, dedicated for things I want to do less of or stop all together as well as lists of things I want to do or need to track.
… getting everyone on board
Time to learn and embed a new platform like this is always a challenge. No matter what tool you use, it will take longer to transfer workflows and processes than just doing the established/familiar thing.
Also, it takes time for everyone to get a feel for why we are using this tool, why we are making this change, instead of continuing to use the established ways of working.
In our team we are not finding that too difficult at the moment, primarily because we are all agreed that things have to enable us to have a better overview of what we are all doing and where progress is being made.
It’s also a bonus that Asana offers lots of different ways for individuals to manage/view their own tasks in whatever way they prefer. That is popular with everyone.
Next steps
As well as my own to do lists and general projects, we are going to be moving 1-to-1 meetings into the new platform from January, which will support our use of Asana regularly. We are also moving our overall business plan, which is due to be updated in February, and again, supports regular use.