ASSIGN TASKS WITH BEST PRACTICES: As we navigate using Asana throughout our organization, you’ve probably experienced that tasks are the building blocks of Asana and drive the work that we want to complete. This is why it’s ❗important❗ that we create and assign tasks with some best practices in mind: 🏃 Action Verbs, 🩳 Short Descriptions, 💬 Communicate when Assigning.
- BEGIN all tasks and subtasks with an action verb.
- EXAMPLES: review, write, edit, provide, read, create, design, research, approve, send, update
PURPOSE:
- Gives the reader (including yourself) a clear sense of what is expected to be done.
- Provides context and clarifying meaning to tasks and subtasks.
- FOR EXAMPLE: If I wrote a task that simply read “Chapter 2”, what would that really mean? As written, it’s really not clear at all if the person assigned is supposed to outline Chapter 2, write Chapter 2, read Chapter 2, edit Chapter 2, translate Chapter 2, design icons for Chapter 2, and so on. So, instead, if I wrote, “Develop an outline for Chapter 2,” this description would probably give the reader a much better idea of what needs to be done.
- FOR EXAMPLE: If I wrote “Develop an outline for Chapter 2 that covers the main points we need to discuss at the meeting next month and contains an initial list of references we might need.” Whew! That’s a lot of text, right?
- INSTEAD: Keep the task name fairly short remembering the action verb!
- FOR EXAMPLE: Develop an outline for Chapter 2.
- IN THE TASK DESCRIPTION: Provide more detail such as:
- An explanation of any acronyms.
- Steps for the task needing completion.
- Links to a related document if needed.
- Add a brief comment in a task:
- Use @mention so that it is clear who you are addressing. (Many tasks have additional collaborators who also read the comments.)
- Helps an employee that may not be very familiar with your request.
- FOR EXAMPLE: “Hi______. Can you please develop the outline for Chapter 2 to present at our meeting next month using the template linked in the task? If you have any questions, please comment here (or on Slack if that’s the team’s established protocol).”
