Plan a project like a pro: 6 tips with Asana
1) Are you a project manager looking to improve productivity and organisation?
▶︎ We take a look at the golden rules of project planning.
2) You've already found your project management software but want to compare it with the features of the Asana solution?
3) Are you new to Asana?
▶︎ After putting Asana through its paces, we'll be revealing 10 practical tips.
As you can see, if you answered 1), 2) or 3), this article is of interest to you.
No project management concept or best practice will hold any secrets for you!
Masterful project planning
When it comes to project management, planning is one of the key stages in the success of your projects.
Project planning involves :
- determining and prioritising the various project tasks according to the objectives defined
- estimating their workload
- determining the resources needed to carry them out.
Using the schedule, you can :
- allocate resources to tasks
- monitor the progress of the project,
- see which objectives have been achieved and which have been delayed,
- communicate internally and with your partners, customers and suppliers.
Understanding objectives and deliverables
The objectives of a project are determined by all the company managers involved in its implementation.
The general objective is the medium- or long-term goal (development of brand awareness, productivity, image, etc.).
It is made up of specific objectives (milestones) with their own purpose and deadline (signing a contract, launching a product, etc.).
Deliverables are the form in which the results are presented.
They are one of the 4 elements to be taken into account when dividing up a project with :
- tasks
- resources
- milestones.
Project breakdown and task scheduling method
To plan a project, it is advisable to structure it by breaking it down into different tasks, in a hierarchical manner, using the WBS (Work Breakdown structure) method.
In this way you define :
- the project's most important, priority deliverables,
- potentially, the breakdown of these deliverables into sub-sets,
- the tasks required to complete each deliverable and sub-deliverable,
- if necessary, the breakdown of these tasks.
One of the best-known methods for managing your projects, scheduling and planning tasks, is the PERT method (program evaluation and review technique or program evaluation research task).
The PERT diagram represents the project schedule, focusing on the interconnection of the tasks to be carried out and making it possible to determine the critical path, which determines the minimum duration of the project.
The Gantt chart is often used as a complement, as the time scale is less conventional than that of the PERT chart, since it is based on durations or a calendar rather than on the sequence of tasks. It provides a graphical representation of project progress. Asana integrates this functionality.
The tasks can then be sequenced in a schedule, either chronologically or in parallel, taking into account a safety margin.
Critical path, margins and resource allocation
The critical path is the sequence of tasks for a project throughout its lifetime:
- each task that falls behind schedule has a direct impact on the other tasks and the project end date,
- Margins are defined for each task that do not impact the duration of the project,
- once positioned on the critical path, tasks have a zero margin.
Calculation of the total margin = difference between the latest start of the next most demanding task and the earliest end of the task in question.
The limitation of the critical path is that it does not take into account the "resources" dimension, which is a source of problems.
Resources can be :
- human
- budgetary
- material
- technological.
Identifying risk factors
The Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) method is often used to complement the critical path.
Among other things, it makes it possible to :
- identify the risk factors associated with each task
- Prevent priority conflicts for different resources, between several projects and between tasks within the same project,
- Limit multitasking and time wasting,
- free the project manager from overseeing details, so that he can devote his time to the essentials of the project.
Some risk factors :
- human,
- budgetary (hidden or unforeseen costs),
- material (supply delays, failures)
- technological (changes)
- organisational (lack of communication and coordination), etc.
Monitoring the schedule and progress of tasks
Once the tasks and deadlines have been clearly defined, the resources allocated and the people responsible designated, the schedule takes shape.
For monitoring purposes, the Kanban board is one of the possible visual methods: it is a representation of the workflow (task processing process), using a system of post-it notes on a board.
Each task goes from "scheduled" to "in progress" to "completed".
Choosing the right tool
Asana is one of the most widely used work organisation, project and task management tools in cloud computing.
It's collaborative, flexible and cutting-edge, to enable lean management.
Particularly suited to simple to intermediate projects, it allows you to structure, plan and monitor a project, including all the stakeholders without losing them along the way.
No more unmanaged tasks or baffled employees: everything is filed, archived, prioritised and deadlines are clear, whatever the size of your business.
6 very practical tips on Asana
1: Automate your workflows with Zapier or Tray.io
Zapier and Tray.io are two integration and automation platforms that are compatible with almost all SaaS-based enterprise software, giving you access to all the features of the Asana API [101 to date!].
By connecting to Zapier, you can link Redmine and Asana applications.
This allows you to create a task on Asana automatically when you create your Redmine tickets and set parameters for :
- the task title,
- its description
- the project to which it should be added,
- the person responsible and the subscribers,
- the completion date, etc.
You can also link Asana to Salesforce using Tray.io and create a zap between the two applications: all the employees concerned are alerted to tasks that fall to them in terms of customer relationship management (closing a sale, etc.).
2: Synchronise Gmail or Outlook with Asana
The interoperability between these solutions means that you can choose to transform one of your incoming emails into an Asana task, directly from your inbox.
NB: the same process is possible :
- from a web page,
- when someone subscribes to your newsletter, etc.
In addition, synchronisation with Google Calendar allows you to integrate your project calendar.
So you can plan your time, make sure you don't forget anything and keep to your deadlines.
Asana even sends you reminder emails as your deadlines approach.
3: Synchronise Slack and Asana
You can :
- act directly on tasks from notifications or an Asana link (view task details, change the person responsible and/or the deadline, etc.),
- receive notifications on Slack when a change is made to the tasks assigned to you or that you are tracking,
- link a specific Asana project to a Slack channel,
- create a new task on Asana without leaving Slack by typing "/asana create",
- change a Slack message into an Asana task, etc.
4: Structure your tasks
You can :
- break them down into :
- into sub-tasks
- into recurring tasks (using duplication), etc,
- group them by section,
- add your colleagues as subscribers to some of them,
- add custom fields (e.g. priority),
- create interdependencies between your tasks.
To mark one task as dependent on another :
- click on the three dots icon in the right-hand pane,
- In the drop-down menu which appears, click on "Mark as dependent on...".
5: View your schedule in multiple ways
Examples of schedules :
- in calendar mode,
- in file mode (shared documents),
- in progress mode,
- in list mode,
- in roadmap mode,
- Kanban board mode,
from left to right: "to do list", "to do", "in progress" and "done".
6: Attach files to tasks directly from DropBox, Google Drive or OneDrive
Want to find out more about Asana?
Watch the demonstration video (in English - the publisher is American but the software is available in French) :
NB: Asana offers a free version as well as a premium version from €5.75/month/user for small businesses.
Finally, Asana offers a pleasant user and collaborator experience thanks to its ergonomic and intuitive interface and its well thought-out functionalities.
Collaboration and user connection are at the heart of using the platform.
Planning and managing projects and tasks becomes intuitive. You can concentrate on what's really important: the success of your projects.
Article translated from French