The philosophy of the Asana system. 4 principles of work in the system
Surely many have heard about the Asana project management system. Dustin Moskowitz, formerly known as co-founder of Facebook, has attracted multi-million investments for his project.
At the beginning of 2013, when we as a whole agency once again frantically tried to escape from the cumbersome “Bitrix 24” and “Megaplan”. I tested Asana and said: “Well, what have investors found in this project? There is nothing here! ”However, over time, I realized that, like any legendary system, Asana has its own philosophy, its own DAO, without knowing which casket will not open.
Today I will talk about the four basic principles of work in Asana, which will make you look at this tool in a new way and make it the secret weapon of your effective work.
When working in "Bitrix 24" and "Megaplan" I always thought that I was terribly ineffective. There were a lot of global tasks and projects, but no one knew what the subtasks, the micro-case and the business was divided into a project. That is, I do something all day, but I cannot close the task globally.
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The fact is that the time allotted for work is limited, and consists of intervals of concentration of attention in different areas of action. Each zone of action is part of the most likely and beneficial, according to the team, the path to achieving the goal. Sometimes concentration on the action area can lead to the achievement of several goals, sometimes it does not lead to the achievement of the goal at all and is false. Anyway, the whole day consists of small zones of concentration. If we cannot fix these zones in writing, then it seems that we are marking time and doing nothing.
In "Megaplan" and others like him there is no functional that allows you to flexibly set several dozens of small tasks per day. “Asana” is based on the principle that any task is a multitude of attention zones and action zones. The system provides functionality for passing problems and regrouping them into larger projects.
Asana - check-list of cases of different people gathered in one team to solve a certain range of problems. Initially it is assumed that people gathered in this team are sanity and able to organize their time. That is, Asana is not a task setting system with requests to change the deadline from the producer, a rigid system for checking the quality of execution, etc. Because in the design work there is simply no time to check every piece of the task and micro tasks. A project assumes a sequence of accomplishment of interrelated tasks, and if time is spent on verification of implementation, then the sequence should either pause or ignore such verification. It is assumed that the quality of the completion of the task is ensured by the rules from above, and not by “wiping out the pop” of employees by the manager from below, when he checks the quality of the work done for each microtask and says “ay-ay-ay” or “ok”.
Asana has many tools for evaluating the performance of employees, what is called "From the Hill". You can see the number of closed tasks, the time worked for a particular task. Of course, many will say that in the same “Megaplan” there is a similar functionality, but:
a) write back the time spent in the comments, after the work is done - this is trash;
b) it is very difficult to explain to a manager, without crushing into 1000 small subtasks, why you wrote off 40 hours per week for the task of “Conducting an Advertising Campaign”.
Therefore, there may be sado-maso who paint their day in “Megaplan” or “Bitrix 24”, but my natural laziness made me look for other systems.
In heavy domestic CRM, most often there are two levels of nesting of activity zones - tasks and tasks. Such an approach makes it possible to treat the tasks of the first level more vaguely from the point of view of planning, for where should we put all the uncertainty in our life? And to set microtasks and subtasks is not profitable in terms of time resources: all the gains from planning will eat up time for setting tasks. The tasks remain the “project” part of the area of ​​attention, that is, the lack of clarity of activity gaps, a vague start of work, blurred milestones, etc.
However, there are cases in Megaplan, and they would fully be able to meet the need for splitting tasks if, in practice, any business could not turn into a task, that is, to break up into new small areas of activity. And if we place the newly arriving, “dependent” cases on the same level, that is, in the parent task, we will get a loss of connectivity and consistency. So, in “Megaplan” the structure of tasks and subtasks does not allow planning daily attention gaps, and affairs do not have hierarchical coherence.
Let's return to "Asana". Here the number of levels of dependence is limited only by common sense. In my opinion, this can not be more than 3-4 levels, otherwise the most top tasks are most likely projects. Such a structure allows hierarchically splitting tasks into small areas of activity, and moreover, giving pieces of this activity to other team members.
Do you have tasks with the mental label “It is necessary to do it, but it seems not urgent”? I have dozens of them. Such small reminders that you plan a lot, but do not have time. In the "hard" planning systems, and any domestic system according to my criteria is rigid, you do not have the opportunity to see the task, but not to notice. A pseudo-controller will definitely come running and ask: “Ay-yay, is that how, Viktor? Why is the task unclosed? ”
In “Asana” there is a day planning tool, it is available on the My Tasks page. Its main principle is the division of all assigned tasks into three groups. It was this principle that changed my approach to planning day and week. It is very accurate, in my opinion, reflects the limitations of our attention and time resources. In Asana, all tasks can be divided into “Today's”, “Deferred”, “Continuing” and “New”. It looks like this:
Tasks that you do not plan to perform in the near future, but you do not want to close them either, you can reset them to “Deferred” and recall them only when you want it. All the tasks you plan to close today are sent to the "Today" block. Thus, the eternal heap of unclosed affairs is not dragged behind you. You form a natural “trash bin” where you send unimportant things.
When you consider the Asana system as a glider of cases, be sure to refresh these basic four principles. Without them, Asana will seem too simple, chaotic, and uncontrolled. But believe me, this is gold, also with 12 free licenses.
Have a nice work.
At the beginning of 2013, when we as a whole agency once again frantically tried to escape from the cumbersome “Bitrix 24” and “Megaplan”. I tested Asana and said: “Well, what have investors found in this project? There is nothing here! ”However, over time, I realized that, like any legendary system, Asana has its own philosophy, its own DAO, without knowing which casket will not open.
Today I will talk about the four basic principles of work in Asana, which will make you look at this tool in a new way and make it the secret weapon of your effective work.
1. The principle of recording the concentration zone
When working in "Bitrix 24" and "Megaplan" I always thought that I was terribly ineffective. There were a lot of global tasks and projects, but no one knew what the subtasks, the micro-case and the business was divided into a project. That is, I do something all day, but I cannot close the task globally.
')
The fact is that the time allotted for work is limited, and consists of intervals of concentration of attention in different areas of action. Each zone of action is part of the most likely and beneficial, according to the team, the path to achieving the goal. Sometimes concentration on the action area can lead to the achievement of several goals, sometimes it does not lead to the achievement of the goal at all and is false. Anyway, the whole day consists of small zones of concentration. If we cannot fix these zones in writing, then it seems that we are marking time and doing nothing.
In "Megaplan" and others like him there is no functional that allows you to flexibly set several dozens of small tasks per day. “Asana” is based on the principle that any task is a multitude of attention zones and action zones. The system provides functionality for passing problems and regrouping them into larger projects.
2. The principle of evaluating the effectiveness of "from the hill"
Asana - check-list of cases of different people gathered in one team to solve a certain range of problems. Initially it is assumed that people gathered in this team are sanity and able to organize their time. That is, Asana is not a task setting system with requests to change the deadline from the producer, a rigid system for checking the quality of execution, etc. Because in the design work there is simply no time to check every piece of the task and micro tasks. A project assumes a sequence of accomplishment of interrelated tasks, and if time is spent on verification of implementation, then the sequence should either pause or ignore such verification. It is assumed that the quality of the completion of the task is ensured by the rules from above, and not by “wiping out the pop” of employees by the manager from below, when he checks the quality of the work done for each microtask and says “ay-ay-ay” or “ok”.
Asana has many tools for evaluating the performance of employees, what is called "From the Hill". You can see the number of closed tasks, the time worked for a particular task. Of course, many will say that in the same “Megaplan” there is a similar functionality, but:
a) write back the time spent in the comments, after the work is done - this is trash;
b) it is very difficult to explain to a manager, without crushing into 1000 small subtasks, why you wrote off 40 hours per week for the task of “Conducting an Advertising Campaign”.
Therefore, there may be sado-maso who paint their day in “Megaplan” or “Bitrix 24”, but my natural laziness made me look for other systems.
3. The principle of structuring employment
In heavy domestic CRM, most often there are two levels of nesting of activity zones - tasks and tasks. Such an approach makes it possible to treat the tasks of the first level more vaguely from the point of view of planning, for where should we put all the uncertainty in our life? And to set microtasks and subtasks is not profitable in terms of time resources: all the gains from planning will eat up time for setting tasks. The tasks remain the “project” part of the area of ​​attention, that is, the lack of clarity of activity gaps, a vague start of work, blurred milestones, etc.
However, there are cases in Megaplan, and they would fully be able to meet the need for splitting tasks if, in practice, any business could not turn into a task, that is, to break up into new small areas of activity. And if we place the newly arriving, “dependent” cases on the same level, that is, in the parent task, we will get a loss of connectivity and consistency. So, in “Megaplan” the structure of tasks and subtasks does not allow planning daily attention gaps, and affairs do not have hierarchical coherence.
Let's return to "Asana". Here the number of levels of dependence is limited only by common sense. In my opinion, this can not be more than 3-4 levels, otherwise the most top tasks are most likely projects. Such a structure allows hierarchically splitting tasks into small areas of activity, and moreover, giving pieces of this activity to other team members.
4. The principle of blindness
Do you have tasks with the mental label “It is necessary to do it, but it seems not urgent”? I have dozens of them. Such small reminders that you plan a lot, but do not have time. In the "hard" planning systems, and any domestic system according to my criteria is rigid, you do not have the opportunity to see the task, but not to notice. A pseudo-controller will definitely come running and ask: “Ay-yay, is that how, Viktor? Why is the task unclosed? ”
In “Asana” there is a day planning tool, it is available on the My Tasks page. Its main principle is the division of all assigned tasks into three groups. It was this principle that changed my approach to planning day and week. It is very accurate, in my opinion, reflects the limitations of our attention and time resources. In Asana, all tasks can be divided into “Today's”, “Deferred”, “Continuing” and “New”. It looks like this:
Tasks that you do not plan to perform in the near future, but you do not want to close them either, you can reset them to “Deferred” and recall them only when you want it. All the tasks you plan to close today are sent to the "Today" block. Thus, the eternal heap of unclosed affairs is not dragged behind you. You form a natural “trash bin” where you send unimportant things.
When you consider the Asana system as a glider of cases, be sure to refresh these basic four principles. Without them, Asana will seem too simple, chaotic, and uncontrolled. But believe me, this is gold, also with 12 free licenses.
Have a nice work.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/286224/
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