We kept running into all sorts of problems with this and I had chalked it up to a bug, but finally looked into it and surprised to see itâs functioning as intended. From my understanding of this, it seems to come down to a philosophical difference of approach, in a manner of speaking.
Iâm seeing that Asana as a product seems to value keeping tasks actionable and is built around the entire premise of trying to move work forward through the completion of tasks. While I generally agree with sentiment, I think in practice through my experience using Asana, adherence to this approach can create really rigid use cases without much room for some degree of flexibility.
As a Creative Agency, we too value keeping tasks actionable and manageable. Itâs a great philosophy and in practice leads to more work getting done. However, we also have a smaller team and have to rely on our teamâs ability to move work forward with less discreet tasks. In our experience, itâs an entire job for someone to be assigning tasks in the fashion of: Step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, etc. Itâs a lot to manage.
So when we saw the Approval feature we were really excited! It seemed like a great way to balance our desire to create actionable tasks and work in a well organized system, while not having to micro-manage tasks down to the last detail. Weâve set up some smaller work where the task is really a deliverable. We set the deliverable as the approval item. Then the Designer posts their design, sets a status that itâs ready for review and a Reviewer leaves feedback and then marks âChanges requestedâ. However, Asana marking this done makes no sense in this workflow. The deliverable is not done. More work is needed to move it achieve that and that feedback has been left.
While I appreciate the suggested workaround to use subtasks as approval tasks, thatâs more steps to do and more to manage. Now instead of one task that we can move towards completion through the handy Approval system and our thoughtful feedback, we have to distill things into tasks: Do this, do that, do this, do that. And on top of that, each time we create one, we have to click several times to turn it into an Approval task. All of this adds up time wise and in some instances devolves into busy work or feeling like we have to âmanageâ Asana. Asana is supposed to help ease OUR work, not create more work for us.
I understand not wanting to dilute your products focus and I really respect/appreciate that Asana has a clear focus, vs so many of the jack of all trades master of none tools (i.e. Monday.com). I know that making everyone happy erodes product focus over time. That said, I think there is something here to consider.
We love Asana and will likely continue to use it, but sometimes it feels like decisions are made on some overly narrow use case of: tasks, tasks, TASKS, TASKS, MORE TASKS!! And sometimes it a bit much. Tasks have their place. They are critical. But too many tasks starts to contribute to loss of focus when whatâs really needed are tools and systems that reduce busy work and allow teams who trust each other to know how to proceed without everything being distilled down to binary tasks. I believe Asana is really, really close to providing that environment through clever systems, but this is a good example where I think you may not be seeing the whole picture.
Well intended additions to the product that ultimately donât streamline work, they create more work.
