Asana! Show Appreciation to the Asana Community!

I’ve been an Asana devotee for awhile. I’ve on-boarded our entire company, many of whom are now Premium members. I’ve on-boarded multiple other non-profits I work with. And I come to the Asana Community periodically to stay engaged.

I don’t agree with all of the Product Feedback that I see, and some things I see suggested I actually disagree with. I also understand that as developers, Asana needs to have their own vision and to a certain degree stick to that even when others (even customers) don’t see it.

HOWEVER, in my opinion, Asana does a very poor job at valuing this Community. There are changes made that were presumably tested, but have some blatant oversights that could have been avoided with some input/testing from this group. Then when this Community, which are probably the most passionate customers and are also probably some of the biggest Asana fans… when people here speak out I have yet to witness Asana revert back on something. Typically there’s also little feedback on things.

This may seem like a gross generalization, and I don’t want it to seem like I’m saying 100% of the time this occurs. Alexis and Marie, specifically, have been great engaging with this Community. But I’ve seen enough examples of feedback seeming to fall on deaf ears that I wanted to say something. Though this could also fall on deaf ears.

I hesitated to post this because I still consider myself a big fan of Asana, and an advocate for the product. But I can see that feeling slowly fizzling for me, and it looks like many others in this Community are the same. And it’s, dare I say, tragic… because this group would be such an asset to an organization.

Lastly, I really am not saying any of this because of my experience with an issue. Truthfully, I haven’t really been up-in-arms about most UI changes and other directions Asana has taken. But I see things from others and can sympathize with the frustration of other users who feel strongly about it.

Does anyone else share this general sentiment?

(If interested in what, specifically I’m talking about, there are many. Two that come to mind from the past year: moving the Project field under the Description, also moving the Inbox/MyTasks to the left side menu. There was fervent, and in my opinion very valid, concern with this change and it felt like a big “ok, whatever” from Asana)

Hi @Joel_Charles and thanks for your honesty here, I really do appreciate it; like I have said before, we welcome all feedback (positive and negative) and see them as an opportunity to learn and improve. We’re very lucky to count such passionate people like you among our users and Community Forum Members, and we want to make sure to give everyone an opportunity to voice their point of view in the Community Forum.

As you might be aware, we’re planning to restructure the Community Forum and one of my goals is to take this opportunity to better gather and organize feedback in the Community Forum in order to efficiently report this to our Product Teams. By the way, if you have idea you’d like to share in this regard, please do share them. We want our Community Forum Members to have an input in the restructure and would love to hear about your ideas.

Like in most companies, a lot is happening behind the scene, and I’d like to take the opportunity to share some insights with you to give you a little more context on how we manage, analyse and use customer feedback. Here is an example - Ahead of each of Roadmap week, every customer-facing team (including the Community Forum Team) takes some time to gather and analyse feedback, and set a list of the top 10 feedback/feature requests they have received over the last few months. The idea is to make sure that the voice of our customers is represented during our Roadmap week. This is one example where the Community Forum voice is represented, but there are many other way we use your feedback.

I’m aware some recent updates have generated a lot of feedback on the Community Forum and I can ensure you that we are closely monitoring them. The decision we’re making are based on multiple criteria, including customer feedback, business needs and resource management (to name a few); it’s a fine balance, but our customer voice certainly plays an essential part in this process.

Again, thank you so much for your openness and your honesty Joel, and if there is anything I can help with, anything you want to share I’m only a DM away!

Have a great weekend!

2 Likes

Thanks for taking the time and providing a thoughtful response. My post Title probably gave the impression I was upset, but it was more meant to be attention getting.

I totally understand where you’re coming from, truly. In our company (of around 400) I’m involved in almost all of the “changes” that take place, and it’s always a challenge. And then the communication related to that change just adds another layer of complication and challenge. I also don’t doubt that you all take feedback into consideration before roadmapping. When your team develops changes, even if they’re based on feedback - is there a process for running the proposed solution past Asana users, to see if there are flaws in it? I’m assuming there’s some sort of beta-testing framework in place. But most of the issues I’m referencing seem like the Asana team made changes with the best of intentions, and probably based on general feedback. But in the course of improving things there are 1 or 2 small things that have very negative unintended consequences, that the developers maybe never considered. But then it’s released, Community users point out the issues that are being caused… and it’s like “well, we think this will be better for all.”

And again - I’m a total Asana fan. I feel like an Asana evangelist at times because I’ll bring it up with so many people.

That’s really why I wanted to message you all: because the only time I don’t feel like I’m on-board is when I come across these various topics from the Community. I rarely feel passionate about the specific issue - but I start to get frustrated for the dozens and dozens of people who are obviously engaged with Asana (to be a part of this forum), and are voicing legitimate concerns that do not seem to be weighed too heavily.

Anyways - I’m still an Asana-ite! I appreciate your response and I know your team is passionate about doing great work and striving everyday to make the best product they can. Keep it up!

5 Likes

I just added a request:

which might offer one concrete approach to get at a piece of issue raised here.

I like to think that, even for the occasional design decision I’m not so happy about, there’s a reason for it that maybe can’t easily be disclosed, perhaps to align a behavior with an upcoming feature or direction as was shown in the Asana Vision video a few months ago.

Thanks,

Larry

3 Likes

@Joel_Charles, I appreciate that you did take the time and leap to post this topic. I thought your feedback was considered and professional.

And I agreed with a lot of what you said. I’ve been having some of the same thoughts and concerns myself. I agree that some of the recent changes could have been better handled. I also think they can be too quiet.

But I will also say in Asana’s favor. They let people talk. This topic for one. I’ve also seen conversations about Asana competitors.

And to give Asana it’s due credit, one of the issues you brought up, moving the Inbox and My Tasks links. Asana did add new Tab-I and Tab-Z shortcuts shortly after the changes were made and user’s complained in the community.

@Marie, I’m interested in the Community Forum restructure. Is there a topic discussing that?

3 Likes

Hi @Vince_Mustachio! Yes, have a look at Help us with the restructure of the Asana Community Forum: answer this survey! :slight_smile:

1 Like

Thanks @Marie - survey is completed :+1:
And @Vince_Mustachio - I totally agree with you. Asana does most things really top-notch, including letting this community speak candidly. It is refreshing. I’m guessing you and I are aligned in that overall the good far outweighs the bad with Asana the product and the team. That’s why I posted - because it’s one of the few areas I feel they’re a little weaker in.
(Not to get too granular, but the example you referenced isn’t totally resolved for a lot of the commenters I saw. Many users keep the side-bar collapsed, so what they lost is sight of the Inbox, which had the little dot notification that told you there were new Inbox items. So the shortcuts do allow you to jump back and forth which is good for one issue, but it doesn’t address the lost visibility on having New Inbox messages to check.)

1 Like