Best way to assign a set of tasks involving multiple people

English Forum Tips and Tricks
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There’s been an ongoing discussion on here for years around the problem of how best to assign a task requiring collaboration from multiple people. There’s a good reason that Asana does not allow multiple people to be assigned to a single task: it’s fundamental to the kind of workflow Asana supports that one task describes one work item which is assigned to one person. I don’t think it would be a good idea to change that.

But there’s also good reason that it keeps coming up. In our organization, to give one use case, we update our homepage weekly. I have to describe what should be changed, and someone else has to implement it. There’s no easy, simple solution to this very basic workflow right now.

So, what are the best solutions given this inherent conflict? Here are the ones I have found:

  1. Recurring task with subtask: In this case the parent task is dated and the subtask is not. The person with the parent task populates the comments on the subtask with instructions and assigns a date. Once the subtask is completed the parent task is completed as well.
  • Pros: Task is recreated automatically, saving time
  • Cons: if the subtask is still dated, it will be recreated with the same date, which is incorrect (the parent task will recreate with a later date as specified). Task/subtask recurrence seems inherently problematic.
  1. Task templates: Create a task template including task and subtask(s), and create another recurring task to initiate the template.
  • Pros: When at task is created from a template, the dates are all set relative to today.
  • Cons: More labor intensive: you have to create a task to initiate the template, then go find it an initiate it.
  1. Two recurring task with search: Create a recurring task called “Update Homepage” and assign appropriately. Then create a search for incomplete tasks called “update homepage” assigned to [assignee} and link this search page in a separate recurring task called “Plan Homepage update” (set a couple days before the first task). Then you can easily find the “Update homepage” task and add instructions. This one is my preferred workaround.
  • Pros: Yields two separate tasks assigned to two separate people on the correct day
  • Cons: You have to click twice: once on the search results link and once on the task itself.

Any other tips for this situation? What else is out there?

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Paging @Bastien_Siebman and @lpb !

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@TrevorWiser,

Off the top of my head, I think I’d make a weekly recurring task assigned to you for the day each week you like to start working on planning the changes titled “Specify/Update Home Page” with your colleague as Collaborator.

Specify the changes in the Description or Subtask(s). Dialog in Comments if helpful along the way.

Assign and update due date for the Task to your colleague when your spec is complete. Probably add a comment to that effect for clarity.

I think toggling the assignee is simplest in these cases, but only you will know the full context and workstyle to know if this will be an improvement over your past approaches or a step backward. It’s at least the simplest and least effort and all info for each week is found in a single task for posterity.

Thanks,

Larry

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This is the approach I would take, too. View the “update homepage” task as one Asana task, that has different owners at different stages of its lifespan. Use the messages to track what was done already.

I also update the task name to reflect statuses that Asana does not have, instead of using tags, because then I can immediately see where it’s at: “Update homepage: PLAN” → “Update homepage: IMPLEMENT” or something.

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