With the recent introduction of weighted goals in Asana, we can now specify the significance or impact of the items which automatically contribute to a goal’s progress. These items could be Subgoals, Projects, or Tasks that automatically roll up to the overall progress of the (parent) Goal.
The significance or impact is measured by ‘weight’ so we can set different weights to each item based on how important they are. For example, you can set one subgoal with twice the importance as the others by assigning it a weight of 50%. The two remaining subgoals each receive a weight of 25%.
Setting the Progress Source
Let’s look at an example with three projects where we are automatically measuring their progress to roll up to our parent goal. Note, for all the below examples, the goal progress settings source is set to Projects using the automatic method. However, you can do the same for Subgoals or Tasks but not using the Manual method.
As we can see below, today, the overall progress is 30%. This is the combined average of the 3 projects, A, B & C which are each at 40%, 30% and 20% respectively.
However, we note that Project C is Off track (red progress bar) and is lagging behind with 20% compared to the rest. Meanwhile Project A is On track (green progress bar) at 40% and Project B is At Risk (yellow progress bar) at 30%.
Setting Weights
To set weights to your Subgoals, Projects or Tasks, we need to start by clicking on the Weights: Equal button which will take us to the Weights pop-up window, below.
By default, the weights are all equal. In our case, each of our 3 project is set to 33.3%, with the Weights total below adding up to 100%.
By clicking on the Equal weights dropdown button, we can change the setting to Custom weights which will unlock the values so that we can add our own percentages, always making sure the total weight obviously adds up to 100%.
Let’s explore two scenarios below, by applying different weights to our 3 projects.
Scenario 1: Project A is 3x more important than projects B & C.
We set Project A to 60% whilst B & C are set to 20% which is a third of the weight of A.
As we go back to our Goal progress, we note is has increased from 30% to 34%.
As Project A progresses to 70%, we see our overall goal progress jump to 52%.
Even if Project B & C lag behind, they do not have 3x less significant (negative) impact.
Scenario 2: Project C is 2x more important than projects A & B.
We set Project A & B to 25% whilst C is set to 50%, which is twice the weight of A & B.
As we go back to our Goal progress, we note is has decreased from 30% to 28%.
However, in the case that Project A progresses to 70%, we see in this scenario that the overall progress of our goal is only at 35% because Project A is 2x less significant than Project C.
Tips and notes
Access to the feature
Weights are exclusively available to the (new) current Asana plans; Advanced, Enterprise and Enterprise+. If you click into the Weights popup window and the Equal weights button is greyed out (as per below), it means that you are on a legacy Business or legacy Enterprise plans. In that case, contact Asana Sales to change your plan over to a current plan.
If you don’t see the Weights: Custom button at all, then it could be that you are not fulfilling the conditions below:
Conditions necessary for using weighted goals
Weights can be applied to automatically-updated goals in the following circumstances:
- When Progress source is set to Subgoals, and Measurement is set to % Percent.
- When Progress source is set to Projects, and Measurement is set to Tasks are completed or Milestones are completed.
- When Progress source is set to Tasks.
Progress source
The option to define weights is contingent on the progress source selected for your goal. Weighted goals are compatible with goals that use automatic progress rollups, as this feature relies on the dynamic calculation of progress based on the completion of connected items.
Manual update method
The weighted goals functionality does not work for goals that are updated manually. The feature is designed to automate progress calculation based on the predefined weights of connected items, which is incompatible with manual progress updates.
How are you going to use weighted goals with your team? Let us know!
See all of my top tips & tricks on my website.
