I did record meeting in Asana, but having this issue on how to keep the meeting note visiable for future reference.
The usual flow in Asana is: you plan some task (in this case a meeting), you finish the task and you mark it as completed. Once we mark meeting as completed (with all the meeting note) I find it difficult to find them again. Of course we could use tags or search to find them but I find it not really a natural way to do things
Could you guys share how you deal with meeting task: keep them as in-completed task or use some technique to find them easily.
I also tend to use Asana for managing “tasks” that occur in the meetings, rather than burying the content inside another document (that also makes finding tasks easier). Typically in a meeting you will end up with 3-8 “tasks” assigned to various people and they all have different committed end dates, so I just use Asana to capture those commitments.
This also reinforces to the team that they need to get their task done since they agreed and there is even an audit trail to remind them
In my company we use the symbol .
A meeting is a task, and as we want to have them visible all time (in “not completed” view), we add the symbol when the meeting is completed.
And as @Mark_Hudson explained we also have a section “Meetings” at the bottom of the tasks’ list.
Coming prepared, sticking to an agenda, and coming away from the meeting with meaningful conclusions and group consensus is vital to a valuable meeting.
But before you schedule or start to prepare for a meeting, I think it’s important to ask yourself the following questions.
Is this meeting necessary?
Can it be accomplished without a meeting? Avoid them if you can, but don’t avoid them if a meeting is the best way to move forward. Most of us dread meetings, but sometimes it’s the most efficient way to get everyone on the same page.
What are the meeting goals?
If there aren’t clear goals, the meeting will be wasting everyone’s time.
Who should be invited?
Avoid MAS in the first place. Only invite those that can contribute to the meeting. Also, more people is likely to lead to less focus.
What time, duration, and place best fit the meeting?
Now that you know the what and who, consider what time and environment will be the most productive.
We have a 1-page document that most managers here have been given to pin-up at their desk, called the “Should We Have a Meeting?” checklist. The idea is to start at the first one and if you get stopped at a box, then no meeting.
Should We Have a Meeting?
The topic is important If NOT – don’t meet and approach this topic another way (or not at all).
Meeting is the best and most practical way to solve this issue If NOT – use other collaboration options like a survey, group discussion online, etc.
Everyone invited is an essential participant If NOT – limit the meeting participants to essential parties only.
The group has authority to act If NOT – is there still significant value in meeting?
The key decision makers are able to attend If NOT – wait until key decision makers can join.
Pre-work has been requested of the key participants If NOT – add pre-work to get as much done before the meeting as possible and cut down on the meeting time required.
An agenda with clear goals has been set and distributed If NOT – create an agenda with defined/clear outcomes and send them out in advance.
Enough time has been allotted to get the desired outcome If NOT – alter the goals of the meeting to accomplish them in the time frame, or reschedule and allot the proper amount of time.
There is a strong meeting facilitator If NOT – find a capable “driver” who will drive the meeting towards its goals without running over participants.
I always put meetings into 1 of 2 buckets: the “recurring” meeting and the “ad hoc” meeting.
Ad hoc meetings are those random meetings that are probably just going to be a 1 time thing, maybe with a follow-up or two… but they will not be on-going. For those meetings an Agenda with Objectives should definitely be set, but typically I don’t use Asana to manage these agendas. We have a template/form for such meetings and I usually just fill it out and email it out. There are some exceptions… but typically I handle ad hoc meetings outside Asana because it helps keep Asana a little cleaner for our organization.
For Recurring Meetings, on the other hand, I strongly encourage everyone to manage them in Asana. I have some weekly, some monthly, some quarterly… but most all of them are managed in Asana. I’ve seen a lot of methodology on how to best do this, and I have a method that works for me (after a bit of trial and error). My standard is to create a Project and name it for the meeting (Weekly Meeting, for example) and then create sections for each upcoming meeting (Titled “mm/dd/yyyy Agenda”). As the Facilitator I always plan a few meetings out and have sections for those meetings already created. Then the last section I create is Parking Lot.
Then you just populate each section with Tasks for Agenda Items. One nice thing about this is that during the meeting we’ll have Asana up and check items off as we cover them, so you actually see the Agenda shrink. Another nice thing about this method is that when topics do not get covered (which often happens), you already have the next meeting being formulated, so you can easily drag the topic to the next meeting’s Agenda. Or put it in the Parking Lot, which is where we put any random things that come up that we’re going to table for another time. Having the Parking Lot at the bottom is nice so that when we wrap early (on occasion) we can pick one Parking Lot item to pull out and discuss.
Here’s an example from my weekly managers’ meeting:
One meeting project for recurring topics with sections makes sense. I sometimes struggle with adoption amongst team members when creating yet another project for meeting agendas. Sometimes its just easier for me to run the meeting from a projection of the project plan in Asana itself, while maintaining a task with meeting notes.
We are also using a task for each new meeting we have, with a meeting section inside all projects.
Before the meeting we create the task, we add all the participants as collaborators and share the agenda so that everyone can comment. Then we take notes during the meeting in the description and in parallel we create tasks for the actions decided. At the end of the meeting we can still discuss some points with comments.
And if our project is sat up with “incompleted tasks” then we add a symbol in the meetings name to avoid really validating it. This way we always have an easy access to all the meeting notes.
This has been an extremely helpful thread. I’ve been using a single project for recurring meetings but it has never been formatted in a way that felt most productive to me. Thanks, guys!
Sorry for a silly question but how do you add symbol in Asana. I found some site mention Alt+0252 but find it i) doesn’t work in Asasa; ii) too difficult to adopt across the team (people will never remember it)
Hi,
You can copy/past it from the description of the tasks.
Or you can click right with your mouse, then select Emoji.
Or you can do “Windows+point” to open the emoji panel.
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