I run large scale, product development projects, spanning many departments and engineers, and i feel that the interface of Asana is keeping me from the perfect oversigt. Task handling works fine, but i find that i choose other software for the GANTT high level planning.
I’m sorely lacking the basic functionality, in having a hierarchy of sections in my projects. In MS projects, or other classic PM software, i can divide the project into several sub sections, which then summarize the section timeline in the GANTT. I can also set a high-level dependency between the sections, since the production will always come after the design process, which comes before the ideation process. In Asana, i only have 1 level of sections, and need to use tasks, with subtasks, to get the hierarchical level i like - though, tasks don’t summarize the length of the subtasks beneath it, and subtasks/tasks have no natural relation. I end up making a dependency between the last task in the first section, and the first task in the next section, but this is a dirty workaround IMO, that doesn’t work great anyway. If i change something, or forget 1 dependency within the section, the last task will not move, hence not moving the next section etc.
I’ve spoken to Asana support, and they looked at my use case, and said that i seem to be using Asana to it’s fullest capacity. That truly disappoints me. I wonder, what do the rest of you heavy PM’s do?
Your opinion is very reasonable.
Calm down and think about it for a moment.
For projects such as large dams and airports, traditional PM tools are still more suitable. The reason is that PM tools are fundamentally systems for managing the movement of things and completing the final form.
As for Asana, its main purpose is for people to work in teams and manage the work that people do. In that case, I think the idea is that having too many layers is not good.
To draw the blueprints for an airplane you need CAD (maybe 3D).
To draw a picture of an airplane you need sketch software.
You are correct in that there is not an ability to do this natively in Asana. That being said, here is an existing feedback request that you can upvote to help raise awareness for this feature request. ~ Ability to add sub-sections
I will also submit a request for this via my inside channels to help how I can.
To further split up things you could work with custom fields (for example having a priority drop down), or working with tasks and subtasks (there you can also create subsections as a custom field and use that to label the tasks).
They also regret MSProject, but nobody else wanted to use it but everybody seems to love Asana… Asana isn’t MSProject, and I hope it never becomes as complex because the adoption would suffer.
This all begs the question: Why use Asana?
IMO, Asana, and other WMS, bridges the natural gap that can occur between:
Planning a project
Executing a project
The need for the PM to plan, and stay on top of plans exists IN THE SAME SPACE as the execution of the tasks. That’s a game changer, to me. But, it’s a VERY hard balance as a PM, to establish projects that are both pleasing to a PM, AND the people performing the tasks.
While the execution part of things is lovely, what i’m lacking is more “heavy duty” interface, as a PM. It doesn’t have to be overly complex, but it has to have basic PM stuff working. I can download Open source software today, free, that handles resources and planning better than Asana does.
I’m sad to learn, that you realize Asanas incapaballities to run projects in that scale.
I don’t think it would take that much, to make it managable.
I’ll have to revise our strategy, and whether it has Asana in it.
In my case, I use both tools at the same time. Because each tool has different capabilities and advantages.
I’ve heard that other companies, including major civil engineering contractors, use both tools at the same time. To manage construction projects (such as dam construction, which involves a large number of materials, equipment, and workers), a dedicated tool such as Primavera is absolutely necessary. They say that Asana is good for managing (and communicating with) the staff you manage.
Asana doesn’t even have the standard features that other dedicated tools have (such as fixing milestone dates).
I don’t think Asana’s project management is an exaggeration. But it might be better to understand that it can also be used for project management.