Task assigned to group and completion

Hi All,

I am currently testing Asana between a group of 3 people - I have created a task and assigned it to the team of 3. I notice however, that it then creates the task individually for each 3. i.e each 3 have to complete the task.

What I need is that - whoever, of the 3 team members completes the task, completes it as a whole.

Is that possible?

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Hello @Abdool_Jhumka, unfortunately that is not possible. As far as I understand, Asana ensures that accountability for each task is clear. Thus, only one person can be assigned for a specific task. Perhaps, what you can do is create a project and have the 3 members join that project. This way, all of them can get notified for every new task (of course the notification needs to be turned on for this to work.) It will make it clear that all tasks assigned to that project are to be done by any one of them. :slight_smile:

What do you think?

Now that I think about it, that’s precisely the purpose of the project (or at least how we use it!)

We have a project called Incidents. All incidents are put into that project, and initially it’s assigned under Backlogs section. Anyone in the project will know that there’s a new incident, and if someone is available to work on it, he or she will assign it to himself / herself and do it. The task is then marked as completed when done.

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Well put @LenSantos. Hello @Abdool_Jhumka!

As Allen mentions, accountability is a motivator here at Asana. Tasks are designed to present a clear action, due date, and responsible individual. If a task is assigned to multiple individuals, we risk the task not getting done because it is unclear who is accountable. One of our solutions to this problem is subtasks. Subtasks are a way to delegate responsibility and hold individuals responsible for their designated work.

Are you familiar with subtasks, Abdool? Subtasks are particularly helpful when you have a finite task with component parts, such as “event setup.”

@Abdool_Jhumka hat kind of task are you thinking about in particular and can you think of some ways subtasks would apply?

It would be great if - when tasks are assigned to groups - a group leader/administrator could “collapse” the cards / tasks lists to show that it’s a single task, but assigned to multiple people. Instead, we are left to wade through heavy “tasks” for larger (8 person) groups vs. seeing things at a glance. Is this possible?

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Usually, when I have a task for all members of the team, I create one task and leave it unassigned. Then I create multiple subtasks having the same name, and assign each one of them to the members.

Perhaps you can use this as well. If one of them completes the subtask, it should be clear to them that they also need to complete the main task, and delete or unassign the other subtasks (??).

I know I know… it’s a dirty work around.

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I’ll echo Allen’s suggestion. The assign copies feature makes assigning a task to multiple people very easy.

To reduce the feeling of “wading” through tasks, you can use the shortcut Tab+P to add the subtasks to a project. When you add subtasks to a project you can view them with all the other project work.

Let us know if these options help :slight_smile:

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