Have you every assigned a task to someone and later on you found out that the task has been marked complete and that is it, no further details provided?
I sometimes come across tasks that are marked complete but without any further comments.
I am all for clarity in the task name and description, but I am very particular when it comes to enhanced collaboration and providing clarity to progress the project forward and that is: the art of completing a task:
Make sure a comment is added explaining the work that is done to achieve the output.
Explanation does not have to be an essay, but just like you do not send a blank email with out a subject or any body text to people, why would you do that on asana.
Ensure all custom fields in that task are appropriately assigned - remember many custom fields form part of the bigger picture reporting of the work the project team is doing
Attach document as necessary - following your own companyâs guidelines;ines on where to store documents, either attach the relevant document, or the link to it. But if your output is not something that took place in asana, then make sure the task includes it.
What do people think? any other best practices on what project members should consider when completing a task?
I think this is particularly important to future-proof your work. Iâve encountered a few situations where previous teammates (who have since left the company) had left no comment on their work - sometimes, not even a description - making it super hard to understand what they did and how they did it!
I recommend, and clients have had success, by doing the minimum required for clarity. Sometimes that might require adding a comment when marking complete, but not necessarily always.
So I donât recommend adding a comment as mandatory in all cases; only when needed. That saves time in writing the comment and generates less to review (which can be multiplied by many people if there are many collaborators).
If the task is simple, or fully specified, marking complete may be enough if thereâs nothing else to add. For example, if the task is âApprove expense reportâ and you have nothing exceptional to add, whatâs the value of a comment here?
Of course, I have seen people mark tasks complete and leave out needed information and agree they shouldnât do that. But making others add comments when not required doesnât solve that.
I do not think we are talking about 2 different things here @lpb
For terminology sake, I do not refer to approvals as tasks anymore, they are called approvals, just like milestones are milestones.
I would not seek comments on Approvals or on milestones because their set up by default is self explanatory as they are based on previous tasks.
If a task is self explanatory (for example: Buy milk) and the task is marked complete, then I would understand the milk is bought.
But I am talking about tasks such as: complete the analysis report on X cases.
When the task is marked complete, I would want the report to be attached, and I would like a bit of a blurb in the comment as well.
It sounds like you agree that self-explanatory tasks donât need a completion comment; if so, thatâs all Iâm saying.
But I have encountered others who say one must always leave a comment on completion, and thatâs what I disagree with.
My âapprovalâ example was unclear; sorry. I was just trying to give one example of a task that might be self-explanatory. If you imagine that approval task is for a customer on Basic or Premium where no Approval-type task feature exists, that would be my example.
Ah yes, I have not thought about users without approval feature. I agree with you, if the task headline is:
âPlease Approve this document or processâ, the a simple mark complete should suffice.
I think about this a lot. I named it âThoughtful Task Transfer.â
This means being intentional and thoughtful when finishing a task and handing it off to the next person on the team. We should always consider how to make it easy for the next person to pick up where we left off and continue building on the work.
We can do this by providing links. Donât make the next person hunt for the link for what youâre working on. Consider what must be done to get this over the finish line. If needed, set up a new task in Asana to help ensure that nothing is forgotten. By doing this, youâre always setting up our teammates for success.
@lpb I generally agree, but I think there is still some benefit in requiring comments for all completed tasks. Even a simple comment like âTask completed without issuesâ or âCompleted as discussedâ can provide value.
Firstly, because itâs a good prompt for the person completing the task. If you donât have to leave a comment, itâs easy to think âall goodâ. But if you have to write something, youâll often think of something that may be useful to the next person seeing the task. (e.g. âCompleted and passed on to Jason as Steve was awayâ).
Secondly, Asana is very ⊠whatâs the word⊠click-happy?.. confirmation-averse? What I mean is that itâs very easy to accidentally complete tasks, as thereâs no confirmation box and may different ways do to it (e.g. clicking the wrong spot in timeline view). So I often look a little suspiciously at tasks that have been marked complete with zero comments. More than a few times Iâve asked the person and they said âoops, sorry, that shouldnât have been marked completeâ. So a simple âCompleted as discussedâ or something can provide more confidence that a task actually has been completed.
I think the art of completing a Task starts with the art of creating a Task. If all the information are presented that are required to complete the task, it is easier for every one to get the task completed correctly.
Mostly it would avoid the questions like where to find the output, when to mark as complete or what is the next action.
