Plan a project like a pro: 6 tips with Asana

By Nathalie Pouillard

Published: November 15, 2024

1) Are you a project manager looking to improve productivity and organization?

▶︎ We take a look at the golden rules of project planning.

2) You've already found your project management software, but want to compare it with Asana's features?
3) Are you new to Asana?

▶︎ After putting Asana through its paces, we've come up with 10 practical tips.

If you answered 1), 2) or 3), this article is for you.
No project management notion or best practice will hold any secrets for you!

See all software Project Management

Masterful project planning

In project management, planning is one of the key steps to success.

Project planning involves :

determining and prioritizing the various project tasks according to defined objectives,
estimating their workload,
determining the resources needed to carry them out.

Using the schedule, you can :

allocate resources to tasks,
monitor project progress,
visualize objectives achieved or delayed,
communicate, both internally and with your partners, customers and suppliers.

Understanding objectives and deliverables

The objectives of a project are determined by all those involved in its implementation.
The general objective is the medium- or long-term goal (development of brand awareness, productivity, image, etc.).
It is made up of specific objectives (milestones) with their own purpose and deadline (signing a contract, launching a product, etc.).

Deliverables are the form in which results are presented.
They are one of the 4 elements to be taken into account when dividing a project into :

tasks,
resources
milestones.

Project breakdown and task scheduling method

To plan a project, we recommend structuring it hierarchically into different tasks, using the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) method.

In this way, you define :

the project's most important, highest-priority deliverables,
potentially, the breakdown of these deliverables into sub-sets,
the tasks required to complete each deliverable and sub-deliverable,
if necessary, the breakdown of these tasks.

One of the best-known methods for project management, scheduling and task planning is the PERT method (program evaluation and review technique or program evaluation research task).
The PERT diagram represents the project schedule, focusing on the interconnection of tasks to be carried out, and enables the critical path to be determined, which determines the minimum duration of the project.

The Gantt chart is often used as a complement, as its time scale is less conventional than that of the PERT chart, since it is based on durations or a calendar rather than on the sequence of tasks. It can be used to graphically represent project progress. Asana integrates this functionality.

Tasks can then be sequenced in a schedule, either chronologically or in parallel, taking into account a safety margin.

Critical path, margins and resource allocation

The critical path is the sequence of tasks for a project over its entire life cycle:

each task that falls behind schedule has a direct impact on the other tasks and the project end date,
margins are defined for each task, which have no impact on the project duration,
once positioned on the critical path, tasks have a zero margin.

Calculation of total margin = difference between the latest start of the next most demanding task and the earliest end of the task in question.

The limitation of the critical path is that it doesn't take into account the "resources" dimension, which is a source of problems.

Resources can be :

human
budgetary
material,
technological.

Identifying risk factors

The Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) method is often used to complement the critical path.

Among other things, it enables us to :

identify the risk factors associated with each task,
prevent priority conflicts for different resources, between several projects and between tasks within the same project,
limit multitasking and time wasting,
free the project manager from overseeing details, so that he can devote his time to the essentials of the project.

Some risk factors :

human,
budgetary (hidden or unforeseen costs),
material (supply delays, failures),
technological (changes),
organizational (lack of communication and coordination), etc.

Monitoring schedule and task progress

Once the tasks and deadlines have been clearly defined, the resources allocated and the people responsible designated, the schedule takes shape.
One visual method of tracking progress is the Kanban board: a representation of the workflow (task processing process), using a system of post-it notes on a board.
Each task goes from "scheduled" to "in progress" to "completed".

Choosing the right tool

Asana is one of the most widely used work organization, project and task management tools in the cloud.
It's collaborative, flexible and sharp, to enable lean management.
Particularly suited to simple to intermediate projects, it enables you to structure, plan and monitor a project, including all stakeholders without losing them along the way.
No more unresponsible tasks or baffled employees: items are filed, archived, prioritized and deadlines are clear, whatever the size of your company.

6 handy tips for Asana

1: Automate your workflows with Zapier or Tray.io

Zapier and Tray.io are two integration and automation platforms compatible with almost all SaaS-based enterprise software, putting all the features of the Asana API [101 to date!] at your fingertips.

By connecting to Zapier, you can link Redmine and Asana applications.
This allows you to create a task on Asana automatically when you create your Redmine tickets, and set :

the task title,
description
the project to which it is to be added,
responsible person and subscribers,
completion date, etc.

You can also link Asana to Salesforce using Tray.io and create a zap between the two applications: all relevant employees are alerted to tasks they are responsible for in terms of customer relationship management (closing a sale, etc.).

No. 2: Synchronize Gmail or Outlook with Asana

The interoperability between these solutions means you can choose to turn any of your incoming emails into an Asana task, right from your inbox.

NB: the same procedure is possible :

from a web page,
when someone subscribes to your newsletter, etc.

In addition, synchronization with Google Calendar enables you to integrate your project calendar.
So you can plan your time, make sure you don't forget anything and keep to your deadlines.
Asana even sends you reminder emails as your deadlines approach.

No. 3: Synchronize Slack and Asana

You can :

act directly on tasks from notifications or an Asana link (view task details, change the person responsible and/or the deadline, etc.),
receive notifications on Slack when a change is made to the tasks assigned to you or that you are tracking,
link a specific Asana project to a Slack channel,
create a new task on Asana without leaving Slack by typing "/asana create",
change a Slack message into an Asana task, etc.

No. 4: Structure your tasks

You can :

break them down into :
- into sub-tasks,
- into recurring tasks (using duplication), etc,

group them by section,
add your collaborators as subscribers to some of them,
add custom fields (e.g. priority),

create interdependencies between your tasks.

To mark one task as dependent on another :

click on the three-dot icon in the right-hand pane,
in the drop-down menu that appears, click on "Mark as dependent on...".

No. 5: View your schedule in multiple ways

Examples of schedules :

in calendar mode,

in file mode (shared documents),
in progress mode,
list mode,

in roadmap mode,
in Kanban board mode,

from left to right: "task list", "to do", "in progress" and "done".

No. 6: Attach files to tasks directly from DropBox, Google Drive or OneDrive

Want to find out more about Asana?

Watch the demonstration video (in English - the publisher is American, but the software is available in French) :