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Establish conventions for your team

In This Article

Setting up team conventions in Asana helps everyone work together more effectively. When your team follows consistent practices, you'll reduce confusion, improve collaboration, and make your work easier to find and understand.

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Task Conventions

Naming tasks

  • Start task names with action verbs (e.g., "Review budget proposal" instead of "Budget proposal")
  • Keep names clear and actionable so anyone can understand what needs to be done
  • Avoid vague titles like "Follow up" or "Meeting"

Writing task descriptions

A task description should give the assignee all the necessary information to complete the task. Here are some tips:

  • Link to relevant work in the task description by @mentioning related people, tasks, projects, or messages.
  • Add links and attachments to include external work, centralizing information.
  • Mark a task as dependent upon another, so teammates start that task when the prior task is completed.
  • Use rich text in task descriptions to clarify your message with formatted text and lists.

Setting due dates

Set realistic due dates for your teammates as soon as they are known, or add an estimated due date as a rough guide. Due dates ensure work gets prioritized, ensuring deadlines are met.

Add start dates so it’s clear when someone should start on the work to complete it by the deadline successfully.

Comments and updates

  • Add teammates and relevant stakeholders as collaborators so they can stay up to date on task progress.
  • Communicate within task comments to keep conversations connected to the work
  • Use project messages for important updates that affect all project members
  • Replace "send me an email" with "assign me a task" for better tracking

Updating tasks assigned to you

When someone assigns you a task, you are in charge of moving that work forward.

  • Like the task so the requester knows you have seen it.
  • If you have questions or updates, comment directly on the task.
  • If you change the due date, add a comment to explain why.
  • Pin the most relevant comment to the top; this makes it easier to find, without reading through every comment.
  • If you don’t have the bandwidth to take on the work, assign the task back to the creator or use @mentioning to ask teammates if they can take over it.
  • If the task has custom fields, fill them out accordingly and continue to update them as work progresses.

Naming template tasks

When you create templates, name the task or project appropriately so it’s clear to teammates that it is a template (e.g., “Template” or “Duplicate me”). This also makes the task or project easier to locate through search.

Project conventions

Projects allow you to organize all tasks related to a specific initiative, goal, or significant work in one place. Similar to tasks, anyone can create a project.

Naming projects

  • Use descriptive names that clearly identify the work
  • Include timeframes for time-bound projects (e.g., "Q1 2025 product launch" instead of "Product launch")
  • Consider department or team prefixes for better organization

Project setup

  • Create projects in the team where most of the work happens
  • Make projects public by default unless they contain sensitive information
  • Set up the project overview so your teammates can always find the project brief and see project roles
  • Decide who can add people to projects and establish guidelines

Project structure

  • Choose appropriate project views (list, board, timeline, calendar) based on the work type
  • Use sections to organize tasks within projects
  • Leverage milestones to mark important progress points
  • Connect related projects using portfolios
  • Create a custom template or use an Asana created template to standardize common workflows and projects. Templates help get projects off to a quick start and ensure you haven’t missed any vital steps.

Adding custom fields

Set up custom fields so you can track all necessary information on every task created in the project.

  • Use organization-wide custom fields for consistency
  • Common useful fields include priority, department, and progress status
  • Save frequently used fields to your custom field library

Sending status updates

Status updates clarify how the project progresses. The project owner or dedicated teammate should send regular project status updates.

  • Set expectations for regular project status updates
  • Decide who should provide updates and how often
  • Use status updates to keep stakeholders informed and reduce progress questions

Completing and archiving projects

Completed projects should be marked as Complete in the status update. We recommend completing projects before archiving. Archiving is only possible for project admins.

Managing a project

When you create a project, you become the project owner by default. You can change the project owner in the progress view.

  • As new tasks are created, ensure tasks have an assignee and due date, move them to the appropriate sections, and update their custom fields.
  • Add project rules to automate workflows and save time.
  • Set milestones to keep tabs on key markers of progress.
  • If you manage multiple projects, add them to a portfolio to organize and monitor them.

Email conventions

Using Messages

We recommend using messages to communicate within Asana with your colleagues and easily link to relevant work instead of email for all internal communication. Gently remind your teammates to use Asana instead of email when necessary.

Using email notifications

Asana sends email notifications for new activities so that teammates who aren’t using Asana all the time can stay in the loop.

We suggest keeping email notifications on until you and your teammates are accustomed to checking Asana often. You can turn them on and off via My Settings.

Reducing email within your team

Email is great for reaching someone outside your organization, but it’s not equipped to plan, manage, and prioritize work.

With our Asana for Gmail Add-on and Asana for Outlook app, you can quickly turn emails into action right from your email inbox. Using these email integrations can be an easy way to get your team into the habit of moving work from email into Asana without changing how they work.

Slack + Asana

You can easily take action on tasks from Slack using the Slack + Asana integration without switching tools constantly.

Setting up your conventions

Step 1: Gather input

  • Meet with your team to discuss current pain points
  • Identify areas where inconsistency causes problems
  • Get buy-in from team members who will be using these conventions

Step 2: Document your decisions

  • Create a project to store your team conventions
  • Make it easily accessible to all team members
  • Include examples of good and poor practices
  • Add new team members to this project during onboarding

Step 3: Communicate and train

  • Share conventions with your entire team
  • Provide training on new practices
  • Create quick reference guides for common scenarios
  • Address questions and concerns as they arise

Step 4: Enforce and iterate

  • Regularly review how well conventions are working
  • Make adjustments based on team feedback
  • Celebrate when team members follow conventions well
  • Gently redirect when conventions aren't being followed

Additional resources

 

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Team Conventions In Asana: Setup Guide For Better Collaboration