Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

February 2025

The basics of critical chain project management

Critical chain project management (CCPM) is a project management methodology that helps you monitor essential resources and prioritize dependent tasks within a project. Learn how to use this framework to help your organization manage resources and complete projects as efficiently as possible. Imagine you’re a kid playing with building blocks. You can build whatever you want, but you only have a set number of blocks available to you.

Toxic productivity is no good-here's how to stop it.

Toxic productivity is more prevalent than ever, and it’s hurting our physical and mental health. In this article, we outline six concrete actions you can take to regain balance and break the cycle of toxic productivity for good. Forty percent of workers think burnout is an inevitable part of success. But the truth is, brute-force productivity isn’t sustainable in the long run.

29 time management templates and examples to enhance efficiency

From daily to-dos to monthly editorial calendars, we’ve rounded up 29 time management templates and examples to get you started managing your time efficiently. Find out how each template can help you complete your to-do list. It’s hard to balance a busy work schedule and get your to-dos done when new tasks are constantly being added to your plate.

Executive dashboards: 10 reporting tips and benefits

An executive dashboard is a customized computer interface that displays your company data in an organized and graphical way. In this guide, we’ll explain what an executive dashboard is and why this reporting tool is beneficial. We’ll also provide tips on how to get maximum value when building your own executive dashboard. Organizations worldwide have used data for decades to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Tips to create group norms for high-performance teams, with examples from 7 Asana managers

What do you think would happen if you walked into a meeting wearing a clown costume? Or if you changed all of your computer notification sounds to cats meowing? Even if these things aren’t explicitly against company policy, your teammates might still do a double take. That’s because of group norms—implicit ground rules that your team follows, even if you’ve never written them down.

25 professional goals to advance your career

Professional development goals are objectives that help you advance in your career. In addition to giving your work a direction and purpose, setting goals helps you decide where you want to go and the steps you need to get there. In this article, we describe how to create professional goals you really care about and offer real-life goal examples from Asana employees. When you plan a road trip, what do you think of first? Aside from fast food and gas mileage, road trips usually start with the destination.

Team charter template: A roadmap for team success (with examples)

A team charter outlines what your team stands for and how they operate. By creating a document of shared goals, strategies, and processes, your team can start every project on a united front. Learn how to create a team charter so you can establish a shared vision and source of truth for your team. Your team is like carefully placed dominos. You can mix and match skill sets to build something special, but when one person wobbles, everyone feels it.

45 team-building games that will bring your team together

Team-building games bring everyone together without the added pressure of work. Here, we’ve listed 45 of the top team-building activities broken down by icebreaker, problem solving, indoor, and outdoor games. Team-building games foster camaraderie, communication, and leadership skills, helping teams build stronger relationships outside of work.

What is a project management office (PMO)?

If your company is struggling to collaborate, feeling disorganized, or implementing a major change, PMO can help set and maintain organizational processes across the entire business. Learn how your teams can use a PMO for better cross-collaboration and project management. Every organization reaches a stage of growth where teams start doing things a little differently.

What is intrinsic motivation and how does it work?

Intrinsic motivation refers to behavior driven by internal rewards. By practicing a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators in the workplace, you can positively influence your team and empower a healthy workforce. Wondering how to motivate your team without the need for external rewards? Intrinsic motivation might just be your answer. Encouraging your team with intrinsic motivation and positive feedback can be a healthy alternative to performance incentives.

6 techniques for accurate project estimation

Project estimation helps project managers and stakeholders get a sense of how long a project will take, what kind of resources are needed, and what deliverables will be required for project completion. In this article, learn six different strategies for how you can accurately estimate key aspects of your next project. When you’re cooking dinner for your family, you have a small group of hungry people wondering when it’s time to eat.

How to get organized: 17 tips that actually work

Getting organized can help you ‌be more focused and happier in the workplace. If you’re not an organized person, don’t worry—organization is a skill that can be learned and honed over time, using practical techniques and tools like digital to-do lists, automations, and templates. This article shows you the benefits of being organized and outlines 17 actionable tips to get more organized today.

6 tips to use portfolios, Asana's best-kept secret for cross-project planning

Use portfolio dashboards to automatically create custom charts and visualize performance across every initiative in your portfolio. So you work on many projects, and need a way to manage and track progress across initiatives. Sound familiar? If it does, you’re in luck. Asana’s handy—and way too often underutilized—portfolios feature is designed specifically to help with this problem.

What is the project management triangle and how can it help your team?

The project management triangle visualizes the problem of “triple constraints”—the need to balance scope, cost, and time in order to maintain a high-quality final product. Every project manager who has known the frustration of trying to keep their team productive with too little time, not enough budget, and an impossibly large scope has experienced the project management triangle in action.

Enterprise project management: What is it?

Projects are like building blocks for a company’s success. To help them run smoothly and efficiently, companies rely on project management. For large organizations that have multiple projects running at once, project management can be scaled up to the level of enterprise project management (EPM). An enterprise project manager oversees the various projects occurring simultaneously across different departments to ensure that they’re meeting company expectations and goals.

How to delegate effectively: 10 delegation tips for leaders

Delegating is when you reassign work to other team members because it’s more relevant to their workstreams and priorities. If you’re getting started with team or project management, it can be intimidating to delegate work. It’s okay if you don’t know exactly what or how to delegate. In this article, we’ll walk you through when to delegate and give you 10 tips to help you delegate work effectively. Sometimes, the most valuable thing you can do as a manager is to delegate work.

Customer journey map: How to visualize the buyer experience

El customer journey o recorrido del cliente es el camino que realiza el cliente desde que tiene una necesidad hasta que compra el producto o servicio. Mientras que el customer journey map es una representación visual de este viaje del consumidor. Sigue leyendo y aprende cómo crear un customer journey y utilizar un customer journey map. If you skip to the end of a book, you’ll know where every character ends up. But without reading the middle, you won’t understand what took place.

Do your work meetings waste time? Use these tips to improve.

If you pulled up your work calendar right now, how many meetings are scheduled over the next week? Most calendars are overloaded with meeting invites and, more often than not, employees walk out of them hoping that one day it won’t feel like meetings are a waste of time. Stay tuned, because we’re going to help you revitalize your approach and ensure your meetings are effective. There’s a 50/50 shot that you dislike meetings.

6 home office setup hacks to upgrade your space

A small space can function as a home office, but turning that space into an optimal work environment takes time, mindfulness, and some essential items. In this piece, we provide tips for improving your home office setup so you have a dedicated space to focus on high-impact work. One of the nicest parts of working from home is moving from your bed to your office without a long commute or the need for business casual attire.

18 time management tips, strategies, and quick wins to get your best work done

Today, we’re constantly interrupted by tools, notifications, emails, social media—you name it. In our distraction economy, chaos has become the norm. It’s nearly impossible to focus on what truly matters or know if you’re prioritizing the right work at the right time. Your intentions for the day fly out the window in the face of high-priority tasks, seemingly urgent messages, and never-ending notifications.

Qualities of a leader: 17 traits of effective leadership

Leaders aren’t just born that way. Most develop and hone skills ‌anyone can learn. These 17 traits are the core leadership qualities to develop if you want to become a better leader, both personally and professionally. In this article, you’ll learn what these leadership qualities are and how you can implement them in your own life. Leading a team is no easy task. Just look at some of the most inspiring leaders, like Arianna Huffington or Rosalind Brewer.

Team roles: 9 types to create a balanced team

Dr. Meredith Belbin developed the team role theory based on common behavioral attributes. The Belbin model divides the roles into action-oriented, thought-oriented, and people-oriented categories to balance teams and increase productivity. Working in a team takes organization and collaboration. For teams to be most productive, everyone should have a specific role that aligns with their strengths. Dr. Meredith Belbin developed the team role theory based on behavioral attributes.

5 tips to establish a knowledge sharing culture

Knowledge sharing is the act of developing processes to help an organization access important information across multiple teams. In this article, we discuss different types of knowledge your team may want to document and actionable tips to build a knowledge sharing culture within your organization. Sharing information is something we do every day. A quick text, a conversation over coffee, or even a phone call are all examples of knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing in the workplace is equally prevalent.

Use problem framing to help solve team inefficiencies

Problem framing is a thinking method used to understand, define, and prioritize difficult business obstacles and issues. In this article, we cover how problem framing can help keep your team in the know and solve inefficiencies. In today’s complex working environment, it can be hard to come together as a team to solve problems. Lucky for you, there’s never been a better time to discover problem framing.

Value streams: Provide customers value with every step

Value streams are a way to visualize the series of steps that take place in order to provide value for your customers. These steps start when a customer makes an initial request and end when the customer makes a final interaction. Learn how to understand your value streams so you can help teams create customer-centric workflows and processes that provide your final customers with value. Your customers are your greatest asset, and to keep them happy, you have to provide them with value.

3 guiding concepts for successfully managing a newly remote team

Being a manager is tough, and managing a remote team is even more so. Whether you're newly remote or you've been managing remote and hybrid teams for a while, there are specific tools and techniques you can implement to boost remote collaboration. Being remote isn’t better or worse. It’s just different.

How to improve team communication: 6 strategies and tips

Strong communication is the driving force for everything you do at work. As a project manager, it’s your responsibility to set the tone for how your team members communicate with one another. In this piece, we discuss the importance of team communication and provide strategies for how to improve engagement in the workplace. Your communication style says a lot about you as a leader. Are you supportive and relaxed as you guide your team through creative projects?

What is an Agile epic? Do you need one?

An Agile epic is part of the Agile methodology process often used by IT and product development teams. You can use Agile epics to break down complex projects into assigned tasks or action items. Your epics will help you ‌better manage and make progress on all Agile projects. Learn more about epics and how to apply them to your work below. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for project management.

Project management methodologies: 12 popular frameworks

Project management is an ever-evolving field that requires a number of approaches to be successful. Learning the most popular project management methodologies can help you become an industry expert. A project management methodology is a system of principles, techniques, and procedures used by those who work in a discipline.

What is a digital marketing strategy? 9 steps to boost your online presence

All great digital marketing campaigns start with a built-out strategy. Whether your goal is brand recognition or conversions, it’s essential to have your research and tactics in place before interacting with your audience. Follow these nine steps to develop a strategy and reach your marketing goals. Actualización 29/08/2024: En esta actualización hemos incorporado dos nuevos canales de marketing digital y una sección de preguntas frecuentes. Digital marketing has evolved rapidly.

Before you try transactional leadership, read this.

Transactional leaders tell their team exactly what to do and motivate employees via perks or rewards. While this leadership style is useful for short-term pushes or emergency situations, transactional leadership should be used with caution. Read on to learn about the pros and cons of transactional leadership, when to use it, and some alternative styles to consider.

7 tips to help manage your distributed team

Distributed team management happens when your team members are based in various locations and, potentially, in various time zones. These types of teams can bring a wealth of global knowledge—but they also pose their own unique challenges. Learn how to best support your distributed team with these seven tips. With an increasingly global economy comes the need for global teams to serve customer wherever they are.

4 must-have communication tools to unlock collaboration

Communication tools are an integral part of effective team collaboration. In this article, we take a look at the five most important features of communication tools, then review the four must-have types of communication tools your team needs. Effective communication is one of the most important parts of any business. By enabling easy communication, you unlock collaboration and make it easier for team members to focus on the work that matters.

How to create and manage a project calendar to set your team up for success

A project calendar gives you a bird’s-eye view of the overall project schedule so you can see when different project tasks are due. With a solid project planning calendar in place, you’ll stay informed and know exactly what you are doing today, next week, and beyond. Learn the different types of project calendars and how to create your own.

What is workforce management (WFM) and how can it work for your team?

Workforce management (WFM) is a set of techniques used to improve internal processes, drive efficiency, and create a more enjoyable place to work. If your team productivity needs a boost, WFM may be your solution. Looking to improve team productivity and overall performance? Workforce management can streamline your team’s workflow and operational costs. That leads to enhanced efficiency, better employee engagement, and higher team morale.

The right-and wrong-ways to collaborate, according to research

In the world of business, collaboration has become a buzzword. However, more collaboration doesn't necessarily equate to better collaboration. In fact, workers today collaborate 50% more than they did just 12 years ago, leading to a phenomenon known as collaborative overload.

11 Benefits of teamwork in the workplace (with examples)

Teamwork is when a group of individuals work together toward a collective goal in an efficient manner. Read on to learn the 11 top benefits of teamwork in the workplace and examples for each. Teamwork is one of the most important tools when it comes to organizational efficiency. Though we can all agree that teamwork is important, not everyone realizes just how impactful it is in the workplace.

How to support your team during a hiring freeze

If hiring freezes are on your mind, you’re not alone. Although hiring freezes can help protect your company and existing employees against financial uncertainty, they can also cause anxiety. If your company announced a hiring freeze (or if current market conditions are causing workplace stress), it’s important to lead with empathy and find ways to support your team as you navigate uncertain waters together.