Organizational Tools (Asana, Trello, Others?)

[pasttheduedate]

Our office is in bad need of some communication and organization between the people that work here. Nobody is on commission or competing with each other, but nobody seems to know what anybody else is doing or who has done what.

Does anybody use tools like Asana or Trello? Another organizational system? How do organizational tools work for you? Do your employees use them effectively, or just forget?

 

[luxent]

We use Asana at work. Either the boss/manager/team lead assigns tasks to us employees, he sets the deadline and we work on it. All the updates, the files are stored on Asana. When a task is done, the team lead is automatically notified.

A team can also work on one project. Just use @someone to converse or notify them of something.

The first thing that they let us watch when Asana was implemented in the office.
asana dot com/guide/basics/start/why-asana

We've also tried trello, but Asana works on a more professional level.

 

[pasttheduedate]

Awesome, thanks for the info. I am a little worried they will be resistant to change, but honestly, we're going to fall apart if this continues.

Can you assign repeating daily tasks in Trello? Does it show who did what? I just watched the video, but those were the two main things I wondered.

 

[JRoot]

We use Asana as well. I keep all standard operating procedures, recurring tasks and 1-off tasks all within Asana for different departments.

Takes a while to get used to, but once you're comfortable it's a great tool. What helped us was completely eliminating internal emails and communicating strictly through Asana.

 

[NinjaNic]

I moved to www.teamwork.com recently. Not looking back. Combined with Slack.com, and google hangouts, I run everything there. Virtually cleaned out my inbox overnight as all communication,tasking etc. is all handled inside these systems. Now I just get an email daily with all the tasks created, assigned out, completed, or needing attention.

edit: and they are all free.

 

[pasttheduedate]

What helped us was completely eliminating internal emails and communicating strictly through Asana.

I wish we were even that advanced. We are using strips from yellow pads to take/send messages. There's no record of stuff, and nobody remembers who did what. Strips of yellow paper everywhere. I'm trying to move them into the computer age.

PICnic - Those sound great, too. I doubt they would use hangouts, but we are all in the same office, so might not be necessary.

 

[NinjaNic]

I wish we were even that advanced. We are using strips from yellow pads to take/send messages. There's no record of stuff, and nobody remembers who did what. Strips of yellow paper everywhere. I'm trying to move them into the computer age.

PICnic - Those sound great, too. I doubt they would use hangouts, but we are all in the same office, so might not be necessary.

AT A MINIMUM, check out www.slack.com. It will immediately cut your notes, emails, chats etc. in half. It took me all of 5 minutes to set up. Create topics or "rooms" where you can talk about certain tasks. Mine are rooms for case management, case design, client research, etc. You get the picture. Best of all, it keeps a record you can go back and index. A pro tip is using #hashtags in your writings so you can easily go back later and search for #mdrt and find everything related.

 

[luxent]

Awesome, thanks for the info. I am a little worried they will be resistant to change, but honestly, we're going to fall apart if this continues.

Can you assign repeating daily tasks in Trello? Does it show who did what? I just watched the video, but those were the two main things I wondered.

Im not sure about creating repeating tasks in Trello. Its been a while since Ive used it. But I can remember there's a copy card, board or list feature which might work the same.

 

[pasttheduedate]

AT A MINIMUM, check out Slack. It will immediately cut your notes, emails, chats etc. in half.

Playing with Slack, it's pretty nifty. It would certainly help a lot, and I like the channel system. I'm used to IRC, so feels very natural to me. My boss seems to like it, and she's not as computer savvy.

 

[pasttheduedate]

Just posting an update:

I got everyone on Slack and they love it. Our paper use has gone down about 85%. We're doing phone messages in private message, general account activity in the channels, and I've been uploading quotes to my admin assistant so she has access to them if needed. I also created a private group for each person to use as a To Do list, and this is working surprisingly well. The chitchat channel has made the office generally more pleasant. I really appreciate the suggestion.