Background & Business Challenge

Eason Builders Group constructs high end custom homes and swimming pools. They were using Asana for task and project management and the CEO was frustrated with their inability to take full advantage of this system. The company was looking for guidance on how to improve the skills of their employees within this platform and take better advantage of its many features.

Critical Pain Points

• Frustrated with the inability to take full advantage of Asana
• Dissatisfied with how long it takes to manually setup project plans
• Dissatisfied by the lack of reporting clarity

Desired Outcomes

• Better understanding of how to use Asana
• More consistent training and improved skills for employees
• Better reporting on project progress
• Higher levels of efficiency and collaboration

Evaluation & Planning

I spent two weeks reviewing the company’s existing setup and utilization of Asana and identified ways they could improve. I then proposed the creation of structured training programs and project templates which would help deliver consistency and speed. I additionally proposed that an easy-to-use reporting system be created once these initial elements were developed to help monitor activity and draw insights.

Implementation

We spent one year working through these action items. We took the first two months to develop and deliver the training programs to twelve existing staff and continued with new staff as they were onboarded. I then guided EBG through the process of developing a collection of four project templates. We also setup two reporting dashboards and grouped projects into Asana’s Portfolio module to help summarize progress and increase visibility for executive oversight. In addition, I helped optimize existing projects and templates by facilitating incremental improvements.

Results

Eason Builders Group received a suite of project templates to autogenerate project schedules. This helped them setup their projects faster and in a more consistent format. In addition, staff could more quickly identify each project, improving collaboration.

They also received three templated training programs that could be used to train both existing and new employees. Staff now feel better trained and more confident in their use of the platform.

The dashboards and other reports then helped senior management gain greater visibility of how the company’s portfolio of projects was performing, making it easier to identify projects that were off track and then advise project managers on how to course correct.