Asana Case Study

Creative & media consists of graphic designers, web developers, content writers, social media managers, accessibility and publication coordinators and additional communications specialists. Operating under a demanding 24/7 newscycle, the team interacts with the Press Secretary, External Affairs and Regional Leaders who serve as the liaisons between the agency and Ohio Citizens, fulfilling creative requests in support of the state legislature, Chamber of Commerce, elections, and business sectors. 

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• Historically, the agency struggled to keep up with the constant and ever growing requests for media assets, content, design, video and a wide spectrum of creative support required to serve the state.  
• Low visibility, high volume, and too many ad hoc “passing through the hallway” requests were left uncapture, leaving important work undone. 
• Fragmented communication across multiple channels including phones, email, and instant messaging resulted in lost communication and tasks lacking context. 
• A series of manual spreadsheets, calendars, and documents kept track of the big picture projects, however, no system existed to organize and keep teams on track with real-time visibility around work in progress and project status.
• Confusion and frustration became the norm. Teams and their constituents became frustrated and morale was suffering under the ever mounting weight of the growing workload. 

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• Build a consistent process and organizing system for prioritizing and tracking projects before they get to the creative team
• Deploy a new set of streamlined workflows and project management practices, consolidating projects, tasks and communications across the various departments and liaisons
• Build a simplified and scalable creative questionnaire and intake form for receiving, compiling and prioritizing new requests, then pair the form submissions with the right project and task templates  
• Install a simplified, integrated feedback and approval process to manage change-requests in a single location without having to log into multiple tools such as Adobe or Canva 

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• Assess a number of project management platforms to organize and track all work, ultimately deciding on Asana
• To expedite the set-up process, Completing was engaged to design and implement the new workflows and develop training in a learn-while-doing approach
• An native intake form was built to automatically feed new requests into the corresponding project categories. Customized fields with branched sub-fields were created to prompt requesters with key information upfront, reducing emails and calls required to gather clarity prior to executing on the task  
• Project and task templates were set-up with preloaded content for the most common types, significantly reducing set-up time for new projects. Tasks were labeled and tagged using common naming conventions 
• A Kanban board was set-up for fast drag and drop status updates including columns for To-Do, In-Progress, Stopped/Blocked, Done-In Review, Done-Deployed
• Agile-based methods and practices were introduced and trained to help project managers and coordinators standardize their weekly routines and maintain ongoing board health
• A visible queue or backlog was set-up to organize and prioritize new requests,  allowing stakeholders to see the growing backlog in relation to existing work in progress, allowing for improved clarity, better adaptation and resource planning
• A weekly training and adoption plan focused on a train-the-trainer approach that empowered the agency’s internal “champions” and change agents to serve the broader organization, fostering intention and organic adoption without a top-down command and control approach 

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• 70% reduction in ad hoc work requests submitted through multiple channels. 
• 80% improvement in transparency around work in progress plus work in queue, reducing the need for manual, ad hoc status updates. 
• Elimination of 3-5 hours of weekly meeting time with project updates and communication paired into a single “source of truth” accessible from anywhere. 
• 40%+ reduction in waiting times due to faster feedback and approval times using the Asana feedback tool, preventing multiple logins to other tools.   
• 30% improvement in task completion rates week-to-week plus with reduced revisions due to clearly defined standards and definitions of done. 
• Significant improvement in focus work from the reduction in overall disruption due to reduced calls, meetings and messages during the workday. 
• Significant overall improvement in team capacity and morale.   

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