The Problem with Many Task Management Solutions like Asana

21 COMMENTS
August 20th, 2012

There are many task management solutions on the market today such as Asana, Producteev, HiTast, and dozes of others.  My team happens to use Asana which is why I mentioned them in the title of this post (and is hence the one I am most familiar with).  The goal of all of these solutions is to make it easier to get work done, especially in teams, without relying heavily on email.  However the problem with all of these task management solutions comes down to getting notified about tasks, which inherently comes down to email.

I’ll use Asana is an example.  When someone assigns me a task or if I assign someone a task, the only way they get notified is via email.  Actually email is the way you get notified about anything including if someone comments on a task you assign.  The problem with this is that you only know about an update when you check your email.  This means that either you need to check your email very often or you don’t check your email often and don’t get to stay up to date on what’s going on around tasks and projects.

If I’m supposed to use the task management solutions as a way to reduce my reliance on email then why do all of them force me back into email?  Again, this is common with every platform I have seen today.  There needs to be a way to notify users of task updates which does NOT rely on email.  I think the best way to solve this is via a desktop application (perhaps build on Adobe Air) which you can always have open.  It’s a bit like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, you open it once and it just hangs out on your desktop and when relevant updates come your way they just pop up.  It’s easy to update content or share information and keep in touch with people, why don’t we have something like this around task management (or even collaboration?)

Here’s what I would want to see:

A desktop app which I can just click on once in the morning when I start my day.  This app will notify me anytime a task or project has been updated in anyway (for example if it was completed or if someone left a comment).  I also want to be able to assign tasks and view tasks in a very simple way.  The app should also notify me with reminders if tasks are due that day or if they are overdue.    Finally, I’d like to be able to reference people and other tasks in that app much the same way I do within Twitter (using the “@” symbol).  Some of the solutions today allow you to do this but you have to be logged into their web-based site to do so.  The key here is not just to notify me about things but to provide context around notifications.  For example, if someone on my team comments on a task I assign them I don’t just want a pop to say “someone commented on your task,” I want to be able to read the comment and have it threaded or linked to the task so that my response falls under the same thread and in the same context.  It would also be great to have some sort of notification system letting me know if someone has seen or accepted the task.  I can’t tell you how may times I needed to follow up with my team because I’m never sure if they see a comment I leave on an assigned task.

This doesn’t appear to be that complicated to create yet nobody has created it, why?

Mobile notifications are another option here but more applicable when on-the-go, if I’m sitting at my computer I don’t really want my phone buzzing with updates, I’d rather seem them on my computer.

Task management providers need to solve this problem, I’m looking at you Asana!

On a side note there is also no way to just put up some sort of a status update for asynchronous communication, meaning you can only talk about tasks and projects but if you want to have an update saying you are away for a few hours or traveling, you can’t.

I have plenty of other ideas and suggestions but let us start here.

What task management solutions do you use or recommend and why?  What else would you like to see offered?

TAGS: asana, email and task management, problem with task management, task management software, task management solutions
This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2012 at 12:08 am and is filed under Collaboration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://twitter.com/SamJacobs18 Sam Jacobs

    Jacob, great post and I agree with your observation completely. I am using a project management application, called binfire.com. It has many of the features you mentioned here, just on the web (you can add status updates, or have group chat etc). If they make a desktop as you suggest here, their app will become real awesome!

  • http://schultzter.ca Schultzter

    As much as we all love to hate Microsoft I have to say that Outlook pretty much covers everything you ask for. Admittedly the desktop is Windows only (OS X maybe?) but it’s also available on-line in various forms and on every mobile platform! You’ve got your e-mail but you also have collaborative tasks, calendars, and notes. Plus a few other goodies.

  • Graham Ridgway

    So the question I would have is what’s wrong with being in the App (in this case Asana) itself? Why do you want to be notified outside of this?

  • http://kenschafer.me/ Ken Schafer

    In fact Asana supports @ references (to people and projects). They also have an inbox within the app that does exactly what you want, other than notifications (since it’s a web app).

    I run Asana in a single-site browser (made using Fluid) and check it regularly throughout the day. At some point I’m sure they’ll get notifications straightened out.

  • http://www.jmorganmarketing.com/ jacobmorgan

    Hi Ken,

    Yes Asana does support that but you need to be in their web based solution to do it. This means that the only way you get notified is that you either have to check your email every few minutes or you need to check Asana every few minutes, neither of which is a good solution. Not sure what you were referring to re: the inbox though. With the people behind Asana I honestly thought they would have been farther out with their product then they currently are.

  • http://www.jmorganmarketing.com/ jacobmorgan

    Hi Graham.

    Because it’s not efficient or productive, I might as well be staring at email all day. At least with outlook I get notifications on my desktop when I get a new email. The whole point of a notification is to make so that I don’t need to stare at their application every few minutes. Not only that but Asana doesn’t even really provide effective notifications within the app as far as I know, email is the primary way to get notified with updates.

  • http://www.jmorganmarketing.com/ jacobmorgan

    Sadly I agree with you. If something like that existed around task and collaboration solutions outside of Outlook that would be great. I think the problem with Outlook though is that it still very much centered around email as the primary way to get work done. But in all fairness I haven’t used Outlook in quite some time. Thanks for the comment!

  • http://www.jmorganmarketing.com/ jacobmorgan

    Thanks, I will check it out.

  • Graham Ridgway

    So that kind of outlines the actual problem of how we organise the time we spend, spread it between our jobs and see when there is something inbound that needs our attention. It still think it’s the job of the app to solve that for you. If each vendor provides their app and a “notify” app, then you just have twice the places to go to. With email at least it’s in one place. What we need is a new “one place to go” to see what’s inbound across all products and sources of interrupts.

  • Graham Ridgway

    So that kind of outlines the actual problem of how we organise the time we spend, spread it between our jobs and see when there is something inbound that needs our attention. It still think it’s the job of the app to solve that for you. If each vendor provides their app and a “notify” app, then you just have twice the places to go to. With email at least it’s in one place. What we need is a new “one place to go” to see what’s inbound across all products and sources of interrupts.

  • http://twitter.com/mediamutt mediamutt

    The Lotus Notes “To Do” app and the IBM Connections Activities features do much of what you’re thinking, depending on the context you prefer: starting from your desktop (To Do) or your social portal (Connections). For example: To Do allows you to assign actions to others using your Lotus Notes directory. You not only get email notifications, but a To Do dashboard to manage your actions, what’s current and what’s overdue, etc. The same for Connections Activities: you see a quick-hit list of Current and Overdue To Dos from your homepage left nav, can assign To Dos to others using your Connections profiles directory, etc. Many of these features are also available through mobile devices. And because of open APIs, you can create additional integrations such as assigning To Dos from business process events (like requesting an approval for a submitted form).

  • Harvinder Kandola

    To be honest there are all the same. Little innovation in terms of handling notifications and the approach towards managing different types of projects.

    How about we have alerts built into these types of apps?

    See here for a completely different take on tasks & tracking:
    http://www.geminiplatform.com/tracking

  • Bruce Cannon

    I recently evaluated MangoApps and was impressed with the breadth of collaboration across that platform: native applications for Mac and PC, with notification popups; in the web app there are instant messaging, conversation streams, videoconferencing, etc. Their PM approach is far too agile for me: I am old school and need to see some portfolio-level gantt. But as far as collaboration goes, they nail many of the other issues you discussed in your post.

  • http://www.jmorganmarketing.com/ jacobmorgan

    Hi Bruce,

    Sorry for the late reply here. I use Mango and am a fan of theirs. They have a new release coming out in a few weeks, I know that they do over a GANTT visual in their project/task management feature, that’s been there for a long time. Maybe check with them?

  • Dan

    http://www.getflow.com has iphone notifications and a desktop plugin for the mac that notifies you….you can turn off email 100% and still stay on top of things. But…you have to pay for it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/domonkos.hamar Domonkos Hamar

    I used Producteev for half a year, now I’m shifting towards Asana. But in Producteev you can set alerts as an IM notification Gtalk/Jabber. https://www.evernote.com/shard/s91/sh/46c601d9-a307-4398-bf43-470dbc5d9b96/c17f9a3d2bd0e30bb864e4de2ebd2fed
    (So for example if you use the new OSX Mountain Lion Messenger application with your Gtalk account it is the solution you want, isn’t it?)

    And producteev also has a great iPhone notification on the iPhone app. Maybe Asana as well, I do not know yet.

  • Kjetil Bjørnsrud

    Do anyone of these have a better, “real” iPhone (and android) app – like Things or OmniFocus?

  • Alex

    Asana does, its pretty nice.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Escalante/524011930 David Escalante

    “This means that either you need to check your email very often or you don’t check your email often and don’t get to stay up to date on what’s going on around tasks and projects.”

    Uh? I never heard of such complain, unless you don’t take your job very seriously or you are a mess with your e-mails.

    If you use software such like Outlook, Mail (osx), Thunderbird I don’t think the “check your email often” would be a problem, also it helps to be very organized with your emails and information.

    I have set mail to move automatically all the asana and producteev emails in a designated folder and make Mail to “beep” and “bounce” each time I get assigned a new task, I’m sure you know about this since anyone I know in my work does.

    The good thing about emails is that you get the notification, doesn’t matter if you are in home using the computer or outside in your cellphone, you get the same notification at same time.

    But again, I just stated the obvious, still I don’t know where the complain about emails come from. While yes, a integrated OS notification would be useful, it would be a lot notifications coming from everywhere, and most OS nowadays use built in notifications to inform you about new emails and it’s content (at least, OSX does).

  • http://serialsmallbusiness.com/ Graham Hunter

    I bet with asana’s “let’s kill email” campaign they will implement this in no time. Genius idea.

  • ScottP

    Email is (slowly?) on its way out as a primary mode of communication for project teams. A bunch of good reasons for this in term of efficiency and project management. Take a look at Do.com (owned by Salesforce) or Kona.com. If I recall, one of them may have social communication features. Asana is pretty quick at implementing new features though.