Quantify Effort and Workload Across Teams with Points
Effectively measuring, tracking, and predicting the effort required for tasks in Asana can significantly improve team productivity and project outcomes. Using a point system rooted in Agile project management, you can assign relative values to tasks, making it easier to compare and communicate the effort required.
A Starting Point for Effort
To quantify effort in Asana, assign points to work on a relative scale. This allows teams to better compare and communicate the effort required.
Our team has created a rubric based on dimensions like complexity, critical thinking, judgment, and problem-solving to help you get started. Download our worksheet and share your feedback — we’d love to hear how it works for you!
Using Points to Measure Effort in Asana
Effort in Asana goes beyond time; it encompasses the mental exertion needed to complete a task, factoring in complexity, focus requirements, and problem-solving demands. Points help quantify this effort using criteria such as:
Complexity
Critical Thinking
Judgment
Decision-Making
While estimated time measures the hours required, points reflect the intensity of effort involved. This distinction helps teams better prioritize and allocate tasks effectively across their projects and within individual workflows, such as My Tasks.
How to Use Points in Asana
Implementing points in Asana can be straightforward. You can manually assign points to each task or integrate them into project templates with consistent rules for applying points. Here are some ways this approach enhances project management:
Prioritize Tasks Effectively: Points highlight high-effort tasks, enabling more strategic prioritization and time blocking.
Monitor Project Progress: Track points to gauge progress and compare effort levels across tasks and projects.
Balance Workload Across Teams: Points provide visibility into each team member’s workload, facilitating more equitable distribution over time.
Using Points for Resource Planning and Capacity Reporting
Tracking points adds a deeper layer of insight into your team’s workload capacity, allowing for informed decisions on resource allocation. With Asana’s workload reporting, you can monitor each team member’s effort relative to their capacity. Customizing capacity based on points offers a fuller picture of the qualitative demands of tasks, surpassing the insights provided by time estimates alone.
Best Practices for Points in Asana
To maximize the benefits of points, follow these tips:
Create a Points Rubric: Define a rubric assigning values based on factors like complexity and problem-solving requirements to align your team on task effort. (Use ours to get started faster.)
Use a Consistent Scale: Consistency makes it easier to compare tasks across projects.
Embed in Automations: Use rules to assign points to tasks and subtasks as they are created.
Start with Common Tasks: Assign points to a few typical tasks to test the system and familiarize your team with it.
Review Regularly: Revisit your points system periodically to ensure it remains accurate and relevant.
Conclusion
Tracking effort through points can greatly enhance work management and team productivity in Asana. A consistent points system promotes clearer communication and more balanced collaboration, setting your team up for success.
To help you get started, download our worksheet, which provides a sample rubric for scoring tasks on factors like complexity and critical thinking. Please share your feedback with us — we’d love to hear how it works for your team!
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