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Hey everyone.

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Welcome to this video and in this video

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I'm joined by Mr. David Burk

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from the Electron Shop.

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Hey David. How are you doing?

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Hello.

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In this video I want to talk...

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David and I are gonna have a bit of a chat

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and I want to really learn from you David

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about your journey and

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your transition moving your team to Asana.

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Because I know that some companies

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can struggle with the transition

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changing how their teams communicate,

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how they manage their work.

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It's not always easy to make

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that transition so I'm really interested

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to hear your take on

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your experience with that.

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So maybe to kick things off

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you want to give us a bit of

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background context around like

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before you guys were using Asana

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what did your workflow look like?

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Were you using any other tools

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or what were the...

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how did you, tell us the story,

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how did you get into Asana?

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Great question.

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We tried a couple of products actually.

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We tried Teamwork, and we tried Trello,

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and then we decided that Slack was

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working really well for us so we started

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managing everything through Slack.

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But it got to be too much

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and people were randomly

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dashing off assignments

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and I was unsure

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if people could track whether

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they were still in the queue or done.

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So we took a look at Asana

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and in my first review of Asana

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what I liked the most was the flexibility.

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It is really, really flexible.

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That's a plus and a minus, because

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it's a plus because it's really flexible

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it's a minus because

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people tend to go rogue

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and use it their own way.

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Yeah.

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So that's how we chose it.

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Yeah. Go ahead. Let's keep going.

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Yes the flexibility,

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so when you talk about flexibility,

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it's kind of what you mean is there's

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lots of different ways you can use it.

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And one of the things I found is like

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you don't just have to manage tasks in it

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like things you can do.

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You can actually use it to manage clients

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or support tickets from

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a customer service point of view.

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Right.

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Yeah. I agree it is one of those

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very flexible platforms.

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Yeah. I would say that also

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our project management methodology

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having been in the agency business

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for many years,

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it's very much around just basics

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of getting things done by the end.

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Yep.

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And this idea of having a platform

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that allows you to reduce everything

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to a unit of work

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with a person responsible

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was really what we were after.

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Okay.

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And in your experience the other tools

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that you tried, Trello,

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you mentioned a few others,

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they just didn't quite tick that box

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in terms of making it very clear

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who was responsible for what?

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There were those issues and then

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there were presentation issues.

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The idea that in Asana

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you could look at a list, calendar,

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and use the advanced search,

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and then save the search was just

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unparalleled relative to other products.

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Okay. Actually that was gonna be one of

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my questions, was there any,

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you mentioned the flexibility,

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but was there any key feature

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that really sold you on it?

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Was the advanced search...

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sounds like one of those?

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Yeah. The advanced search absolutely.

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Okay.

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And regarding the transition,

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moving your team to Asana,

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you've got a little bit of an advantage

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in that you have a smaller team

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which obviously makes the transition

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a bit easier to manage.

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But what were the common

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challenges or issues that you faced

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during that transition

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and then part B

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if you want to answer that as well as

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then how did you manage those

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how did you iron out those flaws?

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I think a lot of it is very common

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change management issues.

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Number one,

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broadcasting early and often that

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in 30 days we're changing.

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Right.

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Every day for those 30 days.

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What are we changing, too.

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We're changing to Asana.

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You might want to check it out.

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Letting people do it on their terms.

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And then, as you know, we hired up,

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and that was really good

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I am fond of saying

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when you're in uncharted territory,

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hire a guide.

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It's worth it. Right?

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Local knowledge is worth a lot.

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So for very effective investment

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basically Paul, you provided us

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with a framework and a methodology.

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I took your framework and methodology

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and then I drafted several documents.

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The two most important of those documents.

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First of all, you trained us,

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we taped that training,

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any new employee that comes in

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watches a one-hour training.

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Mm-huh.

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Number two,

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I did a document called

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Using Asana the Electron Shop Way

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and that covers all the idiosyncrasies

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of how we use it.

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And then the third document was

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the File Naming System at the Electron Shop

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Every file has prepended a client name

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and has date in a certain format

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at the end of the file name,

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and then a version number.

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Gets complicated,

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but the version number has client's themes

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and then internal rips.

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So 1.1 would be clients of 1.0

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we internally rip to 1.1.

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And this really helps us

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track the most recent file.

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That's really interesting.

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I want to back up a little

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something you said at the beginning.

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You said you had like this.

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This definitive start date,

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in 30 days, we're using Asana.

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What did you do during the transition

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we using it a little bit

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and it was kind of you were

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trying to pull people into it?

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Why did you choose, how did that look,

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and why did you choose to do it

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that way instead of just saying

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right, starting today we're doing it?

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Talk me through that a little bit more.

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I got the free version,

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which is wonderful for teams under 15,

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and I pulled people in one by one,

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and I also did demos once a week just

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we were on a production call or something

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and I would say, let me show you something

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I found this interesting thing.

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Remember also that

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like you Paul I'm interested in

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productivity and efficiency.

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So I spent a lot of time in the system

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experimenting with my partner. Right?

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Just the two of us

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assigning tasks to each other

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starting to play

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with all the various systems.

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You know.

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We figured out sections on our own

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but that was not easy to find.

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Okay. That's really interesting

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because I think from the experiences

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I've had working with different companies

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as well as companies I've been

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part of where we've used Asana

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there's been that almost like

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that communication element that

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you've said to your team like

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guys, we're using this in 30 days

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maybe hasn't been so clear

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and it's just like you soft roll it out

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and you start today

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and try and get people using it

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and then when people don't fully adopt it

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because it's new and it's scary

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and it challenges the way they work,

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it fizzles out, and maybe

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the adoption isn't as successful because

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that clear expectation wasn't made.

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But it sounds like in your case

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you made it very clear.

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Guys, we're using this.

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Get on the train

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because it's leaving soon,

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which sounds like it worked very well.

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That's right, it did.

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And I'll tell you one other thing.

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I started basically

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putting people in the system

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letting them pool around, and I also said

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starting on this date

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if you send me something via email

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I'm not gonna answer.

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Okay. And how did that play out?

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Were people pretty good getting into Asana

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or did you still get a few emails?

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It took about a month.

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A month.

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You know we also use Slack.

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So Slack and email really confused

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how do we use these things

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that's one of the things that's in

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How Do We Use Asana the Electron Shop Way.

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Yeah.

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And so I started delineating

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Asana is the system of record.

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Slack is for checking in.

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Email is for things with clients.

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That's it.

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Okay. I want to recap

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because that's really important

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and actually you addressed something

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that I think a lot of people

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get hung up about is

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how does this fit in.

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There's so many tools now

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if someone emails me or Slack

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where do I check

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for these points of communication.

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And I think which sounds like

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what you've done really well is

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have clear divisions of what goes where.

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You said email is for clients only,

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pretty much external communication?

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Correct.

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Slack it or Asana it,

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can you talk to me,

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do you do all you communication in Asana

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and just informal communication in Slack

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or how do the two work there?

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All communication in Asana

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relevant to tasks.

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Right.

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Slack,

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what we do is it's a sort of thing like

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I'm on the phone,

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can you tell me this number

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or sorry I forgot where this file was

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it's not in Asana

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can you point me at that file?

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That kind of thing.

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It's just for brief checking.

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It's got to be like a 30-second thing.

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My rule is...

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What we're trying to do is

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get things down to units of work

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that take two to five minutes.

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Right? Slack is a 30-second tool.

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Mm-hm. That's really good.

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And I think that's

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a really good way to divide it.

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Look, if there's any communication

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that needs to happen about work

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which internally in a team

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that's probably going to be

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the majority of your communication,

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like 80% of your communication?

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So it should live in Asana

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because it's tied to tasks.

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It's tied to things you need to do,

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where Slack is

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the informal quick communication tool

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that you can use to quickly

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get an answer or check in with someone.

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I think that's a really good way,

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really smart way to divide the two so that

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you're not stuck in this transition

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or this blurry area where you're not sure

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did David send me that in Slack

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or did he send me in Asana

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you should just know.

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I think a couple of other things

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about that.

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One is, I said that

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email is for client communication, right?

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external communication.

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If there's a task,

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if the client writes to me,

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which is every day, and they say

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could you please

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change this, do that, fix this typo?

0:10:27.069,0:10:29.489
I take that and I put it in Slack either

0:10:29.489,0:10:33.800
as separate tasks, or one task saying

0:10:33.800,0:10:36.589
please complete fixes and then

0:10:36.589,0:10:40.459
paste the email into Asana sliced.

0:10:40.459,0:10:42.634
Because the key thing about Asana

0:10:42.634,0:10:43.910
that's wonderful is

0:10:43.910,0:10:46.478
it's all about accountability. Right?

0:10:46.478,0:10:48.362
You can't shirk it.

0:10:48.362,0:10:50.296
They're assigned a task,

0:10:50.296,0:10:52.037
and you need to either do it,

0:10:52.037,0:10:55.519
or reassign it, or get it off your plate.

0:10:55.519,0:10:58.338
Yeah. I totally agree with you.

0:10:58.338,0:10:59.851
It's very transparent like

0:10:59.851,0:11:02.054
who's keeping up and maybe because

0:11:02.059,0:11:04.216
you can just click on someone's account

0:11:04.216,0:11:05.073
and see exactly

0:11:05.073,0:11:06.778
how much they've got going on.

0:11:06.778,0:11:08.078
There's no hiding.

0:11:08.078,0:11:09.798
I think some people may even find it

0:11:09.798,0:11:10.909
a little bit scary like

0:11:10.909,0:11:12.534
oh gosh, I need to pick up my game

0:11:12.534,0:11:14.435
because everyone can see what I'm doing.

0:11:14.435,0:11:15.827
Yeah. I think it's very good.

0:11:15.827,0:11:17.726
We have a weekly production meeting

0:11:17.726,0:11:19.401
and that production meeting

0:11:19.401,0:11:21.014
consists of a budget review

0:11:21.014,0:11:22.874
which is done in Harvest.

0:11:22.874,0:11:23.579
Okay.

0:11:23.579,0:11:25.463
There we are in terms of hours

0:11:25.463,0:11:26.709
on various accounts.

0:11:26.709,0:11:29.027
The rest of the meeting is basically

0:11:29.027,0:11:32.019
all incomplete tasks in Asana.

0:11:32.019,0:11:35.230
We go to one by one and also

0:11:35.230,0:11:37.650
I have saved searches for every employee.

0:11:37.923,0:11:41.192
Incomplete tasks for tasks for so-and-so.

0:11:41.192,0:11:43.364
So when I talk to them one on one,

0:11:43.364,0:11:47.725
I can say I see that this one stuck or

0:11:47.725,0:11:50.096
maybe you have too much work to do.

0:11:50.096,0:11:51.573
There's a lot of insight that

0:11:51.573,0:11:53.030
comes from it as well.

0:11:53.030,0:11:55.358
I said it was gonna be one of my questions

0:11:55.358,0:11:57.666
which I think segues quite nicely is

0:11:57.666,0:11:59.423
what are the business problems

0:11:59.423,0:12:01.038
that you've solved with Asana?

0:12:01.038,0:12:02.658
And it sounds like that could be

0:12:02.658,0:12:03.858
one of them where

0:12:03.858,0:12:06.112
as the manager, as a leader

0:12:06.112,0:12:07.169
you can just...

0:12:07.169,0:12:08.855
it's not about calling people out

0:12:08.855,0:12:10.640
and saying you're not doing your job.

0:12:10.640,0:12:12.106
It's about as you've said like

0:12:12.106,0:12:13.438
where are you getting stuck,

0:12:13.438,0:12:15.308
how can I help you, how can I help you

0:12:15.308,0:12:16.800
move these tasks forward?

0:12:16.800,0:12:19.380
And Asana is what provides you

0:12:19.380,0:12:22.248
with that transparency.

0:12:22.248,0:12:23.160
That's right.

0:12:23.160,0:12:26.190
There's a larger issue at play I think

0:12:26.190,0:12:28.103
that's really important.

0:12:28.103,0:12:30.069
And that is engagement,

0:12:30.069,0:12:31.735
employee engagement.

0:12:31.735,0:12:34.704
So, when everybody is updating their tasks

0:12:34.704,0:12:36.450
and nothing is overdue,

0:12:36.450,0:12:38.273
people know that everybody's engaged

0:12:38.273,0:12:40.430
and everybody's doing the business and

0:12:40.430,0:12:42.428
business is as strong as the weakest link.

0:12:42.428,0:12:43.128
Yeah.

0:12:43.128,0:12:44.758
Someone is consistently letting

0:12:44.758,0:12:46.859
their tasks slight past the due date,

0:12:46.859,0:12:47.684
so every week

0:12:47.684,0:12:49.233
on during our production meeting

0:12:49.233,0:12:50.595
I also look at it,

0:12:50.595,0:12:52.898
and even before I start the meeting, I say

0:12:52.898,0:12:54.806
Okay I'm assuming everybody has updated

0:12:54.806,0:12:56.192
the due dates on the tasks.

0:12:56.192,0:12:56.955
Yeah.

0:12:56.955,0:13:00.002
It sends a big message about engagement

0:13:00.002,0:13:03.083
so accountability again is very important

0:13:03.083,0:13:05.998
and in my personal philosophy

0:13:05.998,0:13:07.559
accountability is actually

0:13:07.559,0:13:10.416
a very positive thing for organizations

0:13:10.416,0:13:12.143
because people don't like it

0:13:12.143,0:13:14.740
when someone's sitting around being lazy.

0:13:14.745,0:13:16.368
Yeah. You're totally right.

0:13:16.368,0:13:18.099
As not just the managers

0:13:18.099,0:13:19.299
but the employees as well

0:13:19.299,0:13:20.630
they feel hard done by

0:13:20.630,0:13:22.399
because hey this guy over here

0:13:22.399,0:13:23.773
he's not doing his job

0:13:23.773,0:13:25.550
and I'm working my ass off.

0:13:25.550,0:13:27.958
Yes, that's really interesting.

0:13:27.958,0:13:30.579
Were there any other significant

0:13:30.579,0:13:32.569
business problems that you solved

0:13:32.575,0:13:34.919
with Asana that you can think of?

0:13:34.919,0:13:38.302
Version control on files

0:13:38.302,0:13:41.407
so we insist that

0:13:41.407,0:13:44.910
if you update a version of a file then you

0:13:44.910,0:13:46.938
delete the one that's attached to the task

0:13:46.938,0:13:49.269
and attach the most recent one.

0:13:49.269,0:13:50.287
Right.

0:13:50.287,0:13:51.497
So it's always there.

0:13:51.497,0:13:53.182
That was a big one.

0:13:53.182,0:13:57.290
And I think this idea of

0:13:57.290,0:13:58.811
employee performance

0:13:58.811,0:14:00.404
and resource allocation

0:14:00.404,0:14:02.540
there are many indicators of that

0:14:02.540,0:14:04.392
within the system.

0:14:04.392,0:14:07.150
I would say those were the major problems.

0:14:07.464,0:14:09.669
We are probably

0:14:09.669,0:14:13.653
I'm gonna guess, 20% more efficient

0:14:13.653,0:14:16.710
in productivity because of the system,

0:14:16.710,0:14:18.018
because everybody knows

0:14:18.018,0:14:19.258
what's hanging out there

0:14:19.258,0:14:20.957
and they don't wait around for you

0:14:20.957,0:14:22.351
to tell them to do something.

0:14:22.351,0:14:24.155
There's a whole list. Right?

0:14:24.155,0:14:25.405
Yeah. Go pick something.

0:14:25.405,0:14:27.029
Yeah, that's some 20%

0:14:27.029,0:14:28.869
and that's not a small number either.

0:14:28.869,0:14:30.171
Yeah. Pretty good.

0:14:30.171,0:14:31.487
And do you...

0:14:31.487,0:14:33.391
you've touched on it a bit with

0:14:33.391,0:14:34.886
your client working things but

0:14:34.886,0:14:37.248
what kinds of work do you track in Asana?

0:14:37.248,0:14:38.380
I mean you've obviously

0:14:38.380,0:14:39.349
got the client side

0:14:39.349,0:14:41.634
that's really important in terms of

0:14:41.634,0:14:43.348
your business planning

0:14:43.348,0:14:44.558
and business project

0:14:44.558,0:14:46.103
so working on your business

0:14:46.103,0:14:47.500
rather than in your business.

0:14:47.500,0:14:48.487
Can you talk about

0:14:48.487,0:14:49.961
the different kinds of work

0:14:49.961,0:14:51.879
that you're currently tracking in Asana?

0:14:51.879,0:14:53.379
For internal projects?

0:14:53.379,0:14:54.739
Oh, just in general

0:14:54.739,0:14:56.579
like if you have to think about

0:14:56.579,0:14:58.170
or talk us through your projects,

0:14:58.170,0:15:00.823
in both internal and with clients.

0:15:00.823,0:15:02.481
What are the main things that

0:15:02.481,0:15:04.301
you're using Asana for?

0:15:04.718,0:15:07.185
It goes to the framework that we're using

0:15:07.185,0:15:08.331
so let me just talk

0:15:08.331,0:15:09.617
about that for a second.

0:15:09.724,0:15:12.950
I think that the most confusing thing

0:15:12.950,0:15:16.153
in Asana is the word, teams.

0:15:16.616,0:15:21.425
Because there is an organization,

0:15:21.425,0:15:23.455
which is the Electron Shop,

0:15:23.455,0:15:24.944
my company. Right?

0:15:24.944,0:15:26.309
Then we have teams

0:15:26.309,0:15:27.959
and our teams are organized

0:15:27.959,0:15:29.756
around clients.

0:15:29.756,0:15:31.921
We use teams as a client name

0:15:31.921,0:15:34.175
and then we have projects,

0:15:34.175,0:15:35.228
and then we have

0:15:35.228,0:15:36.858
tasks within the projects.

0:15:36.858,0:15:38.890
The reason that Asana is good for us

0:15:38.890,0:15:41.299
is because we're a digital agency,

0:15:41.299,0:15:44.533
we have multidisciplinary tasks going on.

0:15:44.533,0:15:46.406
So how do we organize

0:15:46.406,0:15:50.066
an interdisciplinary team on a project?

0:15:50.066,0:15:51.005
Right?

0:15:51.005,0:15:53.484
The types of projects that we do

0:15:53.484,0:15:55.216
and by the way Paul, when I tell you

0:15:55.216,0:15:56.949
we're gonna try out that templates

0:15:56.949,0:15:58.600
function that just came out.

0:15:58.600,0:15:59.580
Oh, great.

0:15:59.710,0:16:03.842
So that could be a website development,

0:16:03.842,0:16:08.528
could be a weekly email,

0:16:08.528,0:16:13.157
could be an integrated content calendar,

0:16:13.157,0:16:18.118
could be blog posts,

0:16:18.118,0:16:20.312
things to write,

0:16:20.312,0:16:22.640
ads, paid ads.

0:16:23.969,0:16:27.600
Really, we do a very wide range of things

0:16:27.600,0:16:30.259
and again I said Asana is very flexible.

0:16:30.259,0:16:32.956
You can pretty much track anything in it.

0:16:32.956,0:16:34.451
Let's save that in there

0:16:34.451,0:16:36.776
advertising and the right.

0:16:37.703,0:16:38.821
That's really good.

0:16:38.826,0:16:40.275
David, look, thank you so much

0:16:40.275,0:16:42.524
it's been really interesting to learn

0:16:42.524,0:16:43.701
how you're using it

0:16:43.701,0:16:45.032
and the challenges you face.

0:16:45.032,0:16:47.325
Do you have any kind of final

0:16:47.325,0:16:48.947
nuggets of advice

0:16:48.947,0:16:50.915
that you would suggest to anyone watching

0:16:50.915,0:16:52.246
like who's maybe using Asana

0:16:52.246,0:16:53.880
they're just onboarding their team

0:16:53.880,0:16:54.604
at the moment?

0:16:54.604,0:16:55.570
What would be

0:16:55.570,0:16:57.170
your couple of key bits of advice

0:16:57.170,0:16:59.000
to people getting started

0:16:59.000,0:17:00.220
in terms of how they can

0:17:00.220,0:17:02.315
just be more effective with it

0:17:02.315,0:17:05.829
or get their team using it better?

0:17:06.019,0:17:07.915
There are two.

0:17:07.915,0:17:10.420
One, you told me, which is

0:17:10.420,0:17:12.317
turn off email notifications.

0:17:12.322,0:17:13.024
Oh yeah.

0:17:13.024,0:17:14.363
But if you're gonna turn off

0:17:14.363,0:17:15.269
email notifications

0:17:15.269,0:17:17.163
then you have to follow this rule

0:17:17.163,0:17:19.545
Check your inbox every hour on the hour.

0:17:19.550,0:17:20.371
Right?

0:17:20.392,0:17:23.040
You cannot forget just let it go.

0:17:23.040,0:17:25.454
The inbox is the key starting point

0:17:25.454,0:17:26.541
to everything.

0:17:26.546,0:17:28.260
When I say that to clients

0:17:28.260,0:17:30.080
when we're working with clients

0:17:30.080,0:17:31.679
and they're adopting the system.

0:17:31.679,0:17:33.600
Check your inbox every hour on the hour.

0:17:33.600,0:17:35.946
They get much better adoption at that.

0:17:36.850,0:17:37.920
Yeah. Great tip.

0:17:37.920,0:17:39.600
I think it addresses one of

0:17:39.600,0:17:41.580
the common problems I see people facing

0:17:41.580,0:17:44.490
which is they're not sure

0:17:44.490,0:17:46.470
what am I supposed to be doing,

0:17:46.470,0:17:48.686
what am I working on right now,

0:17:48.686,0:17:50.543
where is the latest updates,

0:17:50.543,0:17:52.640
and it's that inbox and you can

0:17:52.640,0:17:54.540
really create a lot of noise and stress

0:17:54.540,0:17:56.620
for yourself by getting the emails as well

0:17:56.620,0:17:58.170
so definitely turning those off,

0:17:58.170,0:18:00.070
and then archiving those notifications

0:18:00.070,0:18:01.368
once you're done with them.

0:18:01.368,0:18:03.961
So your inbox is... really

0:18:03.961,0:18:05.958
it only contains or should only contain

0:18:05.963,0:18:07.433
the active work in progress

0:18:07.433,0:18:09.513
like comments that you're still working on

0:18:09.513,0:18:11.767
or obviously new notifications as well.

0:18:11.767,0:18:14.873
Great, thanks for the tip, David.

0:18:14.873,0:18:16.279
Thanks for having me.