Who to add as followers in Asana
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Followers of tasks receive inbox and email notifications (according to their personal settings). So who exactly should be listed as followers in an Asana task?
You really shouldn’t add everybody as a follower because then everyone receives way too many notifications (akin to being Cc’d: in email way too frequently about irrelevant subjects).
Followers should fit in the following 4 groups:
- Supervisor(s) of task
- Team members who are participating in task
- Team members who might want to participate in a discussion related to task
- Team members who need to be notified upon task completion
1. Supervisor(s) of task
Anyone who needs to monitor a specific task or project for quality control or other purposes should follow a task. This way they have access to the status of the task, as well as the ability to chime in to the discussion.
For project managers (as opposed to someone overseeing just a specific assigned task), you should probably become a project member and leave the checkbox ticked during that process, which will in turn automatically notify of you all new tasks within that project so you can easily choose to follow the important tasks.
2. Team members who are participating in task
Anyone who has any role in completing the task should follow the task. That way they get notified if the manager/supervisor adds details or if the deadline changes.
3. Team members who might want to participate in a discussion related to task
Is there someone who has done this task before who may want to weigh in? A higher-level executive paying special attention to this task? If there is someone who wants to see status updates or may want to contribute to conversation when questions are asked, make sure to add him or her.
4. Team members who need to be notified upon task completion
Anyone who needs to know immediately when a task is completed should follow a task. That way they are kept up to speed on the task’s progress and will receive a notification instantly upon the task’s completion.
