It seems like every team across a variety of industries is always looking for ways to tighten up their project management in order to help organize their workforce and deliver products effectively and on time.
And because of this ever-present need from companies, a lot of technology has cropped up to do just that: help project managers manage more effectively by providing an easy to access, simple to use platforms that make communication and transparency easier every day.
Two such platforms, Slack and Asana, are often mentioned as accessible solutions that teams can jump onto and use effectively from day one.
However, is one better than the other? Let’s dive in and take a deeper look at each from a project manager’s point of view.
What is Asana?
Asana is basically a cloud-based software platform that allows team members within an organization to track and manage the entire progress of projects. “Tasks” can be created to monitor the larger individual components of a larger project, and each can be assigned to a person or people within an organization, with timeframes and the breakdown of task requirements listed right within the task itself.
Team members can add tasks, assign them to others, set and adjust due dates, and get notified of the status of tasks and deadlines all in one central and easy to navigate dashboard – or from within their own inbox.
With a simple user interface and gamified flourishes meant to make hitting deadlines fun, Asana is one of the most popular project management platforms.
How Does Slack Work?
Slack is a messaging platform that divides conversations into channels. IN Slack, teams can more effectively work together by plugging in a variety of software tools and services so that all of the information they need to successfully complete a task (and have meaningful conversations around it) is in one central spot.
With Slack users can:
- Send messages and share files in channels that can be broken up according to the project or task.
- Search their history to easily find files and information on their channels and all public channels
- Connect apps to a workspace to keep everything centralized and stay productive on one platform
- Make voice or video calls with other members of their workspace for easy real-time communication on the fly
- Screen share and draw on the screens they are sharing
Project Management vs Easy Communication
The main difference between Asan and Slack is this: while Asana is more of a project management platform, Slack is an excellent communication tool.
This means that while on Asana you have effective file and user management features as well as scheduling tools and organizational templates, you don’t get text messages, video or audio call capabilities or time tracking. Meanwhile, on Slack, you’ll have messaging capabilities alongside voice/video chats, group messaging, file sharing, announcement functionality, and the ability to handle various workspaces, you won’t get the ability to share/assign tasks, scheduling or time tracking.
Each platform is quite different, so if you need to choose one over the other, you’ll need to decide whats’s more important to your project.
For example, do you need something that will help you manage and assign tasks (Asana) or something to help you communicate more effectively with your team (Slack)?
What if I Want to Use Both?
For those who want the best of both worlds, Slack and Asana delivering by creating plugins on each of their platforms.
If you are already an Asana user, and wish to add Slack to the mix, you can do so here.
With Asana’s Slack integration you can:
- Act on tasks right from notifications or an Asana link
- See task details, complete tasks, change the assignee and/or due date, add it to a project, or open it in Asana
- Get notifications on work happening in Asana
- Link an Asana project to a specific Slack channel
- Create new tasks in Asana from Slack
- Turn a Slack message into a task in Asana
If you are already using Slack and need an Asana integration for the app, you can find it here.
With Slack’s Asana integration you can:
- Create new tasks and turn Slack messages into tasks
- Add messages to existing tasks
- Take action on tasks
- See task details, complete tasks, change assignees or due dates, and add tasks
- Get notifications
- Link Asana projects to Slack channels
- Set Asana projects to post update notifications in channels
By integrating the two, you get the magic of task making and project management with the convenience of the instant communication needed to make projects run effortlessly.
Are There Other Options?
While Slack and Asana both on their own and together are great options to help project managers and their teams stay in constant contact and on task, they aren’t your only options.
Many project managers also enjoy using project management platforms such as Monday, Basecamp, Trello, and Jira. In terms of team communication, while some teams use platforms like Skype or Whatsapp, Slack tends to be a crowd favorite, due to its numerous integrations with a myriad of other project management platforms.
For example, Slack integrates seamlessly with Jira, and Bitband offers an easy-to-use plugin that helps teams use Slack and Jira together for an amazing project management experience.
With the help of Bitband, users can:
- Customize Slack notification messages
- Have group notifications with Slack threads
- Instantly create new Slack channels linked to your Jira issues without leaving Jira
- Share comments and events on issues on Slack channels
- Trigger notifications with events and fine-tune with JQL
- Send to Slack channels, private channels, and direct messages
- Filter notifications by priority, resolution, status, type, assignee, reporter, sprint
- Etc.
At the end of the day, using platforms that your team already has a certain comfort level can be a lot easier than starting from scratch. If you are already using Jira for project management, adding Asana into the mix might not be the right play. However, looking for ways to integrate platforms together will help your team save time and allow them to work from the platform they’re most comfortable with.
Have questions about how your team can best utilize Jira or Slack? We can help! Drop us a line today.
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