Introduction to work management: Guide for growing teams

Every team juggles workflows, tasks, and business processes simultaneously. Companies are turning to tools that go beyond task management to coordinate work and communication in real time, with automation helping leaders do more with less. These ideas might feel disconnected, but they're all aspects of strategic work management.

This guide explains what work management is, how it is different from project management, why it matters for your organization, and how you can use it.

What is work management?

Work management is a way to organize an organization's workflows, including projects, ongoing processes, and daily tasks, so teams have the clarity they need to get things done. It brings together people, priorities, and plans at every level, making sure everyone knows what to do and why it matters.

Work management vs. project management

Although people sometimes conflate work management with project management, they're distinct concepts. Work management is a broad system for getting work done that includes projects, planning, and processes. It focuses on connecting teams, providing clarity, and creating workflow structures that allow stakeholders to seamlessly pass the baton and reference the same system of record.

Project management is more about the logistical steps of overseeing individual projects, like creating timelines, to-do lists, coordinating dependencies, and planning for resource management. Project management is a part of work management, but it isn't the whole thing. In a nutshell, project management looks at the tree, while work management takes in the entire forest.

What is a work management platform?

A work management platform helps organize plans, projects, and processes across your whole organization. With a central place for all work, you break down silos and make it easier for teams to track progress and work toward your biggest goals.

Work management platforms and project management software are both collaboration tools, and you'll often find reporting dashboards, Gantt charts, or Kanban boards in both. But unlike project management software, a work management platform connects all work, teams, and goals back to one another. That means every person who completes a task knows exactly how it supports the company's largest goals.

Why work management matters

When teams use too many separate tools, emails, and spreadsheets, important information can get lost. Projects slow down because it's unclear who is responsible for what, deadlines are missed because dependencies are hidden, and people spend too much time on small tasks rather than on important work. These issues show that the organization needs a better way to coordinate work.

Work management fixes this by providing a shared system that links daily tasks to larger goals. Instead of teams working separately, everyone can see how their work fits into the overall plan. This means less time spent on status updates and more time on work that helps your business grow.

Key benefits of work management

Using work management brings real benefits to your teams and your organization. Here are the main ones:

• Improved productivity: When your team has a clear view of priorities, assignments, and deadlines, they spend less time on busywork and more time on meaningful work. Automation handles repetitive tasks, so your team can focus on what matters.

• Better cross-team collaboration: Work management connects departments, so marketing, product, sales, and operations can see how their work relates to one another. This reduces silos and helps teams hand off work without friction.

• Increased visibility and accountability: Everyone knows who is doing what and by when. Managers get a clear view of workloads, progress, and potential blockers without scheduling extra status meetings.

• Streamlined processes: Repeatable workflows become templates, reducing setup time for recurring projects. Your team can standardize how work gets done without sacrificing flexibility.

• Stronger alignment with goals: Work management connects individual tasks to team and company goals, so everyone understands how their work contributes to the organization's success.

The work management process

Knowing what work management is only gets you so far. To use it, you need a clear process. Here are five steps to help you begin:

1. Identify and document your work: Begin by listing all the work your team does, from one-time projects to regular processes. This gives you a full view of what needs to be managed and helps you identify any overlaps or gaps.

2. Plan and allocate resources: After you know what work needs to be done, decide who will handle each part and what resources they need. Make sure everyone has a clear role and knows their responsibilities.

3. Prioritize and schedule: Not all work is equally important. Rank tasks and projects based on how they support your goals, then set realistic deadlines.

4. Track and monitor progress: As work continues, watch for updates, obstacles, and how workloads are balanced. Seeing progress in real time helps you fix issues early.

5. Review and optimize: After completing a project or cycle, assess what worked and what could be improved. Use what you learn to improve your processes, update templates, and make things run more smoothly next time.

Work management tools in action: an example

A few years ago at Viessmann, Professor Dr. Martin Viessmann and his son (now co-CEO), Max, realized the importance of moving the heating and refrigerations systems company into the age of smart appliances and the Internet of Things. Along with introducing product innovations, he also wanted to improve the way the company operated internally, ushering Viessmann's business and operational teams into what he calls the "age of effective collaboration."

It's no surprise that the Viessmann family values technology. Viessmann has been around for a century, and Martin and Max knew the company had to keep updating both its products and workplace to stay successful over the years.

This is where Alexander Pöllmann, Smart Office and Collaboration Manager at Viessmann, enters the story. He was responsible for planning and building the "future workplace" and bringing in "the age of effective collaboration" at Viessmann. These changes would help the company move into the world of advanced, modern appliances.

Before Alex began introducing new technologies, he spent time learning more about what the organization needed.

What did he discover? Employees needed a tool to connect, collaborate, and get more done in a company that was becoming increasingly spread out. As Viessmann grew, many people worked in different countries and time zones, making teamwork harder, especially since there was no single place for everyone to manage work across teams.

Alex's goal was to ensure a smooth, organization-wide update to the way Viessmann employees work together, a change bigger than a single project or team. A critical piece of this transformation was implementing a work management platform.

How work management makes project coordination easier

The concept of work management is growing in popularity and makes sense to many people, at least in theory. However, in practice, what does work management look like, and how does it make your team's project coordination less stressful and clearer?

As the Viessmann example highlights, a work management platform gives teams a way to easily coordinate, whether in the office or in a remote or distributed team. Let's dive into what that looks like.

Work management layers context within team collaboration, the what and the how, paired with where you and your team do work. Marrying context and collaboration doesn't happen naturally, especially in a remote environment. These three layers of your tech stack help you bring context and coordination together:

• Communication: You probably already have several communication tools and apps at your disposal, like Zoom, Slack, and email. Your team needs to find the right communication balance with these tools and decide which one should be used for what type of communication. Integrations can help reduce your tech stack, so all your tools are available in one place.

• Content: Content repositories are where you keep your information and documents. Platforms like Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive are secure places to create, save, and share your work.

• Coordination: As important as your communications tools and content repositories are, it's hard to collaborate and coordinate effectively as a team without a work management platform, like Asana. This final layer builds clarity, like who is doing what and by when, and provides context for the work your team does as a single source of truth.

Adding a coordination layer and a single source of truth to your tech stack with a work management platform is key for successful teams. It gives everyone a place to see, discuss, and work together on team priorities.

Streamline processes with work management and save time

Once your team or organization is set up with a work management solution, you can also streamline processes and save your team time and energy.

So much of the work we do involves ongoing or repeated processes, and you might not even realize it. Once you know what your team needs to accomplish and who is doing what by when, you can start to save time by standardizing how work gets done. Two approaches that help:

• Templates: Turn your repeatable processes into reusable templates so your team skips the setup phase every time.

• Automation: Use workflow automation to handle routine tasks, so your team can focus on higher-value work.

A work management system is your single source of truth

"I'm a huge proponent of having a single source of truth," says Jerod Hillard, an Asana Ambassador. "For my team, that's Asana. From within Asana, we are able to provide any necessary context and then redirect people to supplemental documents within our cloud storage platforms, financial tools, or other areas of Asana."

That clarity of work management software gives you and your team confidence, enabling everyone to make progress towards shared goals, whether you work out of an office or are distributed across time zones.

People and teams need to see how their work supports company priorities. This helps them feel empowered, engaged, and connected to what matters most. Work management gives teams this clarity and confidence to focus on their most important work.

Get started with work management

Work management gives your teams the clarity, coordination, and confidence to focus on what matters most. Whether you want to break down silos, streamline processes, or connect daily tasks to your company's main goals, a work management platform can help.

The best way to see the difference is to experience it firsthand. Get started with Asana and give your teams a single place to plan, track, and manage all their work.

Frequently asked questions about work management