Morning Coworking opens and operates successful Parisian coworking spaces with Asana

The modern workplace is changing all the time, with remote workers, small teams, and entrepreneurs shaping the future of work and collaboration. Companies like Morning Coworking are enhancing that future with their coworking spaces that foster comfort and convenience, as well as community and connections. And this type of workspace is working—Morning Coworking currently runs 20 spaces across Paris, with five more locations opening by the end of 2018.

This is no small feat, as Morning Coworking’s head of operations, Tania Boros, already knows. Tania works with her team of four to coordinate all 20 locations, as well as the employees based there. They have worked hard to build the perfect process to open new locations and make sure they’re thriving.

Charged with moving fast while still being mindful of people, process, and purpose, they rely on Asana to ensure that all three are working in harmony so that anyone from around the city (or world) can count on the collaborative, productive space Morning Coworking creates.

The keys to successful spaces

Fostering spaces where great people (and their ideas) interact and work takes plenty of coordination and trust. The Morning Coworking team needs to stay on the same page when securing, staffing, and successfully operating their spaces—all while moving as fast as possible. Tania has her hands full, but luckily Asana helps keep her mind at ease.

Move fast with templates

Most companies need to move quickly to stay ahead of the competition and achieve their ambitious goals, but for Morning Coworking, speed is especially important, impacting their bottom line. “Some spaces are only leased to us for two to three years, so we need to get them up and running as soon as we can to start generating income,” says Tania.

To open a space, Tania and her team need to secure permits, sign leases, coordinate construction, select furnishings, install technical configurations, and so much more. “With Asana, we’ve got the whole process of opening a new space down to one to three months. Now we can open various spaces at once, thanks to Asana and our building partners and suppliers (who have even shortened their delivery times!). Instead of opening one space at a time, we can now open four spaces at once.”

With so many distinct and important pieces to keep track of, how does Morning Coworking manage to do it in a mere matter of weeks? It’s all about templates.

Tania’s team uses the same template for each new location to make sure that nothing gets forgotten, and so they can quickly get started on a new project by just copying the template. Each project section groups related tasks for admin, IT, architecture, logistics, and more. This makes it easier to find information once the project is underway—instead of trying to dig through email and documents.

The Morning Coworking team also uses custom fields to show which stage a task is in so Tania can quickly glance at the project without asking for status updates across dozens of tasks. Paired with task dependencies, it’s easy for everyone to know what to be working on, when. “Asana truly helps us feel confident that everybody is working on the right part of the plan at the right time.”

Buildings that Tania’s team works with are usually vacant for months or years before Morning Coworking takes them over. At times, properties are in poor condition before they get a makeover. Here’s a look at the before and after of a couple of their spaces:

Onboard and empower employees in every office

But once a space is opened, the pace doesn’t slow down. With only one employee staffed at each space, there are countless tasks to ensure everything from IT needs to community engagement are handled properly. Morning Coworking also wants to ensure that each employee feels prepared to handle any situation and empowered to own their role to improve the spaces—both things that Asana helps them achieve.

One of the key components of Morning Coworking’s success once a space is launched is the onboarding process for “Morning managers.” Morning managers are responsible for taking care of any needs and issues that arise in a given workspace. “Our Morning managers are the glue that holds the spaces together and help grow the community,” says Tania. Once again, templates come to the rescue.

“Asana is really helpful with onboarding because we can create a template to ensure that we’ve trained them on everything, and the managers can reference the project again if they have questions.”

The template makes processes and best practices clear—and they’re easy to find because they’re all in Asana. The template also helps Morning Coworking move fast, so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel for each new manager or risk forgetting something. Managers are better equipped to respond to any situation and know they’re doing it right, which helps them take on more responsibilities with less stress.

When issues and questions do arise, managers can turn to Asana for solutions. For example, managers might wonder what the process is to purchase equipment or who to get budget information from. The Morning Coworking team has projects for each unique coworking space to keep track of action items, the process for checking in new clients, and upcoming events.

They also track and manage budgets and invoices with Asana for a smoother closing each month. This helps Tania focus on key priorities to quickly answer questions and find solutions, which just wasn’t possible via email and chat.

“Asana makes it so easy to keep track of every detail without adding complexity. We use it to manage invoices and make sure there aren’t inconsistencies. We can submit reports and expenses on time every month knowing there aren’t mistakes.”

Keep track of top goals

With new problems to tackle at any given workspace, it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day details and lose sight of bigger goals. That can mean running the risk of losing the comfort and consistency Morning Coworking is known for, or eventually leading to Morning managers feeling disengaged if they don’t see how their work contributes to the bigger picture.

Morning Coworking is here to create a sensational community and ensure people are having great experiences in the coworking space. That’s true for our clients, as well as our own employees. Asana helps us make sure we’re serving both.”

Luckily Tania and her team are one step ahead with their objectives and key results (OKR) goal tracking project in Asana. The project tracks the company’s larger goals like certifying spaces as one hundred percent green (due to energy use, recycling, and more) and opening one coworking space per month in 2019, as well as individuals’ big goals.

Every month or so, the team reviews the OKRs to see how they’re pacing against them and to come up with solutions if anything is off track or needs updating. They also review employees’ goals and surface upcoming projects that might be relevant to their growth.

Fast and meaningful success

In just a few short years, Morning Coworking has set a new standard for workspaces by providing comfortable spaces with caring employees and a clientele that believes in their community. With even more locations opening, Tania’s team is ready to move quickly, while still being thoughtful about each step of the process, with their eye on big goals.

Thanks to Asana, Morning Coworking can focus on the right details, with a mind for the big picture, to ensure they’re the fastest growing and most loved coworking space in Paris.