Product launches

How to create a product launch project in Asana

There are a few ways to create your project. To get started quickly:

Start with our product launch template and customize it for your team’s needs.
Import an existing spreadsheet where you currently manage launches.
Create a unique project for each of your launches. In the reporting section below you’ll learn how to manage them in one view.

How to access all Asana templates

If you’re a free user, prefer to build your own launch project from scratch, or want general best practices for Asana projects get started here.

Tips for managing your launch

1. Map out your launch (and adjust as things come up) with Timeline

Most launch plans have critical deadlines and dependencies leading up to your go-live date. Timeline helps you map these out in your plan before you start to ensure all the pieces fit together for a seamless launch.

How to create your plan with Timeline:

Create tasks for all your launch to-dos in List View.
Click the Timeline tab at the top of your project to switch into Timeline View.
Schedule tasks by dragging and dropping them onto the timeline. If you spot timing conflicts, move tasks to reschedule them.
Add start and due dates so assignees can better budget their time to work on it leading up to the deadline.
If tasks need to be completed in a certain order, create dependencies between them by hovering over a task, then dragging the dot to a related task to connect them.

Once work is underway, Timeline can also help you quickly address conflicts before they derail your plan. For example, if getting beta participants takes longer than expected, you can shift dependent tasks in Timeline. Task assignees automatically get notified that their deadlines have been adjusted. Work starts at the right time—without causing confusion, extra meetings, or a mad scramble after it’s already too late.

2. Make communication clearer with central status updates

With so much cross-functional collaboration required for a launch, it can be tempting to include everyone on every meeting or email thread. But that can actually lead to more miscommunications and wasted time.

Instead, commit to having a teammate provide a regular status update in Progress View. These updates will go to every project member, and show up in a portfolio. You can @mention teammates, tasks, and other projects to ping them and provide context.

To draft faster status updates, create project milestones to keep tabs on major launch goals or critical phases of work that need to be completed, right from Progress View. Then you can easily reference them in your updates—whether they’re complete or at risk.

3. Create actionable feedback directly on product mock-ups

Being able to provide and incorporate feedback on mocks and assets more easily can be the difference between a splashy launch and shouting into the wind. Proofing in Asana makes it easy for reviewers to comment directly on visual assets so feedback is provided in context. Each comment turns into an actionable subtask that the creator can then decide how to incorporate.

Paired with our Adobe Creative Cloud integration, creators can pull up the feedback directly in Illustrator, Photoshop, or InDesign to guide them, and save time on context and tool switching.

4. Save time on future launches and never miss important steps with templates

Every launch is unique, but typically they share a core checklist. Instead of losing time recreating it or keeping it in a doc that’s disconnected from actionable work, you can build and save your launch template in Asana.

Build your core launch checklist in a project. Unless the same person completes the same task every time, do not assign tasks or add due dates.
Click the ... in the project header and choose Save Project as a Template.
Prevent edits or changes to the template by making it a comment-only project
For every launch moving forward, use your template by clicking the orange + button, Project, then heading to the tab for your organization’s saved templates.
As you continue to refine your launch checklist, you can update your template to prevent the same mistakes or outdated tactics.

5. Keep real-time conversations on launch day actionable with the Slack integration

Many teams use both Asana and Slack to coordinate and communicate about launches—especially on launch day. Instead of picking one tool or the other, teams can use them together with the Asana for Slack integration.

If a teammate Slacks you about a broken link in the blog post, you can create an Asana task right from the Slack conversation so you don’t forget and the assignee has all the original context to get it resolved.

Tips for reporting on event work and progress

To learn how to create reports to analyze progress towards a launch, start here.

To learn how to post and keep track of status updates for your launch, start here.

1. Monitor progress and manage staffing across launches with Portfolios and Workload

To understand progress towards a launch and gauge team bandwidth, product managers and leaders usually piece together information in meetings, emails, or spreadsheets, which can be time consuming and inaccurate. Instead, create a project portfolio with all your product launch projects to see real-time progress, launch dates, and priority all in one place.

Then use the Workload tab to visualize the product marketing team’s capacity across launches based on tasks they’re already assigned in Asana. Workload helps you make informed staffing decisions to keep workloads balanced and launches on track.

Workload defaults to task count, but we know not all tasks are created equally. You can set up effort custom fields across portfolio projects to get a better sense of the total hours or effort level going into each task.

2. Manage priorities and organize launch work with custom fields

If you’re used to spreadsheets, you might sort and filter columns so it’s easier to see key details. Custom fields are a much more powerful replacement, because they track this information in context with the work (instead of a place that only the project manager can see.)

For example, if you add a “priority” custom field to your launch project, you can prioritize each task so every teammate is clear on where they should focus their attention. Then you can sort your project by priority to see highest priority tasks at the top to make sure they’re on track.

You can also see your tasks on Timeline by custom field to help you better visualize plans and spot blockers based on color.

3. See at-risk work and follow up with teammates in advanced search reports

Another benefit of using custom fields to track priorities and task status is that this information feeds into advanced search reports. Advanced search reports pull information from all your work in Asana to help you answer questions like “what priorities are at risk?”, “what work is waiting on feedback?” in real time—without you having to manually search or compile it.

While you can create search reports for just about anything, at-risk work reports and approvals reports can help you spot launch blockers before they happen. From the report, you can also follow up with task assignees and stakeholders directly by commenting on the task.

To learn how to create other types of advanced search reports, start here.

Resources for product launches

Want more tips? More of a visual learner? Want to see how customers like you manage product launches? Check out these resources:

Resources for product launchesLinkProduct launch templateUse templateOn-demand courseRegister for Asana AcademyCase studies & webinarsSee how Stance, Figma, and Givenchy manage product launches with AsanaProduct launch tips blogRead blogConnect with CommunityAttend an upcoming training or start a thread on our community forum

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