87% of workers would take the chance to work flexibly if it’s offered, according to a recent article by McKinsey & Company, “Americans are Embracing Flexible Work – and They Want More of It.” That means there’s a strong desire for efficient and effective asynchronous work, defined as the ability to work toward collaborative projects without having to engage in real time for all or a portion of hours.
Some benefits of asynchronous work include:
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Enhanced work-life balance
Better work balance means more rest and/or quality time, as well as more flexibility for unexpected personal appointments because there is no commute and less need to prepare meals before heading out the door.
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High-trust environments
High trust environments (necessary for asynchronous work) enhance staff autonomy and empowerment, which yields higher quality of work. In fact, Harvard Business Review states employees in high-trust environments experience 40% less burnout than people at low-trust companies in their 2017 article, “The Neuroscience of Trust.”
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Increased diversity and inclusion
Asynchronous work can make it possible for individuals with disabilities, caregiving needs, or who live in distant geographies to participate in the workplace.
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Reduced number of meetings
Fewer meetings means more time spent on completing work tasks rather than talking about work.
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Cost savings for both employer and employee
Cost savings include commuting costs, facilities rent and maintenance (if the organization is fully remote), and office lunches.
If you’re ready to take the leap into asynchronous work or you have already started and are looking for some tips, this article will focus on four project management processes that clarify expectations, keep everyone informed, and provide a framework for reflection and learning.
Tip 1: Create a Team Charter
A team charter guides your team’s work, by establishing, and shining a light on, the sometimes-unspoken expectations and boundaries of a team’s practices and processes. A team charter helps remove assumptions and replaces them with clarity and intentional guidance, which is integral to building trust and successful asynchronous work.
Specifically, a team charter acts as a written record of:
- Why the team exists
- Who is on the team and what their roles and accountabilities are
- How the team agrees to work together, including decision-making protocols, communication guidelines, and other elements as needed
Your team charter is a living document, meant to be updated at regular intervals as needs dictate. By discussing and co-designing the charter, the entire team builds cohesion and shared understanding from the start. A bonus of the team charter is that it also acts as a tool for navigating conflicts or difficult conversations that may arise during work.
Download a Team Charter Template
Start building clarity and trust with our team charter template. For a dynamic approach, try tools like Miro, ClickUp, or other collaboration platforms to fit your team’s style.
Tip 2: Kick off Work with a Project Brief
It’s easy to allow the details of a given project to exist exclusively in select staff members’ inboxes, but that can inhibit progress if a particular person is out of office. Instead, consider using a project brief, which is a shared short description of the key elements and requirements of a given project.
Project briefs summarize core information for quick and easy reference, creating a single source of truth, which is vital for successful asynchronous work. By filling out a project brief and gaining appropriate supervisory sign-off on the document, teams can reduce misunderstandings, air out assumptions, and catch potential conflicts before they become larger issues. Additionally, accountability is enhanced by naming and establishing roles for various tasks at the outset.
There is no single format that fits all projects in all sectors, but there are some frequently used elements:
- 1-2 sentence summary of the project
- Single paragraph summary of background or context
- Objectives and key results, or goals and deliverables
- Budget
- List of stakeholders and important contacts arranged by who is accountable, responsible, consulted, and informed (sometimes referred to as an ARCI or RACI chart)
- Link to key folders and files
- Scope (listing what is specifically included in this project, and what is specifically not a part of this project, to prevent scope creep)
- Timeline of key milestones
- Brief summary of evaluation plans
- Open questions
When crafting a project brief, it is best to avoid jargon and strive to make the document as concise as possible. The audience for this document includes both team members and management who don’t have the time or need to review all project details. The process of writing the project brief can and should include consultation with all those collaborating on the project to find agreement on key elements such as scope, budget, and timeline.
Tip 3: Share Status Updates
In an in-person workplace, providing verbal status updates in real time during team meetings is a common practice. In contrast, when working asynchronously, status updates are a quick and easy way to share vital information to the entire team working on the project. These written updates support enhanced accountability by providing a space where staff can easily reference project progress and updates, ask questions and tag colleagues, and flag any concerns on the project.
While status updates are not intended as a replacement for meetings, they can certainly reduce the number and length of your team meetings by allowing staff to read up on projects when it best fits their schedules, rather than listening to verbal summaries during meetings. The time freed up by status updates allows staff to focus on truly collaborative work when they meet.
Some projects benefit from frequent (daily or weekly) status updates, while others may rely on an infrequent cadence, such as once a month. It is best to discuss the frequency with your team and adjust as needed.
These written status updates often include:
- What has been recently accomplished
- Challenges encountered or expected
- Next steps or actions
Status updates should be collected in a single location for easy reference. Project management software, such as Asana, Teamwork.com, and Zoho Projects, allow you to post status updates within the virtual project workspace.
Tip 4: Hold Retrospectives to Improve Processes
Lastly, wrapping up a project asynchronously can be enhanced with a retrospective, which is a collaborative activity at the end of a project. It collects input and reflections from everyone who contributed. This includes feedback from those who were accountable, responsible, consulted, and informed throughout the process. With each retrospective, the team gets better at project scoping, or analyzing how much time and resource a project will need.
Additionally, teams can use retrospectives to develop and iterate templates that help make all future work more efficient based on learnings from current projects. Through retrospectives, a team’s work keeps getting more and more efficient.
There is no single format that fits all projects in all sectors, but the retrospective should answer fundamental questions including:
- What worked well? What were our successes?
- What were the challenges? What held us back?
- How could we do things differently? What actions do we need to take before our next project to build on what we learned, or update processes and procedures?
Download a Retrospective Worksheet
Get started with our shared retrospective worksheet to reflect and improve your team’s processes. For a more interactive approach, explore tools like Miro, ClickUp, or other collaboration platforms.
Conclusion
Altogether, these four project management processes help teams work asynchronously by setting expectations (team charters and project briefs), keeping everyone informed (status updates), and providing a framework for reflection and learning (retrospectives).
The best way to tie these processes together is with the project management software of your choosing, so all relevant project materials can be found in a single location. All communication can happen within the software to decrease the number of emails and connect conversations directly to tasks, updates, and more.
To avoid overloading your team with a lot of change all at once, it’s advisable to add these tools one at a time. Together, your team can reflect on the tools and iterate as they go, customizing the processes to the unique elements of your individual organization.