Passing The Buck? Stop the drop-bys: how to master the work request

Stop the drop-bys: how to master the work request

By Nikki Henderson Dec 12, 2017 2

We’ve all had an Office Space moment: when someone drops by your desk to give you a new project and needs it by tomorrow—and it’s not greeeeat. Or maybe your designer was working on a “quick project” for sales that you didn’t even know about.

 

 

 

 

Create a template for incoming requests

A work request is any type of “ask” or to-do from around your organization for your team, as compared to project work your team is already aware of and working on. They seem easy enough, but often lack the details to be tackled effectively, getting your team off track and wasting time.

Instead, you can create a better system to capture and prioritize work requests by making a request template. First, start thinking about what information is most important when making new requests of your team. For example, you might want to have requesters indicate the goals, format, timeline, or stakeholders.

Next, get your template in a format that’s easy for requesters to fill out. In Asana, that could be creating a template task in a project with custom fields. You could also try a Wufoo or Google form (which both integrate with Asana.) Make sure the template is in an easily accessible place so anyone in your organization can find and use it.