An Asana Center of Excellence (CoE) isn’t just about governance—it’s about making sure Asana becomes an embedded, efficient, and scalable way of working. Without a CoE, teams often reinvent processes, run into inconsistencies, and struggle with adoption. With one, you get:
" Over the years working at Asana across various industries and company sizes, I’ve noticed a common trend among the most successful Asana customers - they have a Centre of Excellence. This often begins as a Community of Practice, a small but engaged group of champions sharing best practices, and naturally evolves into a structured hub for knowledge, governance, and scaling adoption.
As Asana becomes more ingrained in an organisation’s workflows, a Centre of Excellence enhances cross-team collaboration, drives consistency in best practices, and ensures long-term adoption. Without it, organisations risk losing valuable knowledge and momentum - especially when the primary Asana expert moves on, gets busy, or shifts roles. The burden of maintaining and evolving processes shouldn't fall on one person alone.
More than just a group of experts, a Centre of Excellence serves as a guiding force, continuously asking: Why are we using Asana? What problem are we solving? How can we do it better? Just as importantly, it ensures we regularly assess how we're tracking towards our goals - are we improving efficiency, reducing bottlenecks, and driving real impact? By keeping these questions at the forefront, teams stay aligned with their objectives and ensure Asana is used intentionally to support success - not just as another tool in the stack.
A Centre of Excellence not only distributes responsibility but also helps teams adapt to change - whether that’s shifts in company strategy, evolving workflows, or new Asana features. Just as businesses grow and transform, so must the way we collaborate. Investing in a Centre of Excellence ensures that Asana remains a powerful enabler of efficiency, innovation, and teamwork - now and in the future."- Angeline Chow, Asana Enterprise Account Executive - Public Sector, Education & Not for Profit
At its core, a CoE drives governance, training, optimisation, and innovation in Asana. This means:
Unlike short-term initiatives to launch Asana adoption, a CoE is a long-term, evolving function that adapts as the company’s needs and ways of working evolve.
1. Define the Vision & Scope – What’s the purpose of your CoE? What problems will it solve?
Define the goals and vision for your CoE. Understand the pain points it will address and the value it will bring to your organisation. Ensure these goals align with your overall business strategy and gain buy-in from leadership.
2. Secure Executive Buy-In – Leadership support ensures adoption and resources.
A CoE needs strong executive backing to ensure that it aligns with the organisation’s broader goals. Executive sponsors help drive the importance of Asana as a strategic tool and ensure that the CoE has the resources and visibility it needs to thrive.
3. Assemble the Right People – Select key champions across teams.
Who from each Asana-using vertical and horizontal team should be involved? Who from other areas of the business should be part of the CoE? Assemble a diverse team that includes individuals with expertise in project management, change management, process optimisation, and IT.
The CoE should welcome participation from all teams, not just Asana users. These get-togethers provide a great opportunity to showcase the value of Asana, share success stories, and engage teams that are not yet on the Asana journey, helping to drive broader adoption and awareness of how Asana can support collaboration.
4. Set Governance & Best Practices – Outline how Asana should be used consistently.
Establish a governance framework that defines roles, responsibilities, and processes for managing Asana across teams. Regular check-ins, performance reviews, and process iterations help keep your workflows aligned with organisational needs. The CoE ensures these processes are scalable and adaptable as the organisation grows.
5. Create a Training & Support Plan - Ensure teams have access to learning resources.
One of the CoE's key roles is to foster a culture of knowledge sharing. Creating a centralised repository for best practices, templates and workflows helps employees across departments learn from each other and optimise their use of Asana.
6. Establish Continuous Improvement Loops - Gather feedback and evolve processes as needed.
Schedule regular meetings and workshops for knowledge sharing, best practices, and feature updates. Ensure that teams have the resources they need to optimise Asana and continue improving workflows. The CoE should be living, breathing initiative that adapts over time.
An Asana CoE isn’t about policing use—it’s about empowering teams to work better, together.
With the right structure, governance, and support, Asana becomes more than just a tool—it becomes the backbone of how work gets done.
Start by identifying your champions, defining your standards, and getting leadership on board. The impact will be felt across every project, team, and initiative.
We’re here to help! If you’d like our expertise and best practices for formalising your Asana practices and making Asana the cornerstone of your organisation’s ongoing success, reach out to us and we can chat through your goals and next steps together.