Systems and methods to characterize units of work based on business objectives

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12045750-B2
Application number	US-202318449957-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 15, 2023
Priority date	Aug 18, 2020
Publication date	Jul 23, 2024
Grant date	Jul 23, 2024

Abstract

Systems and methods for units of work based on business objectives are disclosed. Exemplary implementations may: manage environment state information maintaining a collaboration environment configured to facilitate interaction by users, the environment state information defining units of work and business objectives associated with the units of work; obtain progress information, the progress information for individual business objectives conveying progress toward fulfillment of the individual business objectives; update objective records for the business objectives based on the progress information so that the progress of the business objectives is maintained by the objective records; and/or perform other operations.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system configured to manage objectives within a collaboration environment, the system comprising:
non-transitory electronic storage storing environment state information maintaining a collaboration environment, the collaboration environment being configured to facilitate interaction by users with the collaboration environment, the environment state information including a set of work unit records and an objective record, the set of work unit records describing a set of units of work managed by and/or assigned to one or more of the users within the collaboration environment, the objective record describing an objective associated with the set of units of work, the objective comprising an expectation of outcome derived from an event which is external to the collaboration environment, the objective record identifying the set of work unit records; and
one or more physical processors configured by machine-readable instructions to:
manage, by a server, the environment state information stored in the non-transitory electronic storage to facilitate the interaction by the users with the collaboration environment;
establish a network connection between the server and an external resource associated with the event;
monitor, by the server over the network connection, the external resource;
determine, based on monitoring the external resource, progress toward occurrence of the event;
determine, by the server and based on the progress toward occurrence of the event, progress information associated with the objective, the progress information conveying progress toward fulfillment of the objective, wherein a connection between the set of units of work and the objective is indirect in that completion of at least one unit of work in the set of units of work has no direct impact on the progress toward fulfillment of the objective because the progress toward fulfillment of the objective is based on the progress toward occurrence of the event; and
update, by the server, the objective record based on the progress information so that the progress toward fulfillment of the objective is maintained by the objective record.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the progress toward fulfillment of the objective is specified as a quantitative value.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the quantitative value is a percentage of completion of the objective.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more physical processors are further configured by the machine-readable instructions to:
effectuate presentation of a view of the objective record in a user interface of the collaboration environment through which the users interact with the collaboration environment, the view including:
a description of the objective;
a representation of the set of units of work associated with the objective; and
a status indicator for the objective conveying the progress toward fulfillment of the objective.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein a unit of work in the set of units of work is a project associated with a set of tasks.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein a unit of work in the set of units of work is a task comprising one or more actions an individual user is expected to accomplish.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more physical processors are further configured by the machine-readable instructions to:
establish an other network connection between the server and a remotely located client computing platform associated with a user;
effectuate communication of information from the server to the remotely located client computing platform via the other network connection so that the remotely located client computing platform presents a user interface of the collaboration environment through which the user interacts with the collaboration environment, wherein the user interacts with the collaboration environment by providing user input into the user interface indicating the progress toward fulfillment of the objective;
monitor, by the server, the environment state information to determine updates to the environment state information that impact the progress toward fulfillment of the objective;
determine, by the server and further based on monitoring the environment state information, the progress information.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more physical processors are further configured by the machine-readable instructions to:
determine when the progress toward fulfillment of the objective is at or below a progress threshold;
correlate occurrence of the progress toward fulfillment of the objective being at or below the progress threshold with one or more units of work in the set of units of work; and
generate and present a notification including an identification of the one or more of units of work correlated with the occurrence of the progress toward fulfillment of the objective being at or below the progress threshold.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the objective record is included in an objective record hierarchy such that the objective record is subordinate to a second objective record.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the second objective record is included in a second objective record hierarchy such that the second objective record is subordinate to a third objective record.

11. A method to manage objectives within a collaboration environment, the method being implemented in a computer system comprising non-transitory electronic storage storing environment state information and one or more physical processors configured by machine-readable instructions, such that execution of the machine-readable instructions causes the one or more physical processors to perform the method comprising:
managing, by a server, the environment state information stored by the non-transitory electronic storage, the environment state information maintaining the collaboration environment, the collaboration environment being configured to facilitate interaction by users with the collaboration environment, the environment state information including a set of work unit records and an objective record, the set of work unit records describing a set of units of work managed by and/or assigned to one or more of the users within the collaboration environment, the objective record describing an objective associated with the set of units of work, the objective comprising an expectation of outcome derived from an event which is external to the collaboration environment, the objective record identifying the set of work unit records;
establishing a network connection between the server and an external resource associated with the event;
monitoring, by the server over the network connection, the external resource;
determining, based on the monitoring the external resource, progress toward occurrence of the event;
determining, by the server and based on the progress toward occurrence of the event, progress information associated with the objective, the progress information conveying progress toward fulfillment of the objective, wherein a connection between the set of units of work and the objective is indirect in that completion of at least one unit of work in the set of units of work has no direct impact on the progress toward fulfillment of the objective because the progress toward fulfillment of the objective is based on the progress toward occurrence of the event; and
updating, by the server, the objective record based on the progress information so that the progress toward fulfillment of the objective is maintained by the objective record.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the progress toward fulfillment of the objective is specified as a quantitative value.

Assignees

• Asana Inc

Inventors

• Garg Anirudh
• Clifton Anna Marie
• Gribskov Alena Ruby
• Small Catherine Louise
• Whitney Savannah Joy
• Shu Michelle Wenchuan

Classifications

• G06Q10/063114

  Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group · CPC title

• G06Q10/06375

  Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change · CPC title

• G06F3/0482

  Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus · CPC title

• G06Q10/06313

  Resource planning in a project environment · CPC title

• G06F3/0481

  based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance · CPC title