Most people who work in a team know the feeling. A big chunk of your day is gone before you get to the actual work. Status meetings. Searching through emails. Trying to track down a file. All to answer one question, where are we, and what do we do next?
The root cause is almost always the same, a lack of clarity. People don't know what their priorities are, how their work fits into the bigger picture, or whether what they're doing right now is the most important thing.
The Pyramid of Clarity is Asana's answer to that problem.
What is the Pyramid of Clarity?
It's not a feature — it's the underlying philosophy that shaped how Asana was built and how they believe work should be structured.
Think of it as a hierarchy, similar to a company org chart. At the top is your company's mission. Below that sit your objectives, initiatives, and key results. Underneath those are your projects, and inside your projects you have tasks, milestones, and subtasks.
The idea is that every piece of work connects upward. Complete a task, and you're making progress on a project. Complete the project, and you're advancing a goal. Advance enough goals, and you're moving toward the mission.
How it maps to Asana
The clearest way to see the Pyramid of Clarity in practice is through Asana's Goals feature, and specifically the strategy map.
The strategy map lays out your mission at the top, with goals, portfolios, and projects cascading down below it. It actually looks like a pyramid.
Note that you need to be on the advanced plan in order to use the strategy map – chat to us to make sure you get the best possible deal.
Mission at the top
At MinorCo, the mission is to help businesses build better systems. We help clients sell smarter with Pipedrive, work cleaner with Asana, and automate the work in between. That mission sits at the top of the strategy map and drives everything below it.
Goals
Beneath the mission sit goals. Some teams call these OKRs or initiatives — Asana calls them goals.
Progress against a goal is measured by connecting projects to it. At MinorCo, one goal is to build an owned audience that no algorithm can take away. Four projects are connected to that goal: search, email, YouTube, and social.
As tasks are completed inside those projects, the progress automatically increments the goal completion. You don't need to update anything manually. The work itself drives the progress.
If you have specific KPIs — a sales target you're trying to hit, for example — you can attach those to goals directly as an alternative way to track progress. There's a separate video covering all the ways to create and configure goals. [LINKS: link to goals setup video]
Portfolios
Portfolios sit beneath goals in the hierarchy. A portfolio is a collection of projects. Think of it as a high-level dashboard — one you can share with stakeholders — showing whether each project is on track, at risk, what the percentage completion is, and whether there are any overdue tasks.
At MinorCo, the marketing channels portfolio is connected to the audience goal. Multiple portfolios can sit under a single goal, depending on how many collections of work are contributing to it.
Projects, tasks, milestones and subtasks
Inside those portfolios are the projects themselves. And inside the projects are the tasks, milestones, and subtasks — the level where work is actually assigned and managed day to day.
Every task should trace to the mission
This is the core idea. Simple, but easy to miss.
Every task you're working on, you should be able to trace a line from that task all the way up to the company's mission. If you can't, it's worth asking: is that the right thing to be working on?
When everything is connected in Asana, completing a task updates the project, which updates the goal, which updates the mission progress. Everyone from the frontline worker to the executive team is kept in the loop in real time.
Getting Asana structured correctly
This clarity doesn't happen automatically. It requires Asana to be structured the right way. When it isn't — goals, projects, and tasks sitting in isolation — the pyramid breaks down and you're back to chasing status updates manually.
Getting that structure right is something we help with regularly. We've gone into client accounts and had to reorganise things to make the connections work.
Asana vs alternatives
There are alternatives to Asana. But after helping hundreds of businesses bridge the gap between what someone is doing today and the company's quarterly or annual targets, we haven't found another tool with a similar connected hierarchy. That additional clarity is what unlocks real efficiency and helps teams do their best work.
It's the underlying philosophy behind how Asana was built. It's a hierarchy that connects your company's mission at the top, down through goals, portfolios, projects, tasks, milestones, and subtasks. The idea is that every piece of daily work connects upward to the company's strategy.
No. The strategy map feature is part of Asana's Advanced plan. You can request a quote below.
A portfolio is a collection of projects. It acts as a high-level dashboard showing whether projects are on track, the percentage complete, and any overdue tasks. Portfolios are typically nested under goals in the Pyramid of Clarity hierarchy.
Yes. If you have specific numeric targets — like a sales figure — you can attach those KPIs directly to a goal instead of, or alongside, connected projects.
Yes! Book a call with our team and we will get the ball rolling.
Want Help Setting This Up?
If you’d like help implementing this in your own workflows, you can book a call with our team.