Asana & Trello
A PM metrics deep-dive into Asana and Trello — north star definition, supporting hierarchy, rejection rationale, and guardrails for two divergent takes on collaborative work management.
The Problem
PMs often struggle to define clear north star metrics and supporting hierarchies for divergent collaborative work management platforms, leading to misaligned product guardrails.
Business Outcome
Provided actionable guardrails for product teams to align on north star metrics and prevent feature bloat.
This is not an endorsement of how either company actually measures itself — it's how I'd think through the metric question if asked in an interview or brought onto the team. The same 6-step exercise is run twice below: once for Asana, once for Trello — two products solving collaborative work management in fundamentally different ways.
Asana · Step 1 of 6
The Goal
Asana wants to be the operating layer for how work gets done across teams — not just a task list, but the coordination system that replaces the status-update meeting. The metric question is: are we measuring tasks, or actual team coordination?
Asana · Step 2 of 6
North Star Metric
North Star
Weekly Active Teams (WAT)
Definition: Teams with ≥2 members that complete ≥5 coordinated tasks through Asana in a rolling 7-day window.
Asana's core value is coordination, not individual productivity. A team of 10 running their weekly cycles in Asana is worth orders of magnitude more than 10 individual users tracking personal to-dos. Weekly captures the natural rhythm of work — teams coordinate in weekly sprints, not daily or monthly cycles. The task completion floor (≥5) filters out ghost teams who open Asana but don't actually run work through it.
Asana · Step 3 of 6
Metrics Hierarchy
The metrics that feed into Weekly Active Teams (WAT), organized by what they measure and when they signal a problem.
Setup & Adoption
- →Team onboarding completion rate
- →Workflow template adoption rate
- →Cross-functional project participation rate
- →First coordinated task completed within 7 days of signup
Engagement Depth
- →Tasks completed per active team per week
- →Automation and rules setup rate
- →Timeline and dependency usage rate
- →Integration connections per workspace
Retention & Expansion
- →Team weekly return rate
- →Feature depth score (# of feature categories used)
- →Seat expansion within existing accounts
- →Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
Asana · Step 4 of 6
What I'd NOT Measure
Explicit rejections matter as much as what you pick. A bad north star optimizes for the wrong thing — often while looking great on a dashboard.
✕ Monthly Active Users
Users can log in, check a task, and leave without coordinating anything. An individual checking off a personal to-do doesn't represent the coordination value Asana's pricing and positioning is built on.
✕ Tasks Created
Creating tasks without completing or coordinating them is a pure vanity metric. It measures input, not outcome. A team can create 100 tasks and abandon every one of them.
✕ NPS
Sentiment without behavior. A team that rates Asana 9/10 but only opens it twice a month is not the retained customer the business needs. NPS tells you how people feel, not how they work.
✕ ARR
Revenue is a lagging indicator by 6–12 months. By the time ARR drops, the coordination behavior you needed to protect disappeared long ago. Don't manage a leading problem with a lagging metric.
Asana · Step 5 of 6
Guardrail Metrics
Counter-metrics that prevent gaming the north star. Every metric can be gamed — guardrails are how you make gaming visible.
⚠ Team quality floor
Don't count teams where only 1 member is genuinely active. WAT requires real multi-person coordination — not solo users on team licenses. Track single-active-member teams separately as a churn risk signal.
⚠ Board abandonment rate
Projects set up but never actively used after week 1. A spike in WAT alongside a spike in abandonment means teams are trying and leaving, not converting. These two metrics should be read together.
⚠ Template dependency ratio
Teams using only pre-built templates without ever building custom workflows haven't internalized Asana into how they actually work. This is shallow adoption — it looks like engagement but doesn't retain.
Asana · Step 6 of 6
Live Signals
Public data points that inform how the north star is likely trending — and what questions I'd be asking if I were on the team.
~$721M
ARR (FY2024)
Publicly reported
~10% YoY
Revenue growth
Down from 35% in FY2022
Compressing
NRR direction
Was >115%, now under pressure
>$50K deals
Fastest-growing segment
Moving upmarket intentionally
Trello · Step 1 of 6
The Goal
Trello has a dual mandate that creates real PM tension: maximize collaborative board usage among individuals and SMBs, while also serving as an Atlassian ecosystem entry point. These goals can conflict — optimizing for one can hurt the other. I'd surface this before agreeing to any single north star.
Trello · Step 2 of 6
North Star Metric
North Star
Weekly Active Collaborative Boards (WACB)
Definition: Boards with ≥2 members that have at least one card movement, comment, or new card in a 7-day window.
Trello's value is the shared visual Kanban — not personal to-do lists. The ≥2 member requirement filters out solo use cases that don't represent Trello's core value prop. Card movement is the key signal: a Kanban board where nothing moves is a board that isn't working. Comments and new cards are secondary signals of live collaboration.
Dual-Mandate Tension
If Trello's real job-to-be-done for Atlassian is ecosystem entry, the north star should be 'Trello teams that adopt a second Atlassian product.' I'd surface this conflict explicitly and align with leadership before committing to either metric. Picking the wrong north star optimizes for the wrong outcome — even if both look healthy on a dashboard.
Trello · Step 3 of 6
Metrics Hierarchy
The metrics that feed into Weekly Active Collaborative Boards (WACB), organized by what they measure and when they signal a problem.
Collaboration Signal
- →Member invite rate per new board
- →Multi-member board ratio (% of total boards)
- →Board template adoption rate
- →First invite sent within 24h of board creation
Kanban Engagement
- →Card move frequency per board per week
- →Multi-list usage ratio (boards with ≥3 lists)
- →Comment and attachment frequency
- →Power-up active usage rate (not just installed)
Retention & Ecosystem
- →Board return rate (members returning weekly)
- →Free-to-paid conversion rate
- →Second Atlassian product adoption rate
- →Jira–Trello integration usage rate
Trello · Step 4 of 6
What I'd NOT Measure
Explicit rejections matter as much as what you pick. A bad north star optimizes for the wrong thing — often while looking great on a dashboard.
✕ Total Boards Created
Boards are almost never deleted. This number increases monotonically regardless of active usage. It's a counter, not a health metric. You can't manage what you can't act on.
✕ Registered Users
Trello has 50M+ registered users. A fraction are genuinely active. This metric flatters the product while hiding the real engagement story — and it's the number most often cited in press releases for exactly that reason.
✕ Power-Ups Installed
Installing a Power-Up takes two clicks. Using it requires behavioral change. Installed ≠ valuable. Tracking installs while ignoring active usage creates a false picture of feature success.
✕ Free-to-Paid Conversion Rate
Optimizing this in isolation could push the team to degrade the free experience to force upgrades — killing the top of the funnel that makes Trello's ecosystem play work for Atlassian. Context matters: this is a supporting metric, not a north star.
Trello · Step 5 of 6
Guardrail Metrics
Counter-metrics that prevent gaming the north star. Every metric can be gamed — guardrails are how you make gaming visible.
⚠ Solo board ratio
If >60% of 'active' boards have only 1 genuinely active member, WACB is inflated. Track solo-active boards separately — they represent personal use, not the collaborative value Trello's positioning and pricing depend on.
⚠ Board stagnation rate
Boards where no cards have moved in 14+ days but are still counted as 'active' due to recent logins. A stagnant board is a soon-to-be-abandoned board. Catching this early is how you trigger re-engagement campaigns before churn.
⚠ Atlassian cross-sell at the cost of WACB
If cross-sell rate increases while WACB falls, Trello is being hollowed out to serve Jira's funnel. Both should grow together — one declining for the other is a failure mode, not a success story.
Trello · Step 6 of 6
Live Signals
Public data points that inform how the north star is likely trending — and what questions I'd be asking if I were on the team.
50M+
Registered users
Active base significantly smaller
Declining
Product velocity
Fewer major releases post-acquisition
Bundled
Atlassian treatment
Metrics absorbed into 'team collab'
High
Competitive pressure
Notion, ClickUp, Linear taking share