What began as a work intake solution has evolved into a fundamental shift in how we operate. The visibility and accountability Asana provides has eliminated countless status meetings, PowerPoint presentations, and email chains, allowing our teams to focus on meaningful work rather than clerical formalities.

Amiena Murad, Senior Director, Business Operations, DIRECTV

Work Innovation Award Winner, 2025

DIRECTV earned Asana’s Operations Visionary award for building scalable, efficient processes that drive clarity, speed, and alignment across the business. By reimagining how work flows—from intake to execution—DIRECTV empowers its teams to focus on high-impact initiatives that enhance the customer experience. Their disciplined approach to governance and cross-functional collaboration ensures that every project supports strategic goals and delivers consistent value to the people they serve.

Asana for request tracking

Transforming work intake into operational excellence

DIRECTV had an internal vision to create a seamlessly connected, highly efficient workplace. But multiple intake forms and inconsistent processes made it unclear how to request support. Teams submitted requests ranging from infrastructure improvements to go-to-market activities, but without a shared system, work was hard to prioritize, track, or align to strategic goals. This fragmentation created duplicated efforts, reduced visibility, and made it difficult to enforce governance.

With Asana, DIRECTV now facilitates strong operational governance across 20+ teams through a centralized intake system. Standardized request forms and workflows ensure that every project is vetted from the start, prioritized through the lens of the company’s Internal Operating Priorities (IOPs)—“Customer Journey,” “Precision Execution,” and “Save to Invest”—and aligned with broader business strategy. This structured approach increases efficiency, eliminates confusion, and ensures resources are consistently directed toward the highest-impact work.

One form, smarter routing

• To validate that every request supports business strategy, every single intake process connects to DIRECTV’s IOPs.

• Rules, variables, and automation reduce 85–115 keystrokes per intake, saving time and standardizing data collection.

• Each intake is automatically routed, assigned, and tracked, which means no duplicate forms or approvals are needed.

More volume, greater efficiencies

• Intake volume increased by 80%, and efficiency gains translate to approximately $600,000 to $800,000 in avoided costs.

• With less time spent managing forms, teams can now focus on high-impact work that delivers greater value.

Before Asana, we were constantly fielding ‘where do we stand?’ questions. Now, every request starts in one place and progress is visible from day one.

Keeley Sylvester, Director, Customer Care Operations Project Management, DIRECTV

Asana for project management

One framework, 20+ teams, zero guesswork

As DIRECTV worked toward meeting customer demand, they struggled with disconnected project updates and siloed systems. This made it difficult to manage complex, high-impact initiatives, especially as the organization undertook critical efforts to evaluate, replace, and migrate core infrastructure. Without a shared system, stakeholders had limited access to reliable updates and no single source of truth to guide decision-making.

With Asana, DIRECTV built a consistent project management framework that provides real-time visibility, structured governance, and executive-level oversight. This transformation has enabled teams to deliver with greater speed and clarity while reducing risk across their most business-critical initiatives.

Live updates and stronger governance

• Portfolios standardize project access, structure, and visibility, enabling executives to check progress in real time without relying on decks or meetings.

• Smart Status updates powered by Asana AI automate weekly reporting across 20+ teams, reducing manual work from 3 hours to just 5 minutes while improving accuracy.

• Projects now follow a consistent cadence and delivery methodology, increasing predictability, reducing risks, and eliminating ambiguity around execution timelines.

Connected work, clear ownership

• Multi-homing allows teams to manage work in their own boards while maintaining seamless visibility in program-level portfolios, enabling autonomy without sacrificing alignment.

• Unique parent task IDs link subtasks across workstreams, supporting better traceability, simplified search, and streamlined reporting across multiple layers of work.

• Cross-functional visibility ensures end-to-end alignment, prevents duplicated effort, and guarantees that no task or dependency is overlooked.

Teams that used to struggle with handoffs now collaborate without friction. The visibility Asana gives us increased accountability—without the need for constant oversight.

Keeley Sylvester, Director, Customer Care Operations Project Management, DIRECTV

Asana for strategic planning

Strategically turning requests into results

As strategic initiatives grew in volume and complexity, the lack of centralized visibility made it difficult to staff projects effectively or measure impact. With inconsistent intake and no clear framework for prioritization, teams struggled to understand what work mattered most, or how to ensure it aligned with broader business outcomes. 

Now, DIRECTV uses Asana to ensure every project ladders up to one of its core IOPs. A centralized Steering Process and structured voting mechanism empowers cross-functional leaders to evaluate, prioritize, and greenlight initiatives based on strategic value. By centralizing work and data, teams eliminated time spent switching tools, chasing updates, or manually compiling reports, freeing up capacity for the work that drives results.

Better decisions with less effort

• Real-time dashboards provide leadership with a unified, at-a-glance view of project health, resource capacity, and team bandwidth across the organization.

• AI-generated Smart Status updates proactively surface key insights, such as blockers or trends, enabling leaders to make faster, more informed decisions with less manual effort.

Asana is more than a tool—it’s become our operational backbone. It gives us the clarity and structure we need to execute precisely and adapt quickly when priorities shift.

Amiena Murad, Senior Director, Business Operations, DIRECTV

Conclusion

Driving operational excellence to power the future of entertainment

As DIRECTV continues to evolve their entertainment offerings, their innovative use of Asana ensures operational excellence at scale. By transforming their work management approach, they’ve created a culture of transparency and accountability that enables faster execution and better decision-making. With Asana, DIRECTV is equipped to launch new products faster, modernize core infrastructure, and bring seamless entertainment experiences to millions of customers.