What are the Pros and Cons?

[Sonja Brown]

Is there an issue with using sub-task? What are the pros and con?

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Sonja - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Personally, I am not a fan of using sub-tasks as it makes it harder for automation rules and reporting in my opinion. As well as how the work items show on boards - it is very clunky. 

[Brant Schroeder · Accepted solution]

@Sonja Brown welcome to the Atlassian community

The only concerns that I have seen with sub-tasks are when they are not used properly.  Sub-tasks are a great way to get better insights into the specific work tasks that have to be completed within a work type.  I think once you have a good understanding of how to implement them you will use them on all of your projects. Here are some helpful links to help you understand what work types are including sub-tasks - https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/what-are-issue-types/ 

The agile coach is also a great resource. https://www.atlassian.com/agile/about Within the agile coach it talks about how to use stories and subtasks together - https://www.atlassian.com/agile/project-management/user-stories 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Sonja Brown -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Yes, and...to the suggestions from @Trudy Claspill 

In my opinion, Jira sub-tasks are one way to solve a specific team need: work breakdown.

GIVEN we have a valuable item to deliver
AND it is big enough we think about it in pieces
WHEN working on delivering it
THEN we want to manage those pieces separately so that <reasons>

Please note those bolded words as they impact when you might use sub-tasks, often based upon the <reasons> ambiguously noted above. 

Managing the pieces of something in Jira may be done in several ways:

1. list the pieces in a single work item's Description text, perhaps as bullet items
2. use a checklist app / addon to help see the pieces in the single work item
3. link other work items to the main one, such as with "depends upon"
4. use parent / child relationships, such as Epics and Stories
5. use parent / child relationships, such as Stories and Sub-tasks
6. etc.

Sub-tasks (and the other methods) impact built-in reporting, board features, issue security, and perhaps most importantly, how your team perceives the pieces. 

Perhaps talk to your team to understand if they consider the pieces individually valuable and releasable, as todo-items helping with delivery, etc.  With that information, the team may decide which Jira features to use for work breakdown, relative to their delivery processes...and, thus avoid later "spirited conversations" or understanding misalignments.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Sonja Brown 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Can you provide more context?

Why type of Space does this concern? 

The pros and cons of many features within Jira are dependent on your business process, your reporting needs, and what is important to you.

For instance in a Software project if burn down/up reporting is important you need to know that completion of subtasks does not count towards the burn. It is only when their parent is completed that the burn is affected.

If Issue Security is important you need to know that subtasks inherit Issue Security from their parent. If you need to be selective about which team members see which items in a project, you need to know that you can't apply Issue Security to subtasks that is different than what is applied to their parent.

[Sonja Brown]

To be more clear, The Jira board provide an option to use subtask.  A few years back there was some concern regarding using subtask and I just wanted to know if these concerns have been resolved.

[Trudy Claspill]

Do you have a list of those concerns? Without that list we cannot tell you if they are resolved.