How to work with Tasks (story level) when it comes to sprint burndown

Question

We are working with Epics, Stories and Subtasks. However, as far as I understand it, technical tasks (e.g. DB normalization) should not be user stories as there is no direct value visible to the customer and hence it should be marked as Task - if I understand, Task can be at the same level as story?

But if we start using Tasks, then the burndown will not reflect the reality as all stories might be done but technical tasks still in progress, which will not be visible.

Or is there a better way of working with technical tasks in SCRUM?

Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist] · Answer

Technical tasks usually would be of type sub-task under a story. That is exactly why you see a default sub-task type called "Technical Task".

Stories would be estimated and will then be broken down into different types of sub-tasks by the assignees when they work on them. The most successful method I have seen is when stories are estimated in story points and the sub-tasks in hours. You will find a number of threads about that in this forum.