What are everyone's thoughts on subtasks?

Sara Creenan _M_T_ April 29, 2020

What are peoples opinions on sub tasks should they be used for teams? What use cases do you leverage sub tasks for vs using tasks and stories?

2 answers

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William Naughton April 30, 2020

Hi Sara,

We use sub-tasks.  We use stories for user requirements.  We use tasks for technical requirements or tasks.  We add sub-tasks to both stories and tasks.  The sub-tasks are assigned to the person doing the work.  We only prioritize and estimate at the story/task level.  The sub-tasks are just a breakdown of the work by person.  Ideally, sub-tasks can be completed in 8 hours or less - not always the case though.

0 votes
John Funk
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April 29, 2020

Hi Sara,

I will tell you that our teams use Sub-tasks very sparingly because of the limitations/tightness of the connection with parents. We also do Kanban and not Scrum so that probably helps to not rely on Sub-tasks. 

But we leave it up to each team to decide if they want to use them. I personally rarely use them. I try to figure out another way to get what I need without using them.   My two cents. :-)

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