What are everyone's thoughts on subtasks?

[Sara Creenan (M&T)]

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?

[John Funk]

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. :-)

[William Naughton]

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.