JIRA Burndown Lists - not Sub Tasks

[Jack O'Hara]

Is there something in JIRA OD that I can use that will allow me to break a task down in to smaller tasks, each with their own estimates, without creating sub tasks?

My reasoning behind wanting this is that if I allocate 2 weeks to a task, it would help me greatly to know which bits take longer / shorter than my original estimate so I can learn and create better estimates in future. Knowing that the whole task took 5 weeks, 3 days and 4 hours isn't very helpful without having a sit down with the developer and asking what went wrong. They then have to remember everything that happened.

TIA

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

No, because you have just about described one of the main use cases for sub tasks. What's the reason behind not wanting to use them when they do what you need?

[Jack O'Hara]

A sub task requires that it goes through the workflow that is defined for the project. I want something I can just tick off and assign a worked hours value against it.

If there really is nothing that can do this then I'll use sub tasks and possible introduce some logic to the workflow whereby if <custom_field> = 'Yes', don't follow the normal workflow.

Sub tasks also skew the 'Issues Raised vs Issues Closed' statistic at the project overview. I know I can make new filters for this statistic to exclude sub tasks, or those with the <custom_field> = 'Yes' but I also need to make my management use the same filters.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ah, I see, you don't want the workflow element at all.

Easiest option there is probably to have a new sub-task type, with a workflow of "open" and "done". It'll still skew your raised vs closed, but you could even set resolution as you create it so you have an automatic raised and closed at the same time counter.

[Jack O'Hara]

Accepted as answer for the previous comment. I hadn't thought of separate workflows for individual issue types. This solves the majority of my reservations about using Sub Tasks.

Thanks for your help.