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When your Jira Issues are too big or too complex, you can break them into smaller pieces. By default, Jira solves this challenge with subtasks.
However, a Subtask isn’t always the best choice.
- Having lots of Subtasks inevitably clutters your board.
- Closing the parent task requires completing all of the Subtasks.
- Ignoring Subtasks that have lost relevance will still affect your reporting.
- Moving the Subtasks into a different issue is complex.
This doesn’t mean that Subtasks are inherently bad. They serve a specific function and offer vast amounts of flexibility. It’s just that, sometimes, you’d rather have a simple, lightweight checklist in an issue.
How do Jira Subtasks work?
To create a Subtask, click the Create Subtask button below your issue’s title – all your Subtasks will always be visible on the same page as the main Issue. What is important is that as long as Subtasks are part of that parent Issue, they are also standalone and independent pieces of work that you can track separately.
When is breaking Issues into Subtasks a good idea?
There are certain cases when it is advisable to divide Issues into smaller pieces. For example, you may have been working on a research item that has evolved in complexity to the point where it needs several individual subitems. Or, maybe a certain task requires a series of specific improvements. Or, a task has many similar but smaller tasks. For example, you need to replace a button, but it needs to be replaced on several pages.
If put simply, consider using a Subtask when:
- The parent task is too large to track on its own.
- Different parts of the Issue have various deadlines.
- You need to delegate work among different team members.
When working with Subtasks, there are some rules to keep in mind. First of all, Subtasks cannot be further divided. If you really need to go further down, you will need to turn the Subtask into an Issue first. So, it’s important to define how detailed you want your Subtasks to be beforehand.
Then again, Subtasks can’t be moved between Issues. In other words, you can’t change the parent Issue of an already created Subtask. Last but not least, you can only turn an Issue into a Subtask if it doesn’t already have its own Subtasks.
How does Smart Checklist work?
Checklists are a handy feature that should have been available in Jira out of the box, but isn’t. You’ll need a separate app for them to work in your Jira instance.
Smart Checklist is an app from the Atlassian Marketplace that allows users to add checklists to their Issues. A checklist is helpful when you want to add more context and clarity to a task.cIt allows you to clearly communicate what needs to be done and in which order. Some of the most prominent use cases for checklists inside Jira issues include:
You can also save checklists for repetitive processes and reuse them as templates. These templates can then be automatically applied to issues of a certain issue type. You can also automate checklists in a way where they are added or appended based on your triggers or workflow transition setup.
Getting started with Smart Checklist is very simple. Follow the steps below:
Download and install Smart Checklist for Jira.
You can edit the checklist by typing in the inputs one by one or click the Pen icon to edit the entire list at once in the Full-screen Editor.
In the Full-screen Editor, you can use a special Markdown to format each item on the list, i.e., emphasize it with bold, italic, or an underline. You can also mention teammates or add deadlines.
Click Save once you’re done. The Checklist will appear in the right-side panel, but you can also move it to the center so that the list is visible right under the main task description.
When to use: Subtask vs Checklist
As with most things, there are some rules of thumb when it’s best to go with a Subtask or a Checklist for your Jira Issue.
Subtasks
Using subtasks comes with many benefits, such as full transparency, the ability to plan day-to-day operations, or tracking progress.
Usually, it’s best to Subtask when the parent issue is a large task that influences many areas and thus has to be divided into smaller standalone tasks.
Such a case would be with a large task named ”Prepare Competition Comparison Landing Pages” where several different landing pages are created and more than one team is involved – marketing, content, and IT. Preparing the design, copy, then coding the website and publishing it are completely separate tasks.
Also, Subtasks come handy when the work of the main task needs to be delegated between different team members and tracked separately – even if one team handles all the work. Such a case would be for example with a “Redesign of a Sign In User Flow” where the copywriter suggests copy changes on various screens which are then handled by different developers.
When to use: Subtask vs Checklist
As with most things, there are some rules of thumb when it’s best to go with a Subtask or a Checklist for your Jira Issue.
Subtasks
Jira’s functionality allows you to have custom fields in subtasks. They can also be used to estimate work and log and track progress.
Use Subtasks for complex tasks that actually require granular decomposition. This little questionnaire should help you decide whether a Subtask is a good fit in your case:
- Is the task ambiguous, meaning you’ll likely be adding more to the scope?
- Will Subtasks require more context and the possibility to add attachments or use comments?
- Would you like to estimate or track time working on the Subtask specifically?
If you’ve answered yes to at least one of these questions, you probably need to use a Subtask.
Checklists
As far as Subtasks are great, there are times when you see that these small tasks will rather “sit inside” the main Issue and depend on it. In such a case, instead of creating Subtasks, it’s better to just go with Smart Checklist for Jira.
Checklists are an excellent choice for communicating what needs to be done. They help people follow a process without skipping certain steps. Ironically, they are handy for cases when specific steps can be optional, as you can easily skip them without affecting the reports or losing the ability to complete the story. And, if a checklist item grows too big in scope – you can always convert it into a parent or child issue with a click of a button.
Lastly, checklists are quite flexible. You can add, edit, or remove checklist items on the go within one single view. And the checklists that have proven to work can be saved as templates and reused for recurring processes.
Conclusions
There are always some good reasons to use Subtasks or Smart Checklists in your Jira Issues. Both ways are great, and there is no better or worse. It is rather a matter of following Jira best practices for what works best and when. That’s why our final conclusion and suggestion would be to simply try both and then decide which one is most convenient for your own way of organizing your Jira Issues.
