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Kanboard : Create a task and sub tasks
Elaborating a task is not as simple as you think, and you have to be aware of this. The progression of the project is directly linked to tasks. This means that every task must have a specific and important goal. You will need to evaluate if the task you are thinking of is really important for the project.
In order to be sure that your task is appropriate, you should follow that list of questions:
- Does my task have a real interest for the project?
- Is it the right moment to create it? Do we have other priorities?
- Have we got all the resources/features/time needed to develop it?
- If it is a big task, should I divide it into smaller ones?
- Do I have an idea of how much time we should work on this task?
If you are able to answer these questions, congratulations, you are now ready to create your task!
First of all, you have to choose the Swimlane associated to the task. Then, remember that you should always create tasks in the Waiting column. To create your task click on the "+" button as you can see on the next picture.
Then a new window will pop up. You just have to fill in the blanks with correct information. These fields are divided into three types.
Mandatory Fields during the creation:
- Title: The title of your task, which will be displayed on the board.
- Description: Description written in the Markdown format.
- Category: Only one category can be assigned to a task. That will also set the color of the task.
- Priority: Task priority, default values are P0 to P3.
- Complexity: Used in agile project management (Scrum), the complexity or story points is a number that tells the team how hard the story is.
- Original Estimate: Estimation of hours nedeed to complete the task.
Mandatory Fields during development:
- Assignee: The person that will work on the task. We usually set the Assignee field when the task moves on to Develop but you can set it if you already know who is going to work on that.
- Time Spent: Time spent working on the task.
- Start Date: This is a date time field.
Fields we are not using:
- Tags: The list of tags associated to tasks. Usually, we do not fill this field.
- Color: Do not modify the value of this field.
- Reference: External ID for the task, for example it can be a ticket number that comes from another system. We do not use this field.
- Due Date: Overdue tasks will have a red due date and upcoming due dates will be black on the board. Several date formats are accepted in addition to the date picker. We do not use this field.
Once your task is created, you can add sub-tasks to it. Sub-tasks allow you to divide a task into different steps. This is useful to let the other members know what you are working on at the moment. Sub-tasks can also be assigned to different developers so, for a main task, you can have several people working on it at the same time for maximal efficiency.
To add a sub-task to your task, Click on the task and select on the left panel Add a Sub-Task. Once you are done, a window will apear:
You just have to fill in the blank with a Title and the estimated time to complete the sub-task. If you know who is going to work on this, you can assign it to someone. You can also check the box Create another sub-task to easily create several sub-tasks.
Once you've created all your sub-tasks, they will appear in the task panel with a checkbox associated.
If you click on an empty checkbox, the checkbox becomes a cog icon. That means, you (or someone) is currently working on this sub-task. Once the cog appears, a timer is launched to know exactly how much time you spent on this sub-task. Once you are done with he sub-task, you must click on the cog icon to stop the timer and check the checkbox. That means you have finished the sub-task.
Please note three important points:
- You can not start a sub-task if someone else is assigned to it.
- If a sub-task is not assigned, and if you start it, it will be automatically assigned to you.
- You can stop the timer at any time by clicking on the Stop the timer button.