Tasks

The bulk of your backlog will be made up of these

What are Tasks?

Tasks are discrete pieces of work that usually don't result in an end user feature. Tasks are where technical details are included and discussed and are quite prescriptive in what needs to get done.

Examples being:

• Implement login endpoint

• Implement login page screen

• Pull latest monthly report from system

• Do up RFC for feature XYZ

Where do Tasks Come From?

Tasks can come from anyone in the team such as PMs, designers, engineers, QA. A very common use of tasks is to create a more specific checklist of things to do for a user story to consider it finished.

For example:

• User story: As a user, I want to create an account so that I can interact with the platform

• Tasks:

  • Implement sign up page front end

  • Design API endpoints

  • Design database schema

  • Implement sign up API

  • Implement database schema

Additionally, tasks could be independent pieces of work or assignments that someone needs to do for the team such as documentation or asking clarifying questions with another team

Ticket Template

Background

Similar to the User Story ticket, this section will detail the need for why this task exists. If it's a task to implement the database for the user sign up feature, then explain why the database is needed. It doesn't need to be too long, it's for context should the task be assigned to another team member who isn't full aware of the background of the feature

Key Points

This is usually where I put in some detail that isn't captured in the parent user story or background. For example:

• Link to the database schema to be implemented

• Link to the API documentation to be implemented

• Link to the front end design to be implemented