![]() ![]() If you are just beginning to learn the ins and outs of project management, consider tackling a small project with small tasks at first to gain a foothold on time allotments. However, other industries have entirely different project cycles and should, therefore, be adjusted accordingly. For example, in a typical 2-week sprint cycle, a task should not exceed 80 hours. The amount of man-hours is highly dependent on your organization and industry. You should consider breaking down a task if many individuals are involved in one given item. If you find yourself having multiple owners and parties involved in a given task, controlling the success or failure becomes too difficult if not impossible. If you’re deciding whether you should break down a task further, ask yourself the following questions. To Subtask or Not to Subtask, That Is The Question Have responsibility and ownership clearly defined.Part of project management is consistent re-iteration for optimal efficiency. This is a good approach if you are given a project your organization has never handled before or there are a lot of unknowns you have yet to discover. The second method is a bottom-up method in which you list out all the possible tasks first and then begin grouping them into phases. If you can think of a task that doesn’t fit under a phase, you are most likely missing a phase. The first method is a top-down method by which you identify the major phases, or summary tasks, first and then break it down into individual tasks.įor example, in building a website, you may have the below steps:įrom there, you can divide and conquer tasks and subtasks. Task list management is an entirely separate category that goes beyond the scope of this article, but in general, there are two ways in which you can organize your task list. Therefore, you’ll always want to remember to stay agile and develop a way in which you can adjust your project management accordingly. Ideally, you would want to create all tasks during the planning stage, but we all know we don’t live in an ideal world. Other dependencies can be handled with subtasks as well but you may find in many situations, creating separate tasks can be more useful. Subtasks, on the other hand, can sit inside a parent task, similar to that of checklists, but also moves forward and breathes like an independent task. You can't really see those items moving forward, and therefore it appears as though the parent task isn't really progressing. In other words, the task gets stuck until all items in the checklist are completed. You can assign them to people, add due dates, etc., but it doesn't communicate those items moving forward. To resolve this problem, many task and project management platforms incorporate some variation of "checklists" that sit within a task. It's not uncommon for the original task at hand to be modified.įor instance, waiting on review or feedback from a client or another 3rd party is separate from the initial task yet not entirely independent to be a task on its own. For example, "Onboard New Client" is one large task, but there's actually several moving pieces and teams just within that one task. Subtasks are best used in instances where a project moves at different levels. Communicate better and provide full transparency.Glean into insight to improve workflow and enhance efficiencies.Ability to plan around day-to-day operations.Identify bottlenecks, points of trouble, and inefficiencies, and thus, solve the problems.More effective estimates in cost and dates.There are many benefits in using subtasks such as: But depending on your project, industry, and players involved, glossing over task details could be costly. You definitely don’t want to micro-manage nor do you want to overdo a task list. That’s when subtasks can come into great help. Most of the time, bad estimation is the culprit when a project goes past the due date. Why Use SubtasksĮxplaining to executives and stakeholders as to why a week-long project ended up being five weeks is a gut-wrenching conversation to have. That said, when it comes to subtasks, here's how to handle no matter the type of organization you're in or project you're managing. In fact, subtasks, when misused, can lead to terrible management practices, inefficient use of time, low morale and all around chaos.Įach team’s way of project management is different, and just because you can break a project down into infinite amount of subtasks, doesn’t necessarily mean you should. While the ability to add a 2nd or 3rd tier subitem to a more substantial task can seem appealing, you should use them carefully. By breaking down a massive project into more manageable parts, project managers feel empowered and confident in successful project completion. Many people find subtasks a great way to organize large and complex projects. Workflows Subtasks: What They Are and When to Use Them Jul 17, 2018 ![]()
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