Task
Characteristics
- It has an assigned person responsible for its completion.
- Its estimated effort should not exceed one workday. If a task takes longer than a day, it should be broken down.
- It does not appear in the product backlog, nor is it managed by the product owner; it is an internal planning item for the developers.
- It is estimated in terms of time (ideal hours), not story points.
Example
Epic: "Development of a food delivery mobile app."
User story 1: "As a customer, I want to be able to search for restaurants near my location."
- Task 1: develop the geolocation functionality to obtain the user's location.
- Task 2: design the user interface for the restaurant search.
- Task 3: implement the search logic for finding nearby restaurants.
- Task 4: perform usability tests to ensure that the search works correctly.
When to break stories down into tasks
Not all teams break stories down into tasks. Whether it is worthwhile depends on maturity and context:
- Less experienced teams: breaking work down into tasks helps them see progress day by day and spot blockers before they affect the sprint.
- Experienced teams: breaking down every story can become tedious. If the team manages its work well directly at the story level, systematic breakdown turns into unnecessary micromanagement.
The rule of thumb: break down when it helps the team plan and track the work; don't break down when it becomes a bureaucratic ritual that adds no value.
Common mistake
Managing tasks as if they were user stories. Tasks do not have acceptance criteria, are not estimated in story points, and should not appear in the Product Backlog. They are internal tools the team uses to organize work within the sprint. Presenting tasks to the Product Owner or the customer as units of value delivery creates confusion about the project's true progress.
Resources
📄 Scrum Master v.4.0 — Section: Scrum cycleFree download · Scrum Manager
📄 Scrum Master en equipos con IA [Scrum Master in Teams with AI, in Spanish]Free download · Scrum Manager
See also
Want to advance in agility? You can search for course and exam calls or go at your own pace by becoming a member of the Agile Club. This membership includes exclusive resources, e-learning classrooms, and access to Skill Arena: a space to practice and measure your agile skills at your own pace.