The task is the most significant element in Kanban-style task management. It is the essential building block for all your taskboards, workflows, and Goals. It is also the first step in successfully executing your ideas and achieving project milestones.
What makes a task?
The workstreams.ai experience provides sufficient flexibility and granularity required for all sorts of projects. Your workstreams.ai tasks can be straightforward, title-only snippets or they can be filled with detailed descriptions, labels, attachments, and subtasks.
The subtasks feature offers great potential.
When we launched the in-task checklist feature, we pictured that our customers would use it to:
- break down tasks into the steps required to complete the task; and
- to have an overview of task status
We were right! The subtasks were used to list tasks, as well as steps that needed to be taken. But, after further investigation and chatting with our customers, we felt that we could level up our checklists so that they weren't merely checkable items, but full-on subtasks.
For that to happen, we needed to add functionality that would transform a simple checkbox into an actionable, executable subtask. We worked with our customers and our team to define what a true subtask would need to be. Two essential elements emerged:
- Adding start and end dates to subtasks; and
- Assigning teammates to a subtask (which delighted several of our clients enrolled in our BETA program)
How we think about assigning tasks
Let’s dive deeper into our way of thinking here. At workstreams.ai, the concept of a task assignee is one where a single person is assigned to a task. We don’t offer the functionality of multiple assignees, as we believe each step is performed by one person. That doesn’t mean that they don't need support from others. The ability to assign your teammates to a subtask proved to be the most elegant way forward. The person assigned to the task still retains accountability and responsibility for overall success, but they are now more clearly supported by the teammates assigned to subtasks. It made sense to us, and we are happy to report it also has been met with praise from our customers.
Subtask delivery dates
The addition of the start and end dates seemed like a logical extension of the due dates. They are there to provide granular control when certain subtasks need to be completed. When you are dividing tasks into chunks, this is often a requirement. It also allows the assignees of the subtasks to be in the know about when you need certain things done. Nifty!
All in all, we are extremely excited about the innovative ways our customers have been using the subtask feature and the extra functionality we’ve built around it.
If you have any ideas on how we can further improve this functionality or any other features across our product, do let us know. You can reach us the old-fashioned way at feedback@workstreams.ai or you can join our community on Slack!
