Scrum tasks for stories in CWM
Summarize
Summary of Scrum tasks for stories in CWM
In Collaborative Work Management (CWM), breaking user stories into scrum tasks allows teams to estimate effort, distribute work, and track progress efficiently during a sprint. Scrum tasks are integral components associated with a parent story and enable team members to work independently on defined steps of a user story.
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Key Features
- Creation of Scrum Tasks: Users can create scrum tasks manually via the Scrum Tasks tab on the story form after saving a story. Alternatively, ServiceNow Otto can generate tasks automatically based on the story's content.
- Integration with Kanban Board: Scrum tasks are indicated on the Kanban card of a story, allowing team members to view details without navigating away from the board. Quick filters enhance the ability to track specific sprints and states.
- Task Considerations: Scrum tasks cannot exist independently and inherit the sprint of their parent story. They cannot be reordered outside of their parent story, and percent completion is tracked only for CWM tasks.
Key Outcomes
By utilizing scrum tasks, teams can effectively manage workloads and maintain visibility on progress during sprints. This structured approach aids in better collaboration and task tracking, ensuring that all team members are aligned and aware of the current status of their work. ServiceNow Otto's task generation feature further streamlines the process, saving time and enhancing efficiency.
Extend your agile workflow in CWM by breaking user stories into scrum tasks. This gives your team the granularity needed to estimate effort, distribute work, and track daily progress through a sprint.
In CWM, scrum tasks represent the individual units of work that make up a user story. While stories capture a feature or requirement from the user's perspective. Scrum tasks break that story into steps that team members can pick up and complete independently during a sprint. Scrum tasks are always associated with a parent story and aren't a standalone work items on the board.
Creating scrum tasks
You can create scrum tasks manually or use ServiceNow Otto to generate them based on the story content.
- Manual creation
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After a story is saved, a Scrum Tasks tab is available on the story form. From this tab, you can add tasks by entering a title and any relevant details directly on the story. You can also create scrum tasks for stories inline from the List and Sprint planning views. For more information, see Add scrum tasks to a story in CWM.
- AI-generated scrum tasks
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ServiceNow Otto can analyze the story description and context to suggest a set of scrum tasks. The Create with ServiceNow Otto button on the story form and the inline sparkle button on the Scrum tasks tab both trigger generation. You can review the suggestions, regenerate if the results don’t fit the story, and then insert the tasks. AI-generated tasks serve as a starting point and can be edited after they're created. For more information, see Generate scrum tasks for a story with ServiceNow Otto.
Scrum tasks on the Kanban board
When a story has one or more scrum tasks, a scrum task indicator icon appears on the story's Kanban card. Selecting the icon opens a side panel that shows the scrum tasks for that story, so team members can view task details
without leaving the board.
Quick filters on the Kanban board let teams focus on specific sprints, states, or other columns. Multiple filters can be active at the same time, and a counter at the top of the board shows how many filters are currently applied. This makes it easier to track sprint-specific work during daily stand-ups and sprint execution.
Scrum task considerations and limitations
- Scrum tasks belong to a parent story and can’t exist independently as standalone work items on the board.
- When a story is moved from one sprint to another, the child scrum tasks also move to the new sprint.
- You can reorder scrum tasks only within its parent story.
- Scrum tasks can't be moved (drag and drop) or copied outside its parent story.
- Percent complete isn’t rolled up from scrum tasks to the parent story. Percent complete is tracked only for CWM tasks.
- When a story is imported through Connected work, its associated scrum tasks are brought in automatically along with it. Scrum tasks can’t be imported directly through Connected work.
- Scrum tasks can’t be assigned to a sprint independently. They inherit the sprint of their parent story. When you change the sprint for a story, all associated scrum tasks move to the new sprint automatically.
- Scrum tasks aren’t displayed in the Backlog section of the Sprint planning view. They’re shown only in the sprint section.
- Sprint information can't be edited on a scrum task record.
- Deleting a scrum task in CWM doesn’t delete the underlying record. It's only removed from viewing in CWM.
- You can't add scrum tasks if the scrum task work type is disabled in your ServiceNow instance.
- You can't add scrum tasks if you have just the Viewer access to the CWM Board.
- If scrum tasks were previously imported through Connected work before upgrading to v9.0.0. If stories are then imported through Connected work after the upgrade, duplicate scrum tasks may appear on the board. To resolve this, remove the existing configuration for scrum tasks in Connected work for your Board.