Subtarea

Subtarea is a unit of work that forms a subdivision of a larger task, used to plan, assign, and track work within a project. The term is common in Spanish-speaking settings and is often translated as subtask in English. A subtarea represents a discrete piece of work with its own scope, estimated effort, and due date, while remaining linked to its parent task. In project management, subtareas help decompose complex activities into manageable components, enabling more precise planning, assignment, and progress reporting. They may include attributes such as assignee, status, priority, time estimate, actual time, dependencies, and notes. Subtareas can be created within a task or backlog item and can be assigned to different team members, tested separately, and tracked independently, though their completion contributes to the overall completion of the parent task.

In practice, subtareas are used in various methodologies, including Agile, Scrum, and traditional project management. Example: a project task “Develop user authentication” may have subtareas such as “Design database schema,” “Implement login API,” “Create frontend login form,” and “Write unit tests.” Depending on the tool, subtareas may be presented as child tasks, sub-issues, or nested items, and their progress can be aggregated to reflect the status of the parent.

While subtareas improve granularity, they introduce coordination overhead and can complicate reporting if not managed consistently. Proper definition of the parent task, clear ownership, and reasonable granularity help maximize their value.