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When using Kanban boards in Azure DevOps, if the story is split into tasks, is there any support for working with tasks?

In the below image we can see the tasks with yellow under the stories but that is not easy for the developers to use. The task board can only be used if also working with sprints.

I haven't been able to find any documentation related to this. Are tasks supposed to be used at all when using a Kanban board?

enter image description here

Mathias Rönnlund
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  • Can I know how's the status on this? Did you has any other puzzle or confusing on my explanation? Free to comment below:-) – Mengdi Liang Jan 28 '20 at 12:45

2 Answers2

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Are tasks supposed to be used at all when using a Kanban board?

No, I'm afraid there's no such feature supported in azure devops boards now.

Because this is by designed based on the concept of Agile process.

See this Agile process workflow:

enter image description here

For Epic, Feature and Stories, they are all belong to Portfolio backlogs, while tasks is iteration backlog.

For our Azure devops Kanban Boards, it used to display the Portfolio backlogs for management team. You could add additional customized portfolio backlogs level by modifying the process your project is using.

But you could not change the tasks from iteration backlog to Portfolio backlogs. Because this does not match the basic concept of Agile process.

Mengdi Liang
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  • What is the iteration backlog? Is there a view for that? – Mathias Rönnlund Jan 30 '20 at 08:36
  • @MathiasRönnlund, sorry for my late reply. Please go organization setting-> process-> the process that the project is using-> Backlog levels tab. https://imgur.com/a/z99TzXc – Mengdi Liang Jan 31 '20 at 12:15
  • When someone's view of "process" gets in the way of people actually wanting to use the product in the way that _their_ process works. :| Why have these preconceived notions of a particular methodology in the first place? It's fine to have sensible defaults that guide newer users, but in the end, people work how _they_ want to work, not how _you_ want them to work. :( – fourpastmidnight Nov 30 '22 at 17:41
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For Azure DevOps Boards, the Boards view visualizes the Requirement Backlog which is typically a User Story or Product Backlog Item, but it is not meant for moving Task states. For moving a Task between states, the Sprints view is used:

Snippet showing the Sprints view in Azure DevOps Boards

In my experience, for a team using an iterative methodology like Scrum or the Agile template, the Sprints view is likely more heavily used than Boards and the opposite is likely normal for a team using Kanban since Boards visualizes the requirements nicely for flow. Hybrid methodologies like ScrumBan could use both. Whatever works best for the team.

See this table and more information here: Snippet of table showing Azure DevOps views for work item types

Ben Drake - MSFT
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  • The question is that if using Kanban without sprints but the story would involve two people to implement, how should they split their work? Because using tasks doesn't seem so easy to use. – Mathias Rönnlund Apr 03 '20 at 07:38
  • @MathiasRönnlund In that case, could you split the Story into a smaller increment to be worked by each person? – Ben Drake - MSFT Apr 09 '20 at 02:50