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Use subtasks for Epics in product management

Break down Epic tasks with subtasks, then add those subtasks individually or in bulk to each Sprint!

Meet Sam, a product manager, and learn about how they solved the challenge of using Epics and Sprints in ClickUp with Subtasks in Multiple Lists.

Meet Sam

Sam is a product manager for a cloud-based software provider. They have created a task to represent a project Epic: Integrate with Google apps.

Under the Epic task, Sam creates subtasks that represent user stories:

  • See events from Google Calendar

  • Attach files from Google Drive

  • Send email from a Gmail account

  • Embed Google Docs

Screenshot showing how Sam creates subtasks that represent user stories in their Epic task.

The Challenge

At their last retrospective, Sam noted that the team is frustrated by the way Epic tasks are included in Sprints.

It's hard to know exactly which user stories to design, develop, test, and announce.

The Solution

Sam will use Subtasks in Multiple Lists to distribute the Epic's subtasks to different Sprints without the need to move the entire Epic task along with each Sprint.

Sam asks a Workspace admin or the Workspace owner to follow these instructions and enable Subtasks in Multiple Lists:

  1. Click your Workspace avatar.

  2. Select ClickApps.

  3. Scroll down or search for Tasks in Multiple Lists.

  4. Enable the Subtasks in Multiple Lists option.

Sam follows these steps to add a user story subtask to the current Sprint:

Option 1: Using Breadcrumbs

  1. Open a subtask.

  2. Hover over the breadcrumbs at the top left.

  3. Click the plus icon.

  4. Search or browse for another List.

  5. Click on a List to add the subtask to it.

Screenshot showing how to add a sutask to a List using the subtask's breadcrumbs.

Option 2: Using the Task Settings menu

  1. Open a subtask.

  2. Click the task settings ellipsis.

  3. Select Add to, then Add to another List.

  4. Search or browse for another List.

  5. Click on a List to add the subtask to it.

During a Sprint planning meeting, Sam shares the outline of the Epic task to integrate with Google. The team agrees to tackle three user stories in the next Sprint.

Sam follows these steps to add the three user story subtasks into the next Sprint:

  1. Open a task with subtasks, or use a view.

  2. Select one or more tasks, and/or subtasks to open the Bulk Action Toolbar.

  3. Click Move/Add to another List.

  4. Select Add to Lists.

  5. Search or browse for another List.

  6. Click on a List to add the selected tasks to it.

  7. Optional: send notifications by checking the Send notifications checkbox.

Screeenshot showing how Sam adds the three user story subtasks into the next Sprint using the Multitaks Toolbar.

The Results

The product team can plan and adjust the priority of the individual user stories to get the integration shipped faster with the features users really care about.

The developers on the team love it! They can see exactly which pieces of the Google integration they need to work on in the current Sprint.

The QA team plans to test more features with each release because they know exactly what needs testing.

The marketing team can clearly see which features to announce on social media and via email to customers.

Sam delivers a big win for their team, organization, and customers!

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