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Work item
A task tracked on a delivery backlog. An epic, a user story, a delivery task, a bug, a spike, and a technical-debt item are kinds of work item. The general task is any assignable piece of work, including work that is not on a delivery backlog. A technical step under a story is a delivery task, not a second meaning of task. A work item is not a support ticket. A requirement is a representation of a need. The work item is delivery work that may satisfy that need, and a user story's text often is that representation. When both are recorded, requirement work item links them.
Definition
What Work item means
Used in data
In OVDB databases
Databases, recordsets and fields whose meaning is this concept, a kind of it, or whose values are instances of it. Rows open the OVDB Directory.
No OVDB database carries this concept yet.
Properties
What we can say about Work item
These properties describe meanings and reference targets. Storage types, required fields, and cardinality belong to the consuming data model.
| Property | Meaning | Values and units |
|---|---|---|
| Work item parent | A larger work item this one is split from, such as the epic of a user story. The parent is not the project and not the sprint. | Values reference Work item |
| Work item priority | The order in which a delivery team intends to pick up this work item among the others. It is a planning decision. It is not bug severity, which grades a flaw, and it is not requirement priority, which grades a need. A bug is a work item, so it can carry a severity and this priority at the same time. | Scalar meaning |
| Work item sprint | A sprint this work item is taken into. An item can move to a later sprint; the sprint is not part of the item's identity. A team that does not use sprints leaves this empty. | Values reference Sprint |
| Work item status | Where this work item sits in the team's workflow. The state names belong to the team. Status is not priority, and it is not which sprint the item is in. | Scalar meaning |
| Work item story points | A relative estimate of size for a work item. The Scrum Guide does not define story points. Teams most often point a user story, and sometimes a bug or a spike. The points are not hours, and a total is not comparable across teams as a unit of time. An epic is usually left unpointed, because its size is the items under it. Velocity is the sum of points completed in one sprint. It is not this attribute on a single item. | Scalar meaning |
In the graph
Related concepts
Kinds of this concept
A flaw in software, recorded as a work item so it can be corrected. Defect is another name for this same flaw. Testing glossaries treat bug, defect, and fault as that flaw in a…
A work item for a technical step that carries out part of a user story or another backlog item. Planning conversations often call this step a task. This graph already uses task…
A work item larger than one delivery increment, split into smaller work items such as user stories. The Scrum Guide does not define an epic. Some writers call an epic a large user…
A time-boxed work item whose result is knowledge: an answer that unblocks an estimate or a design. The practice comes from Extreme Programming and is used with Scrum. The Scrum…
A work item that records a shortcut, a workaround left in place, or a design that has aged, where the cost appears as slower or riskier change later. The software may meet its…
A work item for a small outcome valuable to a user, often told as who wants what and why. It is not the epic it was split from. A technical step under the story is a delivery…
Concepts whose values are instances of it
A work item included in this release. The work item is not the release, and a deployment of the release is a further fact.
A work item that delivers or checks this requirement. The link connects the recorded need to the delivery work. The work item does not replace the requirement, and a requirement…
A larger work item this one is split from, such as the epic of a user story. The parent is not the project and not the sprint.