Jira Story vs Task: What’s The Difference?

Atlassian touts the Jira platform as “designed for marketing, HR, finance and other business teams.” Though Jira got its start as a software development tool, it is now used by teams of all kinds as a project management tool. It’s both affordable and easy to use. Using native Agile management, it also integrates with Confluence and other services to better foster efficient management of your important projects. Jira allows teams to create Stories to explore projects and Tasks to distribute to-dos across the team.

Jira Story

Primary function

Represents goal of the project

Used by

Teams of more than one person

Great for

Tracking progress of project with multiple steps

Represents goal of the project

Teams of more than one person

Tracking progress of project with multiple steps

Editor's Take

Also called “user stories” or “issues,” Jira Stories are brief requests written from the user’s perspective. Stories may be part of larger initiatives, which are called Epics. A Story is an informal and general explanation of the key goal of a project that generally follows the formula of “As a [role], I [want to], [so that].” For instance, a Story might be: “As a marketing director, I want to create engaging content so that we can announce our new product.”

Stories may also be broken down further into Tasks, which are short to-dos that can be delegated to a team member. Stories encompass a project from inception to completion, and the results will be visible to the end user. Additionally, Stories will often involve various functions and types of work, such as coding, development and quality assurance.

Pros & Cons

• Focuses on end-user experience
• Helps team orient around common goal for project
• Facilitates cross-functional approach to problem solving

• Confusing interface
• Use of reports is limited
• Functionality on mobile is difficult

Jira Task

Primary function

Create to-dos that make up a larger Story

Timeframe

Designed to be completed in a day or less

Used by

Usually worked on by one person

Create to-dos that make up a larger Story

Designed to be completed in a day or less

Usually worked on by one person

Editor's Take

Jira Tasks are part of a Story, and function as single to-dos that are generally completed by one person in a day or less. Whereas a Story will express a goal or end result, a Task is a responsibility or step in the process. Stories may consist of multiple Tasks, which may be done in tandem or in sequential order.

For instance, a Story might be: “As a director of communications, I want to distribute a press release in order to share company news.” This Story might include a list Tasks such as:

• Obtain quotes for press release
• Write first draft of press release
• Edit first draft
• Proofread press release
• Publish press release on company website
• Send press release to news media.

Pros & Cons

• Ease of task assignment and delegation
• Keeps team members on task
• Can assist with creating timelines

• Hard to use interface
• Use of reports is limited
• Functionality on mobile is difficult

	Jira Story	Jira Task
Goal	Show user perspective of an issue	Represents step in the process to resolve issue
Scope	Lay out a project’s vision, goals and benefits	Individual piece of sprint or Scrum
Duration	Completed when all Tasks that comprise the Story are complete, sometimes over the course of multiple sprints	Completed in one day or less
Delegation	Assigned to a project lead and may be completed by them or divided into Tasks	Assigned to a specific team member

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Jira is a popular software for Agile teams to track bugs and issue resolution, and it can be used by teams as a project management tool. A Jira Story represents the larger goal of resolving a user issue, whereas a Task represents the individual steps necessary to resolve the issue. Stories can be cross-functional (with more than one department working on the Story) and have a longer timeframe to completion, but Tasks are limited to one specific person and usually completed in a day or less.

For instance, an example of a Story might be: “As a graphic designer, I want to create a new website so I can update my brand.” Tasks might include: design new logo (assigned to graphic designer), update new website (assign to web developer), and communicate to clients (graphic designer). In this example, the new logo could be designed while the web developer is updating the website.

However, depending on how long it would take to complete each of these Tasks, they could be Stories of their own. For instance, if development of the new logo would take several iterations and involve multiple team members. This would then be a Story, such as “As a graphic designer, I want to create a new logo to market my brand.”

Both Stories and Tasks are part of the Jira software. You will want to use a Story to encapsulate an issue, and Tasks to represent the to-dos to be completed in order to resolve the issue. Using both features in tandem with one another helps make goals clear and responsibilities easily understood by all team members involved.