Workstreams
Socratic's primary organizer of work is called a workstream. A workstream is where you define your workflow phases (e.g. To Do, Doing, Done) and create tasks. Socratic automatically surfaces the health and progress for all work within the workstream.
Workstreams are most frequently aligned to a functional area. For instance, at Socratic we have one workstream for product engineering work, another for design work, and another for go-to-market activities. Each of these areas observe different workflows.
People may work on more than one workstream. Anyone assigned a task on a workstream becomes a part of that workstream for as long as they have work in it.
Creating a workstream
To configure settings for your workstream, click the equalizer icon in the upper-right corner.
General: to change the name and/or task key of the workstream, and customize the properties to display on task cards.
Workflow: every workstream has four general categories of workflow—Backlog, To Do, Doing, and Done. With the exception of Done, the name, number, and order of work phases within each category is fully customizable.
Sprints: When enabled, Socratic will auto-generate sprints for the workstream, based on your choices for start date, cycle length, and the number of sprints to be generated in advance. Learn more about how Socratic enables data-driven sprints here.
Automations: configure workflow actions to occur automatically based on the conditions you set.
Managing a workstream
The default display mode for a workstream is its board. To maximize board space, you can choose to hide or show the backlog:
You can also choose to show tasks in list mode. In list mode, you can make updates directly from each cell, as well as sort by column. To adjust which columns are displayed, as well as their order, choose the equalizer icon in the upper-left of the list.
To see and manage any blocking dependencies among tasks, click the blocked or blocking icon on the task card (or choose “Manage blockers” from the ellipsis icon on the card). This will summon an interactive dependency map:
The People tab shows all people working on tasks that are part of the workstream—essentially taking the work from board/list and reframing through the lens of the people doing the work. Especially handy for stand-up meetings, to see at a glance who’s working what, and latest status.
The Trends tab provides Trends analysis for all the work specific to the workstream.
Learn more in our guide: How We Build Socratic.
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