Choose how you want to represent your work in Jira

[Melanie Pasztor]

I question 'extensive research' what was done, especially if the results is not posted anywhere. 'Work' is an horrible word to replace 'issue' with. Atlassian products already has the bad habit of naming different things with the same words. 'Work' will only make it worse and more confusing.

What I am not looking forward is all of the extra work for admins and developers. Started this article with "choose how you want to represent your work" yet we will not get the option to actually choose. :P

[Melanie Pasztor]

Choose how you want to represent your work in Jira

This is misleading, as it was stated that it will not be possible for admins to customize.

[Kelly Arrey]

This seems like a no-brainer. Ticket makes the most sense. If you call it a "Work Item", everyone's going to call them tickets anyway. The Jira ecosystem has spent many years training users that a task is an issue type. You want to turn around and try to explain how a story is now a task type? If you said instead that a story is a ticket type, everyone would understand immediately what you meant.

[Faisal Iqbal]

Work item is the better option instead of Task. A very good move indeed. 

[Dean @ ServiceRocket]

I agree with this improvement, as I’ve been facing some challenges with documentation to keep everything making sense. Since Jira’s current standard ‘Issues’ include Bugs, Stories, and Tasks, the best approach would be to see how the new terms can be applied to them:

• Epic > ‘Work’ > Subtask
• Epics > ‘Item’ > Subtask

For example:

1. Epic Work vs. Epic Item
2. Bug Work vs. Bug Item
3. Story Work vs. Story Item
4. Task Work vs. Task Item
5. Sub-task Work vs. Sub-task Item

Although, after getting some opinion from gen AI, which suggesting to use the longer, more concise but two-keyword: ‘Work Item’, I have my stance on replacing ‘Issue’ with ‘Item’ instead as it makes much more sense contextually.

[Haddougui]

In contrast, updating issue term everywhere is superb because it allows working with same name in all interfaces and apply same words to discuss teams work involved in the project as invoked in last Barcelone conference in order to get rid of the gap separating dev and operations teams.

In this current week I found it really easy to read task history including comments, transitions, assign issue to someone from backlog as issues are smoothly defined in project backlog and then I can browse easily to task item details writing in the url issue identifier.

Finally, AI-powered Developer-led automation tool for Atlassian can understand in a glance my discussion context as the same terminology like task is used in a set of places and remember wich role i have in the project and provide responses meaningful to my position and also previous answers ♻️🙂

[Most Ambiya Begom]

Good Work 🤩🤩🤩

[Serhii Koval]

I got "This item is not available" at this page https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/try-new-jira-issue-termin/bedemdcholceilgijldehlggccfhoihn

[নেকির মেসেজ NEKIR MESSAGE]

Good,

[Sanjay Verma]

I just want to wait Quietly.

[Md ishaque]

Good job 

[Rayan Rosales]

Ok

[David Friedrich]

Honestly, I hate this change. For over 20 years, the term has been "issue." So what’s the problem—sorry, issue—here? Don’t you have bigger bugs (or should I say issues) to fix?

The issues (sorry, I'll stop now, promise!) I have with this:

1. It's breaking established Terminology. The term issue has been used for over two decades in Jira and is deeply ingrained in how teams work. Most documentation, training materials, and best practices refer to issues, so renaming them adds unnecessary confusion.
2. The change is purely cosmetic and not functional. This seems like a marketing-driven change rather than a functional improvement. If Atlassian isn't changing core elements like JQL (issuekey, issuetype) or automation rules ({{issue.summary}}), then work item is just a superficial rebranding.
3. Potential conflicts with other tools. Many organizations use Jira alongside other tools like Azure DevOps or ServiceNow, where work item already has a different meaning. This could lead to confusion when working across platforms.
4. Negative connotation of ‘Work. Ironically, issue might sound problematic, but work item sounds like... well, more work. Employees might joke: “Oh great, more work items! Just what I needed.”
5. Teams will have to relearn terminology, update training materials, and change habits—all for no real benefit.

Better focus on improving performance, enhance usability, and address long-standing feature requests than just rename things for the sake of it.

[Josh Sherwood]

Hi @David Friedrich,

Thanks for sharing your feedback. I understand your frustrations with the direction we’re taking, but I want to assure you that this decision wasn’t made lightly.

1/4: You're correct that "issue" is deeply ingrained in how teams work. However, we've heard for years that it has posed challenges for many, particularly newer users and those outside of product or software teams.

We’ve carefully considered feedback from various channels, including direct conversations with teams. We believe this change improves the overall experience for all our users and takes into account the broader use of Jira and its diverse user base.

2: This is a large-scale change, and while some core functions like JQL and Automation rules continue to use "issue" for now, we plan to phase the term out eventually. We’ll keep teams updated on the progress of this work.

3: We conducted comprehensive reviews of competitor and partner tools and found that Jira's technical terminology was often an outlier, creating additional confusion when working across products.

While some conflicts may remain, we believe this move aligns us more closely with industry standards and how teams refer to their work.

5: We've observed that many long-time users often develop their own language when discussing work in Jira, and we expect this will continue.

This update is just the initial phase of a larger plan to better incorporate teams’ language into Jira, reducing the reliance on a single, "catch-all" term. For more details, you can read our latest blog article here.

---

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. I know this is a big change and will require time for teams to adjust.

[Dmitry Astapkovich _Colined_]

@David Friedrich , to add up to your 5th point:




Basically, Work Item View has Work Item Panel with Sub-tasks and other work items. New naming def works perfectly, making it clear and easy to understand.  

[Mike Harrison]

If the name change was done to reflect Jira's broader use cases, why restrict it to "work"? So Jira can't be used for non-work purposes? Please just fast forward to the part where you just call it "item" - nobody is going to use 2 words where 1 will suffice.

[gpa Saud]

Tqs for you support 🙏 

Messenger team 🙏