Kanban [One board column needs One or more workflow status?]

[Dionei Piazza]

I am designing my Upstream + Downstream workflow on Jira Software Cloud.

With the workflow already defined, I move on to Board creation (upstream + downstream). I will have more than one board (Flight Levels - Operational, Coordination and Portfolio Management).

Finally, I want to know if each column of the board should relate to one or more workflow statuses defined in the previous phase. I ask this because when I am building the board, inside the column appears the message "This column will not be displayed in the frame without a status.".

Let say that I have the following workflow "OPTIONS, DEFINING, READY4ENGINEERING, SELECTED, CODING, TESTING, and DONE".

One of my frames must have OPTIONS, DEFINING, READY4ENGINEERING, SELECTED, CODING, TESTING, READY4DEPLOY, DEPLOYING, and DONE.

As I understand it, if I do not have the status READY4DEPLOY and DEPLOYING, these columns will not be displayed in the frame. That's right?

Can someone explain this point please

[Adam Rypel _MoroSystems_ · Accepted solution]

Hello @Dionei Piazza ,

that is correct, every column needs to have at least one status assigned to it. Otherwise the issues have no status to go in your workflow.

Regards,

Adam

[Dionei Piazza]

Hi @Adam Rypel _MoroSystems_ 

Firstly, thx for your answer! Secondly, you need to consider that I'm new in Jira, and overall, I was talking with a friend, showing him my Jira workflow, and so he said:

"Too complex flow... keep it simple... Use fix version instead... there you add release/deploy/build number... and then release the version in jira when it is deployed. Do not use so many statuses... instead have control of your backlog. Do not build it for managers. Spare teams from too much abstract things... let them code... as much as possible".

So, what is a complex workflow? Why I can't have too many statuses as I need in my board?

So what is considered a complex workflow? Whats is considered a simple workflow? Why can't I have a lot of status or status according to the amount of columns in my Kanban board?

This is my workflow:

[Adam Rypel _MoroSystems_]

Hello @Dionei Piazza ,

no problem at all!

I see. Well your friend is right, that workflow seems too complex for me too. You can have as many statuses as you need, but that is exactly it - do you really need that many statuses in your workflow?

You need to think about it rather in logical way. For example, you can get rid of statuses Refining, Specifying, Approving Architecture and Estimate, then replace it with one status, like Under Review. Then you can go directly to Selected for Development (that is just an example, which came to my mind right now).

Take it from the user perspective - users surely do not want to make so many transitions in workflow for every single thing they make on the issue, it can be annoying for them and takes time. It also takes your time, since you have to set every single column and transition in the workflow. You want to keep it as simple as possible so it is organized and clear for everyone. Also it can make a little bit of mess in your system, if you have so many statuses. For example, you can reuse status Under Review in many other projects in your system. On the other hand, status Refining would probably not be used so often.

Check out these articles, I think these describe it well:

https://www.atlassian.com/blog/jira-software/building-workflow-awesome

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jiracorecloud/how-do-i-build-the-workflow-i-want-765593066.html

I also found this free course for workflows, I did not really see this specific one, but these courses are generally great for deep explanation of these configurations:

https://training.atlassian.com/customizing-jira-workflows

Well I hope that helped, in case you have any other questions, do not hesitate to ask :)

Adam

[Dionei Piazza]

Ok @Adam Rypel _MoroSystems_ 

Thx again!

We want to see all our Kanban system (end-to-end) in Jira too. This picture brings the Upstream vision and the Downstream too, ok? So, yeah, all these statuses are necessary and are part of what we define together with the PM's , Designers and Egineering (Devs).

These statuses we want to see on the physycal boards too. It makes sense?

The point is, if we want all these columns in the board, we also need to implement them in our workflow. Right?

[Adam Rypel _MoroSystems_]

No problem!

I get you, well even with that it is the best to keep it simple. For example, our devs mostly use only 4 statuses:

But to answer your question, yes, you also need to implement them in your workflow and assign the status to the column, otherwise the column won't show up on the board. There can be multiple statuses assigned to the column though, if needed.

Adam

[Dionei Piazza]

Ok @Adam Rypel _MoroSystems_ 

But given that besides the Downstream workflow (which you put there in the image above), you needed to manage/view your Discovery Upstream with the following columns [Option | Value Analyzing | Ready for Design | Design Refining | Approving Design | Ready for Engineering | Engineering Defining | Ready] too. How would you design your workflow? Because when you think in an end-to-end flow, you can disregard the discovery works that occurs in the Upstream. So, how would you keep it simple?

[Adam Rypel _MoroSystems_]

Hello @Dionei Piazza ,

I am sorry, but I am neither developer nor consultant, so I am not able to tell you the ideal workflow for you right now. Would have to be examined in depth to decide what would be ideal for you.

If you are sure you need all the statuses, keep them, you can always make changes after all :)

Regards,

Adam

[Dionei Piazza]

Ok @Adam Rypel _MoroSystems_ 

Thanks once again for your response. I just hope I didn't express myself badly, but I didn't want you to do the work of developing my workflow. I just gave you "an example" of end-to-end system (common within a software factory) and asked you to try to describe what would be a good flow for this system.

Anyway, I understand that we all have restrictions and drawing a flow can take time, after all, it's not a simple task! So thanks for your tips, they were very important to me!

Best regards,

Dionei!

[Adam Rypel _MoroSystems_]

No problem, glad I could help!

Enjoy your weekend,

Adam