What Are the Best Tips for Streamlining Workflows in Jira?

[Abubakar Khan]

Managing projects in Jira can get complex. What are your best tips or strategies for streamlining workflows and improving efficiency? Any must-have plugins or automation tricks?

[Lucas Modzelewski _Lumo_]

Talk to people to make sure the workflow gets their approval and will actually be used.

I’ve created multiple workflows that were 'perfect' for a given case and covered everything… but if the team doesn’t use them properly or skips steps, then critical information gets lost - and the whole system falls apart.

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Keep It Simple & Functional eg:

• Don’t make it too complicated - it should be self-explanatory, or people won't know what to choose in given situation, and work still could be done - but status won't show any progress. 
• Each status should have 2-3 possible transitions:
  • Forward: Moving the issue to the next step.
  • Backward: Sending it back for review or rework.
  • Pause/Fix: Holding it in place if needed.

I personally don’t like mixing team roles within the same status. For example, if developers and testers work on the same issue using a generic "In Progress" status, the status itself doesn’t clarify whether the task is being developed or tested.

Sure, teams might know who the assignee is (DEV/QA), but if an issue isn’t Done and something is found during testing, it requires re-assigning the task - creating unnecessary confusion.

Instead, I prefer clear handoffs: "Ready for Testing" – A final green status set when development is complete, allowing QA to take over.

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For the final stage, I keep it simple, usually with one or two statuses depending on resolutions:

• "Done" – Used for positive resolutions (e.g., Done, Fixed, Roadmap).
• "Closed" – Used for negative outcomes (e.g., Declined, Won’t Do, Won’t Fix).

Sure, you could use one status and handle everything with Resolutions, but I prefer this approach. For example, when preparing Release Notes, I can filter only "Done" tasks in a given Fixed Version - while "Closed" issues don’t even need a fix version (but I add fix version as reference point in app lifecycle - maybe in future conditions will change)

Recently, I even shared one of the simplest workflows I use: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1236586?tab=overview&hosting=cloud