Jira Kanban Board 101: Workflow Management and Beyond

Looking to create a Kanban board in Jira? Then this guide is for you!

I’ll guide you through the processes of: 

• Creating a Kanban project, 
• Adding tickets, 
• Configuring the board,
• And managing the backlog.

How to create a Jira Kanban project?

Jira projects are located under the projects tab on the top navigation menu. Select the “Create project” option and you will be prompted to select a project template. Obviously, we will be going with the Kanban template.

The next screen will tell you more about the essentials. You’ll see a couple of use case examples, as well as some benefits. I’d say that the most important part is located on the right side where you will see your starter issue types and the default workflow. These are essentially the types of tickets you will have, as well as the statuses you will be moving them through to get from “To Do” to “Done”. 

Please note, you’ll be able to customize the workflow as well as the issue types to fit your project’s specific needs later on so use this screen as more of a reference to what you’ll be able to do in a Kanban board rather than a set in stone rules.

Your next choice will be a bit trickier as you’ll be choosing between a company-managed and a team-managed project. The latter is a nice fit for teams that prefer to work on their projects autonomously. It offers a self-contained working space where the Project Admin has the necessary permissions to manage and modify workflows. The settings of a team-managed project do not impact other projects.

A company-managed project, on the other hand, offers access to more advanced functionality. It gives you the ability to have specific workflows per issue type meaning multiple teams across various boards will have the same experience when working with certain issues. There are more nuanced differences between team-managed or Next Gen and company-managed projects in Jira but I won’t be focusing on them too much in this article.

I’ll take a look at both, starting with a company-managed project. 

Lastly, you’ll need to give your new project a name and confirm your choices.

Clicking the “Create project” button will lead you straight into your brand new Kanban board. 

You have your board looking nice, the columns are there, so it’s about time to start adding issues like user stories, right? Explore "How to Customize Your Jira Kanban Board" on the TitanApps blog.