The Ultimate Guide to the Jira Board: From Setup to Delivery

[#1]

If you are new to Atlassian, the Jira board is likely the first thing you will interact with. But here is the secret that most new project managers miss: if you treat your board like a static whiteboard, you will eventually hit a wall. 

In this guide, we are going to break down what a Jira board actually is, how to create one, and why—eventually—you are going to need more than just columns to manage your team.

What is a Jira board (really)?

Most users think a board contains issues.
The truth: a board is just a visual filter.

Think of your Jira instance as a massive database of thousands of tickets. A Jira board is simply a saved search query (JQL) that says: "show me only the tickets for Project X, and display them in columns based on their status".

Why does this matter?

• You can delete a board without deleting the issues inside it.
• You can have multiple boards for the same project. You can create a "Dev board" for engineers and a "Stakeholder board" for management, both looking at the same underlying issues but visualizing them differently.

Jira Scrum board vs. Kanban board

When you create a board, Jira asks you to choose a side. Don't overthink it. It comes down to your team's rhythm.

Scrum board

Choose the Jira Scrum board if your team thrives on the predictable rhythm of sprints, typically running in two-week cycles. The goal here is to commit to a fixed block of work and ensure it’s fully completed by the deadline, effectively creating a protective boundary around your scope.

This structure makes it the ideal choice for product development teams that need disciplined iteration and a shield against the chaos of constant, mid-sprint changes.

Kanban board

Opt for the Jira Kanban board if your team operates on a continuous flow rather than fixed cycles. The primary objective here is velocity—moving tickets from left to right as efficiently as possible without the artificial pressure of a sprint clock.

This fluid approach is perfect for support teams, IT operations, or maintenance crews who deal with unpredictable incoming requests and need the flexibility to tackle the next priority the moment a slot opens up.

What if you follow the hybrid approach — Scrumban?

If you want to go this route, we recommend choosing a Jira Kanban board but enabling the "Backlog" feature in the board settings. This gives you a dedicated space to prioritize work without forcing you into the rigid start/stop dates of a sprint. Curious how this looks in practice? Read the story on how we manage the Planyway team using Scrumban here.

How to create a board in Jira: 2 common scenarios

Because a board is just a filter, you can mold it to fit your specific management style. Here are two most common ways we see successful teams organize their boards:

"Team" board

The "team" board is the classic Agile standard where you create a single board for one squad. This board acts as the central hub, pulling in every issue assigned to that specific group regardless of how many different initiatives they are juggling.

Crucially, this setup is the only reliable way to track velocity. If you want to know exactly how many story points your team can crush per sprint, you need a stable environment where the membership doesn't fluctuate. Whatever you do, never split one team across two boards—it fractures their focus and renders your reporting useless.

"Project" board
This setup is designed for temporary, goal-based initiatives—like a website redesign—where the work matters more than the reporting structure. In these scenarios, you often have a cross-functional mix of designers, developers, and copywriters who sit in different departments but need to align on a single objective.

By spinning up a dedicated board for the project, you create a shared collaboration space where everyone sees the same status updates, regardless of their home team. Just keep in mind that this specific view is best used for tracking the project's scope, not for calculating your team’s velocity or capacity.

Why the Jira Board is not enough

Boards are brilliant at answering: "What is the status of this task?"
But they are terrible at answering: "When will it be done?" and "Who is actually available?"

A Jira board visualizes state. It does not visualize time.

Here is the board trap that project managers fall into:

• You have 5 tasks in the "In Progress" column assigned to Bob. Is Bob working on all 5 right now? Is he blocked? Is he on vacation? The board looks active, but the reality might be a standstill.
• The board shows you story points, but it doesn't show you time. It doesn't know that Alice has a day-off on Tuesday or that the deadline clashes with a national holiday.
• In a column, ten tasks might look equally urgent. A board lacks a timeline to show dependencies and sequence.

Align your board with reality

To graduate from task tracking to real project management, you need to overlay a timeline onto your board.

This is why we built Planyway. 

Turn your board into plan
Planyway takes the issues from your Jira board and projects them onto a timeline. Suddenly, you aren't just looking at a list of tickets; you are looking at a schedule. You can see that Task A must finish before Task B starts.

 

Visualize сapacity to make plans realistic
Instead of guessing if a team member is overloaded based on card count, Planyway visualizes their workload.

• See who is overbooked and who is free.
• Account for holidays and time off.

 By combining your Board's data with Planyway's resource visualization, you answer the question: "Do we actually have the people to clear this column by Friday?"

Summary

Mastering the Jira board is step one. It organizes your chaos into columns.
But if you want to deliver on time, you need to see beyond the columns. You need to align your plan with reality.

Ready to see your board on a timeline? Try Planyway for Jira

Need more details on Jira board basics? Dive into our 1-minute demos:

• How to delete a board in Jira
• How to edit workflow in Jira
• How to export Jira board to Excel