How to create a Jira Planning Board, without a real Planning Board (Kanban Style)

[Dane Vosler]

I hope this blesses a lot of people, because I figured how out to do a Release and Planning Board with the new Jira. Here is the problem, and here are the easy steps:

Problem: We have sprints that include items from several projects. We use the Sprint methodology, but we had to create a shell project to lump all of our projects together into a single sprint.

Planning for VERSIONS was a huge sticking point, since Jira wants us to keep 1 project =  1 version. Therefore, we had to create a separate project called 'Releases' to do this.  And while it has a little tedium, it's totally worth it - watch:

Solution:

1. Create a new SCRUM project to hold all 'Releases'
2. Create a KANBAN board for the Releases project, and name it something like 'Release Planning' - this will be in addition to your agile board that was created for that project - don't delete that one
3. Create a BASIC type card for your 'Cloned' issues for your Releases project/Board.  This will allow you to easily link your cloned cards on the releases project, to your other project cards
4. Create a Workflow - This is the tricky part. Create a workflow with the number of lanes you want for planning on your Planning Board - we needed 5. Ensure all Statuses can transition to all other statuses:

5. Configure Your Board - For your new Kanban board, configure it to have the names of the releases you have internally at your organization. This will make it easy for any kind of visual release planning. We leave the first column for 'All Cards', and the last for 'Released', with 5 lanes in between:

6. In your Releases project, create VERSIONS as the system allows. (this is why you do NOT delete the Agile board that comes with the project itself).

7. Add a single transition SCREEN to the RELEASED status. This will ensure you can update the actual version when it's deployed.  The screen only needs to include 'Fix Version', unless you want to include more:

And that's it. Now you can create a proper Release board that visualizes what issues are in what release, and see it in a horizontal way. Also, you can create other boards that are not restrictive on status and easily drag and drop. Yes, you do have to clone your issues from time to time, but it's easy to maintain, as releases don't usually happen every day - I offer that you only create clone cards for issues in the upcoming sprint or so.  

Be blessed! 

[Thomas Hardin]

Is this process designed for specific version of Jira? If so, what is the earliest version that can be used?