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@Bill Sheboy this just in - Atlassian Decoder Ring will now be renamed Translation Table to be more accessible to teams of all types. :-P
Jokes aside, I like the change assuming that Atlassian preserves our JQL, automation rules, etc. and does provide some sort of way to easily understand the before and after terminology.
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Is there a summary of all the name changes going on somewhere?
Jira Issues > Work Items
Products > Apps
Plug-Ins/Apps/Add-Ons > ?
Projects > Spaces
Any others that I'm missing?
And when do all of these changes start impacting our end users? As some others mentioned, when will the projects terminology in JQL change over to spaces?
This is a significant shift, and it's great to see Atlassian working to create a more unified and intuitive experience across products. That said, since "spaces" already have a strong association with Confluence, I’m curious how this change will impact user training and cross-product understanding.
Will there be clear visual labels to help users differentiate between Jira "Spaces" and Confluence "Spaces"? Looking forward to seeing how this evolves!
For the record, I like this change, as I've had customers refer to Jira projects as Jira spaces (at multiple companies, with no rhyme or reason).
If such a change makes spaces a literal space for work (items) and pages, this should reduce the cognitive load for our users. And since there are usually more users than admins, I support this change. 😉
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
I honestly don't care how much re-work this is going to cost me in updating automations, filters, dashboards, and documentation if it means I don't need to explain the difference between Project and Project yet another time!
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
June 24, 2025 edited
Thank you for your feedback and comments on the proposed changes. I would like to address the most frequently asked questions regarding JQLs, APIs, and automation rules here:
- APIs will continue to function as they currently do. - JQLs will support the new terminology alongside the old one, so they will remain operational. - Automation rules will not require any updates either.
Watch this space for further updates and information about this change. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out!
Awesome!!! Much needed clarity and alignment for those of us that are fairly new to Atlassian world and are using the suite of tools for everything in a department, not just a development team. Now if we could get the concept of a 'parent sprint' ;)
Great move! It seems that "spaces" bring a more flexible or collaborative feel to Jira. It might match better with the way cross-functional teams structure their work
This is a much-needed update—I’ve been waiting for it for a long time. It was always difficult to explain the difference between a Jira project and an Atlassian project, as many people were confused by these two terms. With this change, things are clearer.
However, I think the introduction of Jira Space and Confluence Space might still cause some confusion for users, especially new ones. Clear documentation and onboarding guidance will be essential.
As an Atlassian Champion- I have created this video https://youtu.be/JX8qzWYZ5zk so that people (specially my viewers/subscribers) can know about this update.
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
The next thing on the list for a rename should be Epics in Jira... thoughts anyone?
Wow!
Could you elaborate a bit more on that? What exactly bothers you about the term Epic?
In my opinion, Epics and Stories are well-established terms that represent Agile like no others. They’re widely understood and have become a kind of common language. If you need "Initiative" or "Programm" instead or above, that is possible as you may know...
@roydbrayshay you can rename them today if you like as the changes to Epics have been rolled out. I always rename them to Features ;)
@David Friedrich The term in itself is not a problem, the fact that it is used on multiple levels are. If you use the term Epic, then you are just saying a large thing, since Epic is not a defined object. So you have product Epics, Strategic Epics, Project Epics, Portfolio Epics....and so on.
The most common issue I face a lot is when people set up planning boards that they call Epic boards. Those Epics are very big, so when you then break them down, you will have features on Story levels and the actual work in sub-tasks. That causes problems since you are now blocking the developer to break down their work and all activities will be out of sync with other teams that uses Epics as feature and then stories as the work item.
Add a few dimensions to that and when you have programs breaking down projects as Epics, or large deliveries over multiple projects as Epics... Yeah, that is why we have work item hierarchies, but since many work in silos and down know how the rest of the organization works, this can get messy fast.
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@David Friedrich@__ Jimi Wikman I think it's a long standing shame that Atlassian chose to use the term Epic to describe "a container for stories", this is different from the established use of the term in the agile community and books like XP Explained (Kent Beck) and User Stories Applied (Mike Cohn) where it means "a large story", (typically to be broken down). To this day that causes unnecessary confusion I feel.
Traditionally the term "theme" was used to describe a group of stories and I think that would have been better. Especially the way Epics are used in the timeline etc.
I know it can be changed and one day I might do that. My reluctance rests in a fear of the gotchas that may emerge someway down the line as a result.
Any recruits to my "rename Epics" lobby group should join up here !!
@roydbrayshay I am afraid it is not Atlassian that is responsible for that, but other processes, methodologies and frameworks have used this for as long as XP has existed I think, maybe even before that.
The problem is that there has always been a rift between multiple groups, and the use of words in those groups have long drifted apart to mean different things.
This is why we have such problems understanding each other and why it is so difficult to align these things in tools that are designed to be used across the whole organization.
You say Epic for example and I say Requirement, or possibly business need. For me there is no such thing as a generic "large" container because the chain is defined like this:
Business Need -> Requirement -> User Story -> Work Item -> sub-task
This chain always has many-to-many relations, and the terms Story and Epic have no meaning in that flow as I see it. The work items would be configuration, development (maybe even split into backend and frontend), UX/UI Design and so on.
This is based on the processes you have when building products in a continuous delivery setting and before this you would have the financial processes like portfolio management, resource management and the annual budgeting processes along things like vendor management and so on.
So what you call an Epic, I might call a feature or requirement. Someone else might call in an initiative or theme, while others might call it an CapEx Budget post.
As words matter if we are to avoid confusion, then using arbitrary terms with vague definitions like Epic is not going to help generate that clarity in my opinion.
I always advise people to do this: Explain what your epic is with one word that is not Epic. If you can do that, then use that word. If you can't, then the term is used as arbitrarily, and you are causing confusion when you use it ;)
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