Company-Managed Conflict: How to Decouple Dev Board Columns from Global Workflow Statuses?

[Sabrine Cardoso]

Hello Jira Community,

Our organisation is standardising on Company-managed projects to ensure consistent data and reporting across the company. I am currently configuring standardised workflows and need advice on solving a conflict between team visualisation and global reporting.

The Conflict: Columns vs. Statuses

Our development teams (the consumers of the board) require a highly detailed Kanban board with many columns to visualise their internal development steps (e.g., "Code Review," "QA Handoff," "Deployment Pending").

However, I've realised that every board column must be mapped to at least one unique workflow status.

• Resulting Problem: If a Dev team wants 15 columns, I am forced to create 15 unique global statuses in the workflow. This is problematic because our internal stakeholders only need to know three things: To Do, In Progress, and Done. Creating 15 statuses makes high-level reporting impossible and creates unnecessary confusion.

My Current, Flawed Solution

My temporary solution is to educate teams to use Epics for even small features that only have one story. This is a workaround that adds unnecessary complexity to the backlog.

What I Wish For (and Need Advice On)

Is there a standard or better way in a Company-managed project to allow teams to use the same underlying global status (e.g., "In Progress") associated with multiple board columns (e.g., "In Progress - Frontend," "In Progress - Backend")?

Or, is there a better practice for managing this Dev visualisation vs. Global reporting conflict?

Thank you for any insight!