Does the status matter in columns in a Kanban board?

[Stefannie Tan]

So my team is trying to use Jira's kanban board, and we're trying to reflect their real workflow as much as possible.

this means that we have columns that are in the middle that are something like:

- for confirmation (status: to do)

- dev in progress (status: in progress)

- dev complete (status: in progress)

i just want to know whether this has a significant effect somewhere in jira that will be unfavorable to us. we also use plugins to track the lead time and cycle time.

thanks!

[Yuri Lapin _Release Management_]

Hi @Stefannie Tan

Trust you are well.

As John suggested ... the proper way is column per status. In this case it won't toooo user friendly but you will get all the flexibility of intermediate(queueing) statuses and measuring lead/cycle time.

You might also try out Advanced Kanban Board. In our App we allow to create Column Groups - e.g. Dev column group for pre-Dev, in-Dev, ready-for-Merge, etc. You can see stats per column and column groups as well as fine tune your WIPs per column/group.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Yuri.

[Stefannie Tan]

hi @Yuri Lapin _Release Management_ ! thanks for your response! currently we have the board set up so it is one column = one separate and distinct status.

thanks for your app suggestion, but at least for the basic board, I'd like to work with Jira's existing board set up. it can be a little disheartening paying for something (referring to a paid Jira plan) then having to pay for more plugins on top just to get it to work on a basic level.

so it seems that as long as we have one separate status per column, having multiple statuses with differing categories (because Jira only allows to do, in progress and done) doesn't seem to be a problem.

sorry, i used the wrong wording. i was referring to having multiple statuses using any of the 3 default jira categories (to do, in progress and done) on the board and whether that would become a problem down the road.

[John Funk]

Hi Stephanie,

A status can only be in a single column - so you can't have the In Progress status in both the Dev In Progress and Dev Complete columns. But if you have separate statuses, yes, those are fine to be in separate columns. Depending on your plugin - it might make a difference if you stack two statuses in the same column versus having them as separate columns for each status. 

[Stefannie Tan]

hi @John Funk ! thanks for your response.

we currently have separate statuses for each column that we add on the board.

so one column = one separate and distinct status

[John Funk]

You should be in good shape then!