(Kanban) Board Vs Workflow

Question

Hi,

Jira documentation says

* The vertical columns in both the Active sprints of a Scrum board and the Kanban board represent the workflow of your board's project.

Then, what is the difference between visualization of Columns and Workflow, where we define statuses and transitions between statuses. I understand the difference between columns and statuses, and I believe that statuses can aid in the visual depiction of the workflow using columns (by mapping multiple status to singles columns), thus not needing huge number of columns to represent the complete workflow.

Thanks,

Mrc

Ravichander Muskula · Answer

Thanks Avinash!

I understand most of what you mentioned as I am using Jira for some time. However, where I am struggling is that how to answer the question from my Jira user community (helping a Product Team to migrate to Jira from the manual methods they use currently) on the difference between using Board Columns for Workflow representation Vs Jira workflow, and how they complement each other.

Jira documentation says

Workflow: A Jira workflow is a set of statuses and transitions that an issue moves through during its lifecycle, and typically represents a process within your organization.

Board Columns: The vertical columns in both the Active sprints of a Scrum board and the Kanban board represent the workflow of your board's project.

Avinash Bhagawati _Appfire_ · Answer

Hi @Ravichander Muskula ,

Welcome to Community !

Yes, Columns will represent the workflow statues.

If you have simplified workflow ( Any status to Any status ) you can add new status from board column in board configuration.

Also you can configure statues and transition by editing your existing workflows and those changes will reflect in board columns to map statues with columns.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiracloud/working-with-workflows-776636540.html

Thanks,

Avinash