How to limite number of in-progress Story/Feature tasks on next-gen board?

Question

We would like to strictly enforce how many tasks of a certain type are active/in-progress at a particular time.

Ideally, we would like to limit this to per user as well. (ie. a user can only have 1 active story task at a time).

I know the next gen board can set an overall board limit, but is there a way to limit it for a certain class of tasks? Even better, limit it per user?

Ste Wright · Answer

Hi @Samson Tan

Not natively; it might be possible using Automation or Scripting though. You might also be able to create a scripted validator to stop an issue being moved to a status based on what is already in that status.

However, I would be cautious doing this. Locking down Jira statuses to a certain number of issues, or disallowing more than X issues to be assigned at one time can create pitfalls in your processes, or can be easy to workaround.

For example, you state I can only have 3 issues assigned at any one time. I might just unassign one, assign another, then reverse this later. Or I might close an issue to remove it from my queue and recreate it for someone else to pick up, impacting the history, comments visible, cycle/lead time measurements, etc.

I think it's better to build dashboards or reports around how many issues are in progress at one time, or how many are assigned to each user and then have conversations around why it might be more efficient to limit WIP.

Use the data as a carrot for a team to improve, rather than a stick which they work against.

Ste

Pramodh M · Answer

Hi @Samson Tan

Apart from setting "Set column limit" we don't have any other option in Next-gen projects.

Thanks,
Pramodh