Can I create two different workflows for the same project? One Kanban board, one Scrum

Question

We use one board per product line with multiple teams using the same board. Currently everyone is on Scrum with the simplified workflow. One team is moving to Kanban so we will be creating that board for them. We will need a more complicated workflow for the Kanban team, but I don't want it to screw up the other teams using Scrum. Is there a way to do this without creating a new issue type for the Kanban team?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

I'm with you on that.  Simplified workflows are great for teams who do "agile" well, and don't need a structured workflow.  But as soon as you need a controlled process or two different ones in the same team... nope, back to proper workflows.

unknown · Answer

Nothing wrong with not using the simplified workflow in my book...

Just saying.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

There are two basic approaches

*  Your initial suggestion - have a new issue type for the Kanban work, or even move it out into a separate project   (and expand the board filters to include it).  Then you can give the new issue types, or issues in the new project, a totally different workflow.  Of course, you'll also need to map any new status on the boards too.
* One workflow which implements all the possibilities of both workflows - I won't repeat what Jeremy already said on that

There is a factor that you need to think about though.  Both approaches require you to stop using simplified workflows for the board.

* If you take the first approach, then you are adding a structured workflow to the board, and that means you can't simplify it because you've got two workflows.  You can carry on using the the workflow that was generated by Software for all the Scrum issues, but it's not simplified any more, so your board owners will not be able to change it any more
* If you take the second approach, you can't use simplified workflow because you need to put conditions and maybe validators on the workflow to do it.  Initially, they will work, but your board owners can easily remove them by changing the workflow, even in minor ways.  The only way to make them work is to de-simplify the workflow so that they can't break it.