Multiple priorities in single kanban backlog

Question

Hi,

I have three areas of work I would like to track in a single board. Each area of work needs to have its own distinct prioritisation.

I wondered if it would be possible to create a single epic for each distinct area of work, and then link stories to the epics. It doesn’t look like it is possible for me to individually prioritise each set of stories linked the individual epics when i click on the epic.

Any views ideas on this approach in terms of how to support my needs in jira.

many thanks

Trudy P Claspill · Answer

So, you can rank stories within an Epic by filtering for that epic to display only its stories. Then drag and drop the stories to change their relative rank.

However, in reality the ranking encompasses all the stories contain in the board. When you show all the stories at once, you may see the stories from the epics intermingled, but you they will remain otherwise appropriately ranked to the other stories in their epic.

Is this not functioning as described for you? What am I missing in your scenario?

DLP001 · Answer

Hi Trudy

It is a company managed backlog. I would like to rank the individual stories relative to their respective project in this case represented possibly by an individual epic per project.

I am trying to support multiple priorities in a single backlog in essence via the conduit of an epic per project, to avoid the maintenance of three boards.

many thanks

Trudy P Claspill · Answer

Hello @DLP001

Welcome to the community.

Are you working with a Company Managed project or a Team Managed project? It will say at the bottom of the navigation pane on the left.

When you say "prioritize" are you talking about the ranking of the stories - the ordering of the stories in the issue lists in the Backlog and in the board view?

All issues in a Kanban board are ranked/prioritized in a relative manner compared to each other

You can most definitely filter the Backlog or board to display the issues in a single epic and then re-rank them relative to each other. That will, however, also re-rank them relative to the other issues in the board.

See this article for more information about how ranking works.

https://tmcalm.nl/blog/lexorank-jira-ranking-system-explained/

If I haven't addressed your question, can you provide more information please? Maybe you could describe in more detail the problem you are trying to solve and how the functionality is not supporting you solving it.