Jira Business Projects vs. Jira Software Project - Best Practice Questions

Question

Hello Jira Community,

I love what I see in the Jira Business Projects with calendars, timelines, forms, etc..

For one of my creative teams, this looks like the way to go however my initial feelings are we would still need a backlog.

1. SMs or PMs do any of you have mature teams running on the business projects? How were you able to get around the lack of a backlog?

2. My other wish would be to stack statuses in the board columns. Instead of multiple QA (Initial, Crossbrowser) or review statuses, I could combine them in a QA or Review Column.

3. Any other learnings from long-time usage of this project type?

John Funk · Answer

Hi James,

You can add a backlog status to your workflow. The only issue is that it will add a column to the board and you cannot move it off the board like with Jira Software projects. All statuses appear as a column on the JWM board. And no two statues can be in a single column (yet - hopefully, they are working on that).

You could create a separate Jira Software board that works with your JWM project and has all of the features you probably want with a true Backlog. But you would have to include it as a link and it would not be available when you click the normal Board menu option for the project.

Danno · Answer

@James Crookyou would need a backlog Status in your workflow to have that as part of your process. You could have a backlog board that would show all the issues in that status. Once they moved to To-Do then use the main board for the project to show the issues being worked on.

You could use any field you like to show on a card to accomplish item #2. The Status would be QA and you have a field with your secondary Status (Initial, Crossbrowser, or review) displayed on the card.

I personally don't like business projects and have stopped using them altogether for some of the reasons you mention. I also found out that if a card stays in status for more than 14 days it disappears from the board just like the Done column. It stays in the project but disappears from the board unless you update it in some fashion.