Tracking Epics with tickets across teams without creating new available statuses

Question

Hi Jira team!

We are having an issue I was hoping we can get some advice on.

We are currently creating a process to track a process that involves tickets across multiple teams and a unique workflow.

We are considering creating a Kanban board where we can track the progress of Epics across a workflow, and easily track the user stories underneath which are tagged to the relevant board for delivery.

However, as this workflow would require unique statuses, we are worried about those statuses being available on other boards. We have just had a clean-up of statuses and we don't want to create more noise outside of this specific process board.

Is there a way of creating statuses for a single board (that's a Company-managed project)?

Alternatively, is there another way of having a board that can connect tickets across multiple boards so epic-level progress can be tracked, without disrupting existing workflows?

Thank you for your time!

Bill Sheboy · Answer

My understanding is one specific issue type may have one workflow for one specific project.

As you are describing different status values (and workflows) for the same work item (perhaps at the same time), I am unclear how team members could know the actual progress of work.

There have been other community posts on this topic, with suggestions like:

* Use a parent epic and child issues (with different workflows)
* Use a parent issue and subtasks (with different workflows)
* Use different issue types for each work type, and link the items

Here is an example thread, and you may search for others: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Single-project-same-issue-type-multiple-workflows-for-different/qaq-p/2670539

I recommend pausing to diagram out the issue hierarchy, flow, and what questions the teams need to answer about progress.  That may help to decide which approach to try, and where limitations will need to be mitigated.

ben.flowers · Answer

Hi @Bill Sheboy - thanks for getting back to me.

The purpose of the unique workflow is to track the process of split tests to validate product elements. These involve set up work from several different teams, Analytics, UX, Delivery etc, and have various approval gates with internal & external stakeholders.

We were considering setting up the split test at 'Epic' level, with user stories attached that are tagged to appear on the various boards of the delivery teams.

There are a few statuses that would be unique to this workflow compared to our current set up, - like awaiting external stakeholder approval

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @ben.flowers -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

What is the purpose of the additional unique workflow spanning the projects?

Until we know that...

You could create a Kanban board for a company-managed project, with a filter spanning all of the relevant projects / issue types, and map the different status values to the board columns.  In the simplest case, that could be: To Do, In Progress, and Done.

For this approach, please treat this board as read-only and only make updates on the source projects' boards.  Otherwise that will disrupt the delivery teams' work.

Kind regards,
Bill