How do I choose the issue type?

Question

I can't find anything in the documentation that provides guidelines on what should be an epic, story, or task. It seems to depend vaguely on the size of the endeavor, but that's not much to go on. Maybe I didn't know what to search for. Maybe the documentation is incomplete. Or maybe the vagueness is deliberate, to leave issue type choices up to the user or team.

Gaston Valente_dzz4x1 · Accepted Answer

Rebecca, those names are related to software development and agile methodologies more than Jira itself:

You can created an issue type with any name you want.

There some guidelines provided by atlassian that maybe can help you:

https://www.atlassian.com/agile/project-management/epics-stories-themes

Hope it helps

Travis Alexander [Empyra] · Accepted Answer

Generally speaking, issue types are going to be, as you put it, intentionally vague -- up to the choices of the team. They can be whatever you want. The only issue type you will not change is Epic. Generally if you think of an Epic as simply a bucket of other issues, you'll stay in the right lane. From an agile perspective, you can look at Epics as being tasks that are too big to fit into a sprint and therefore need a container to house a bunch of smaller issues.

Keep in mind that issue types are what determine the workflow. If different types of project tasks require entirely different workflows, you'll generally want to have separate issue types for each. Also, depending on your reporting / filtering needs, you may want to establish different issue types (even if all issue types utilize the same workflow).

So, a lot to consider, but don't worry too much-- things can always be changed and data migrated if you change your mind. The best way is to start now and tweak as you go along. The odds of getting the configuration perfect (the way you want them) when you're just starting out are slim.