Recommendations on workflows

[Sarah-Sophie Lang]

Hi there,

I've got a mixed team of UX, design, frontend and backend resources, using Jira. We are working in sprints and I have set up the following workflow: backlog --> In progress --> In Reveiw --> Done. My client wants to change it to UX --> Design --> Frontend --> Backend ect. I think that's not refelcting the agile methodology. Can you help with suggestions on making her understand that the workflow currently integrated works better for a multi disicplinary team? Her main concerns are that she can't see where the bottlenecks are, quick filters should help overcome. this. Any otehr suggestions?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Oh, I don't know that it doesn't fit with "Agile methodology".  The main point in Agile is that you break things up into manageable parts, communicate well, keep the process "lean" so that everyone can get on and do useful things, and you deliver good stuff frequently.

Backlog -> In progress -> In Review -> Done works fine as an Agile process. But your client's suggestion doesn't look quite right.  I'd have two questions

1.  I'm not sure your client's workflow is actually a workflow though.  It looks more like a set of components that a task might need to cover, not a process.  Would everything you do have to go through a UX phase, then Design, then Frontend etc?  I'd suggest that these are actually things you might need to do as part of a task.  So ABC-20 has a bit of UX and Frontend work, ABC-21 needs nothing but Backend work and so on.  If that's the case, then backlog -> in progress -> in review -> done is a good workflow, and you can use components to identify specific areas of the task (heck, you could even do those parts as sub-tasks, but that's another story and possibly overkill)
2. If your client's process really is what they've defined, then it is missing "Backlog" and "Done".  For it to be Agile, you really need a pile of issues that have not been looked at yet (backlog) and your users adding more to that whenever they feel like it.  You then plan the work and pull things out of the backlog to get into progress, and when you've finished them, put them on the "done" pile.  If your client insists that this really is the process, then you need to insist on having a backlog/not-started/to-do at the beginning of it, and some form of "done" at the end.

If you go for option 1 though, "Her main concerns are that she can't see where the bottlenecks are, quick filters should help overcome this" - you've hit on exactly the right answer.  Define a quick filter for each component and she'll be able to toggle them on an off in a board and see exactly what the volumes are.