Epics with Various Workflows

Question

Is there any way to leverage the behavior of epics across multiple workflows that support different teams?

My team is using a custom workflow different than the rest of the company.  I'd like my team and our board to support epics.  I'm specifically after the additional nesting behavior as well as various epic tracking and reporting mechanisms.

It seems as though there is only one definition of epic for the entire company.  I can't change the behavior of epics just for my team.  Things I've considered:

* Creating a custom issue type that is sort of like an epic doesn't provide the behavior of epics.
* It appears Jira doesn't allow new types based on the behavior of epics.
* I haven't seen any way to assign multiple workflows for epics. I'd also want to make sure not to expose my team's workflow to other teams in any disruptive way.

My team currently cannot see epics on our board because they have a different workflow.  I'm trying to avoid adding a new workflow to our team because the extra issue types create confusion (especially when ticket are created with types that don't jive with our board).  My impression is this limitation pushing things into the "can't be done" category.

I've searched in various ways but haven't found this asked before.

Thanks for reading and considering.

jbedar · Answer

I get that this inquiry is dated, but still no less 'needed' IMO.  Why do I see a trend by the community leaders to always respond with "why" instead of providing the insights to get stuff done even if it's 5 different ways in this convoluted solution?  This response wasn't useful 2 years ago and still isn't.

I am trying to build a similar scenario.  Multiple boards in a single software project - each board has its own workflow / filter, etc.  As Epic is already used / workflow-aligned in the Jira project.  I cannot re-use Epic it seems, but then it seems I run into this wall of 'you can't do that' often in Jira.  The 'why' is the same (I'd venture to guess) as Randall - because that is what our org / teams NEED, period.

#frustrated-with-a-nonagile-agiletool

unknown · Answer

Hi Ravi.  The end goal is for the team to be able to run agile with a kanban board - this means having our own workflow so we can adjust columns in a team based kanban like manner.

For Epics in particular, the need is for a deeper hierarchy.  Without them we have story->subtask instead of epic->story->subtask.  By nesting, I was simply referring to the standard behavior epics provide.  Nothing like SAFe going on.

Ravi Sagar _Sparxsys_ · Answer

Hi @[deleted]

What is your end goal? Do you want to do something like SAFe with different levels?

Just wondering why you need to nest epics, is it for grouping them or creating hierarchies?

Ravi