Interested in learning what the CIRCLES method is? Well, you’re in the right place!

Today, the CIRCLES method has become the go-to framework of choice for product managers looking to resolve the challenge of building successful product designs. 

The data speaks for itself. According to data from Hubspot, as many as 66% of customers expect companies to fully grasp their needs and propose real solutions to their pain points. 

Since product design plays a pivotal role in resolving a customer’s pain points, the burden falls on product managers to create those experiences for their target audiences.

The CIRCLE method is one such framework that guides the decision-making process for product managers during the product lifecycle and increases the likelihood of building a successful product design. 

In today’s article, we define the CIRCLES methods, explain its importance for product managers, and elaborate on some of its additional functions, not only as a tool for product design but also as a tool when answering product interview questions. 

Let’s dive in. 

What is the Purpose of the CIRCLES Method?

The CIRCLES Method is a framework that aids product managers in devising concise and comprehensive responses to product design questions. In doing so, the framework provides a structure that product professionals follow to approach problems that crop up in product design and find consistent, adequate solutions to each one. 

The CIRCLES Method is an acronym whose letters represent the total process that product managers go through when employing the framework. The process consists of the following seven principles: 

• Comprehending a given situation
• Identifying the customer at hand
• Reporting that customer’s needs
• Cutting down to what matters most
• Listing possible solutions
• Evaluating potential tradeoffs
• Summarizing the recommendations put forward

Let’s take a closer look at each of these principles in detail. 

Essential Elements of the CIRCLES Method

Let us proceed to break down each of the steps in the CIRCLES method.

1. Comprehend a Given Situation

This step allows product managers to contextualize a scenario and form an understanding of the various elements at play. In a product management setting, this question helps you gauge a situation and lay the foundation that allows you to come up with plausible solutions to possible problems. In the context of a product manager interview, this question enables you to approach design questions from a level-headed, logical point of view.

There are various techniques that product managers employ during this initial step to gain a better understanding of a given situation. However, one of the most popular ones is to ask yourself the ‘5 W’s and H questions.’ These are as follows: 

1. What is the situation?
2. Who is it for?
3. Why does that person need it?
4. When is it available?
5. Where is it available?
6. How does it work? 

Of these six questions, the most pertinent ones for product managers to answer are the ‘why’, ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘how’ questions. These questions tend to provide the most context when it comes to defining constraints and goals for a given project. 

2. Identify the Customer

In this step, product managers seek to discover as much about their target audience as possible. This is a crucial step since product managers must have a clear understanding of who they’re selling to before they even pitch a product design.

Once again, product managers rely on various tools to frame their understanding of their target audience. 

User personas are a popular tool since they allow product managers to create archetypes that represent the needs, expectations, and wants of their users. Each user persona represents a specific subset within a market segmentation so allow PMs to differentiate between different market needs. 

An empathy map is another tool that product managers leverage to gain a deeper understanding of their users. 

These are organized visuals that allow PMs to define certain characteristics of their target audience and examine each one from a stand-alone point of view as well as from its individual interactions with other user elements. 

3. Report a Customer’s Needs

Once you’ve identified your customer’s personality traits, characteristics, and desires, it’s now time to translate them into customer needs. This process results in the creation of use cases or user requirements, both of which are high-level product documentation that dictates what the user needs in a simple, straightforward way. 

It is up to the product manager to decide the format and length of how they document a customer’s needs. Some PMs prefer longer, more detailed sentences or paragraphs while some prefer to keep it to a maximum of one or two sentences. 

All in all, the end goal is to translate your knowledge of your customer into concise insights that describe their needs in the clearest way possible. 

4. Cutting Down to What Matters

This step is all about focusing on what truly matters for product development. In doing so, it involves studying the customer needs you’ve identified and singling out those that your team must prioritize during the design and development processes. 

Each PM has its own method of determining what to prioritize. However, most times, they balance factors such as revenue, cost of execution, user experience, and feasibility, among others, in order to determine where they must focus their energies to deliver the right solution to their target audience. 

5. List Possible Solutions

This step in the CIRCLES method aims at identifying possible solutions for the prioritized customer needs. 

Here, product managers come up with a minimum of three possible solutions to satisfy the customer’s needs. 

There are a plethora of methods that PMs use to come up with those solutions. Brainstorming is one of the most common ones that PMs resort to in order to help them generate possible solutions. 

6. Evaluate Potential Tradeoffs

Each solution you come up with has its advantages and its drawbacks.

At this stage, product managers scrutinize these advantages and drawbacks to determine which one is the best one to get the job done from an objective point of view.

Summarize Recommendation

Once you’ve identified the solution, the CIRCLES method calls for you to recap the process you’ve gone through and restate the solution you’ve proposed. 

Reviewing your process in retrospect gives you the opportunity to judge whether the conclusions you drew are sound and justify the recommendation you’ve put forward. 

What are the Benefits of Applying the CIRCLES Method in Product Management?

The CIRCLES method is applicable to any design and improvement task.

Here are some of the key benefits it provides:

• Gives PMs an organized framework for addressing product design 
• Offers product managers a structured way of evaluating the context of product design, its constraints, parameters, and requirements 
• Minimizes the likelihood of a PM missing an important product design detail
• Helps product managers stay focused on user needs and prioritize  product features in line with them
• Allows product managers to take into account all critical factors in product design, compare potential solutions, and identify the best option that matches all specific requirements

The History of the CIRCLES Method

Author and product leader Lewis C. Lin developed the CIRCLES Method and included it in his book The Product Manager Interview released in 2017.

That said, in an earlier Impact Interview released in 2016, Lewis had already documented the CIRCLES method, presenting it as a product design framework that helps PMs approach design-related questions the right way in interviews. 

At the time, he expounded on the meaning of each step within the seven-step process, emphasizing that the ‘comprehending the situation’ phase required a three-pronged approach: 

1. Clarifying the end goal: Here, PMs must relate the need for a change in product design to an outcome, be it increased market revenue, greater customer engagement, or higher client retention, among others.)
2. Understanding the constraints: This step involves figuring out the length of time you have to deal with a problem, the number of resources available to you, and the limitations or setbacks you have to face during the project lifecycle. 
3. Understanding context: The last task in this initial step is to gain as much relevant knowledge of the project as possible. This includes clarifying validating or debunking any assumptions you already have to gain a clear and objective understanding of the situation at hand. 

Since its introduction to the product management world, PMs have embraced the CIRCLES method as a useful tool to approach product design questions from a clear and objective vantage point. 

Conclusion

The CIRCLES method is a popular framework that PMs use to approach product design from a concise and objective point of view. 

Since its introduction in 2016, candidates applying for a position as a product manager use it to increase their chances of providing the right response to product design questions in product interviews. 

As product management continues to evolve, new and innovative frameworks emerge. 

However, the popularity and the success of the CIRCLES method thus far suggest that it is here to stay on the product management scene for a long time. 

FAQs

What is a product management framework?

A product management framework is a methodology that details the steps a company must follow to approach a given product management phase. PM frameworks serve to reduce the time it takes to deliver high-quality products.

What is a prioritization framework?

A prioritization framework is a method that provides standardized criteria that allow product teams to prioritize or rank features based on value. Prioritization frameworks help you make better strategic decisions, reduce bias, and eliminate analysis paralysis.

What is the CIRCLES Method?

The CIRCLES method is a comprehensive approach to structuring your thought process so that you create the best design solutions possible. It offers an exhaustive set of steps leading to understanding the context, constraints, customers, requirements, and prioritization criteria. 

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Market research plays a big role in the success of a business, so it is crucial to know what the needs of your target market are. Many companies that enter a market fail because of the lack of customer research.

Eric Ries, the author of The Lean Startup, says that startups fail because their product has no demand.

Real client feedback and research are excellent sources of actionable information on how to make a product thrive. Market researchers need to study past and current trends to forecast how the market will shift in the future.

This research is essential for business decisions on future campaigns to stay ahead of the curve and appeal to target audiences.

17 Customer Research Tips

1. Identify the Target Audience

Be aware of the target market’s demographics in order to market to them.

Focus groups, questionnaires, surveys, interviews, and analytical data gathered from online interactions of the business are used to research who the target audience is.

It’s critical to develop a customer profile that considers demographics like age, wealth, and interests, but also unmet needs and potential market shifts over time.

2. Discover new Opportunities

The fact of the matter is that the market is constantly shifting. Due to the ongoing evolution of the industry, researchers must apply their analytical abilities to determine the following:

• Current market trends
• Market size
• Market leaders
• Trend forecasts
• Demographics
• Geographical spread
• Suppliers
• Gaps in the market

Understanding the current market and identifying prospects for company strategies, advertising, and goods requires gathering such data, and it also allows for identifying areas for improvement.

3. Leverage Online Reviews from Customers

Online reviews are a rich source of information on how customers feel about different products. Reading customer reviews is an easy and free way to see what people are saying – both good and bad.

Online reviews give business owners direct access to their customers’ thoughts, and they show what the business is doing right and what they’re not doing well. Given that everyone has access to these internet reviews responding to the valuable feedback from bad reviews is critical.

It is also important to remember to validate reviews. If someone mentions something about a product, that doesn’t mean it’s true. As such, recurring feedback is the most important.

Depending on the size of the company’s customer base, there may be too many online reviews to read, and the practice becomes redundant.

The way forward is to employ a software tool to gather all reviews onto a database and perform a keyword search to find recurring feedback on the product. Be sure to notice a pattern and take action to keep customers happy.

4. Use Market Research Tools

Market research tools are the way to go when on a tight budget, when resources do not allow hiring a market researcher, or if the data needs to be available sooner.

There are several market research tools. Like any software tool, some cater to the company’s needs better than others. They gather real-time data on customers, current market trends, demographics, market size, etc.

For its ease of use and accessibility, Google Trends gets the job done most of the time. However, there are more comprehensive market research tools out there that give a more detailed picture of the market.

5. Observe Your Competition

Entering an established market is far from easy. However, it does present an opportunity to learn from the market leader. Performing market research to find the most successful companies in your company’s industry can help to catapult the business to the top.

Now, this doesn’t mean you should copy the model used by others. But, learning their strengths and weaknesses gives customers a clear image of what they want.

Once a few companies have been researched, trends of what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong begin to surface. The next step is to adapt the business’ product to provide the perfect solution to its customers. In doing so, the company attracts new customers away from the market leaders.

Research the following about competitors:

• Market position
• Price/quality
• Average revenue
• Product range
• Location
• Target customers
• Strengths and weaknesses

6. Gather and Analyze Data

Although gathering data is a critical step in the process, it is even more crucial to evaluate and identify trends and changes that affect or may soon affect the business.

Data gathering and analysis must be ongoing processes that occur at every stage. Even if you conduct thorough research before releasing products, follow-ups, collecting client feedback, and market data need to continue.

In addition, make an effort to evaluate the success of marketing campaigns to inform subsequent campaigns.

7. Collect Customer Surveys

Not sure how customers feel about your product? Ask them.

A great way to gather customer feedback is through an online survey. It’s essential to keep these online surveys short and simple; nobody wants to fill out a 30-minute questionnaire about a business or product.

Save time by asking direct, meaningful questions that provide valuable information and will help to better understand customers’ needs. Open-ended questions are more useful for in-person interviews where the interviewer probes for a clear explanation of the customer’s thoughts.

8. See How Customers Use the Product

Watching how customers use products gives valuable insight into the customer’s views. More often than not, this feedback technique helps identify pain points customers face when using the product.

For example, when customers visit a company’s website, watch how they navigate through the site. Ask them to try to purchase something if it’s an e-commerce site and pick out any difficulties that the customer experiences. There’s nothing worse than trying to buy something online with a complicated purchasing process.

Another option is using heat mapping tools to track customers’ navigation of your business’ site. Once again, take action when recurring patterns of bottlenecks occur.

9. Conduct Customer Interviews

Market research involves interacting with people through in-person interviews, online focus groups, telephone surveys, digital questionnaires, etc.

Getting honest client feedback through interviews is a quick and easy way to learn more about their needs.

Participants must be aware of the purpose of the interview and how you will use their data. Be honest and sincere. Failure to do so has adverse effects in the future as it can distort statistics if participants don’t express their genuine opinions.

10. Use Data Available to the Public

Another great source of information is public data. It’s not always necessary to collect data, as government statistics are a wealth of information for market research.

Public records provide information like demographics, location, and behaviors which are vital to researchers looking to identify customer segments. This information then goes to marketing teams, who decide on a strategy for each element, and this is all from public data.

Public records or industry reports give a general overview of a business’s customers and how they behave. To take it a step further, employ market research tools like Google Analytics that pinpoint buyers’ persona.

11. Personalize Your Consumer Research for Each Project

Each project needs to be separate.  There is no one-size-fits-all method for finding solutions to issues relating to various market segments.

Consider the company’s goals every time a survey goes out if that’s how the business plans to collect most of the data for market research. Don’t do a single survey and distribute it to everyone.

Instead, make inquiries specific and address them to particular individuals. Customers taking part in a brand awareness survey mustn’t receive a duplicate of a customer satisfaction survey. It is also best to avoid sending out a single study to both groups that include questions about both subjects.

Market research is more accurate if it approaches each project independently and uses individualized problem-solving techniques.

12. Offer Incentives When Gathering Information

Consider the driving forces behind the respondents who supply the data when looking for strategies to improve market research. Offering incentives is a great way to attract more participants for data collection. Examples of incentives are discounts on their next purchase, the chance to win a prize or even the possibility to test out a product’s beta version.

Remember that the people giving the data value their time just as much as the business does. Think about the audience and the most effective incentives to encourage maximum involvement. For example, rewards intended for an older age group won’t be as attractive to younger age groups, and vice versa.

13. Research the Target Audience on Google Search

It’s as easy as that! Googling competitors is one of the most effective ways of researching the target audience.

Performing a Google search allows businesses to:

• read competitor’s customer reviews
• find out what customers say about their brand and product or service
• shape their online content to answer customer questions and difficulties

Google is an inexpensive tool for gathering customer data. It’s also important to see how customers find the product online because it’s never straightforward organic website traffic. Instead, using Google shows if customers arrived at your site via a link or social media post.

14. Try Social Listening

Most customers are on social media. The average person spends 2 hours and 25 minutes on social media a day, where they are free to be themselves.

This is a goldmine for consumer research because, besides being free, it’s a place where consumers feel comfortable speaking their minds.

Customers tend to feel pressured to answer questions during an online survey and thus aren’t always being honest to avoid insulting the company conducting it.

Therefore, reading what customers say on social media via a poll or throughout the comments section helps to paint a better picture of how they feel.

15. Ask for Feedback on Product Features

Product feature research must be a part of customer research before committing to expensive costs like large-scale production and advertising. 

If practical, consumer input on concepts and prototypes discloses design defects, packaging problems, and other concerns that save time and money.

The easiest way to collect information from beta testers is through qualitative data research methods like usability testing, a focus group, interviews, and open-ended survey questions.

16. Ask Customers to Rate Their Experience with Your Product

Many customer researchers gain valuable customer feedback through continuous rating bars as they navigate their website or tool.

For instance, after every Zoom call, the online video-call platform asks to rate the quality of the call. If the call is not up to standard and receives a low rating, they can take a short survey to fill out what went wrong, like a “low sound quality.” If the rating is high, the customer can thank you for your time and move on.

This data collection technique finds faults in products and services since the information presents as real-time customer feedback.

17. Make Use of Email Subscribers

Reaching out to email subscribers helps get feedback from multiple sources of existing customers. Whether they’ve been with the company for years or subscribed a week ago, these customers support and want to help the business.

Ask customer-focused questions regarding the product which aims to benefit them. Post a survey and offer incentives. 

Make sure that the subscribers have a valid email address.

Customer Research Example

Suppose you want to start a company that manufactures natural chemical-free cleaning products. The first step is to identify buyer personas and separate them into different segments. Then determine the following:

• New mothers who need to clean baby bottles
• Homeowners looking for an alternative cleaning solution
• Businesses/factories who worry about harsh chemicals getting into their water supply

Next, conduct consumer research and attempt to answer the following questions:

• What characteristics best describe this persona?
• What values does this persona hold dear?
• How does this persona purchase something?
• How does the consumer experience look?
• What are the main goals of this persona?
• What is the size of the market?
• What are this persona’s demographics?
• Where does this customer live?
• What expenses does this persona have?
• How often does this persona engage with you?
• Whose viewpoint does this persona value?
• Which media are appropriate for contacting this persona?
• What factors does this persona value while making a decision?
• Why does this persona select a specific product or brand?
• How do you affect this persona?
• What alternatives does this persona take into account?
• What kind of budget does the individual have for a solution?
• What difficulty does this persona have?

Once most of those questions have been answered, you can begin to form a clear image of the buyer persona of each segment.

The company’s marketing team then takes the information from the consumer research and develops marketing strategies to appeal to each segment.

Market Research FAQs

How long does it take to conduct customer research?

The primary market research gives an idea of what potential customers look for. Are there gaps in an untapped market that everyone else overlooks? 

While market research answers many concerns concerning an industry’s state, it may take weeks or even months for researchers to portray the commercial environment after looking into several aspects of the industry.

Why is marketing strategy necessary?

Having a marketing strategy is a vital part of any business’s plan. A marketing strategy enables the company to produce goods and services with the highest likelihood of turning a profit.

The ideal marketing strategy begins with market research, which considers the perfect target market, what competitors do, and potential future trends.

Market research is the process of obtaining data on target audiences and customers to confirm the success of a new product. It assists the team in refining an already-existing product or understanding brand perception that expresses the value of the organization.

With the help of this data, businesses can work out the benefits customers and clients seek, the price range at which they’re ready to spend, and how they set their product apart from the competitors.

How do primary and secondary market research differ?

Primary research involves performing analysis or hiring someone to do it for the company. It entails going to a source, such as current and potential clients in the target market, to gather information.

Primary research often costs more, takes longer to complete, and produces definitive results.

Primary research examples include:

• Interviews
• Surveys
• Focus groups

Gathered, organized, and published research by others is secondary research. It comprises research and reports from government organizations, industry trade groups, and other companies.

Most research is often secondary for small businesses because it is faster and cheaper to obtain than primary research.

Secondary research examples include:

• Government statistics
• Public records
• Industry reports

Conducting market and consumer research is worth it as it gives invaluable insight into a business’s customers and their needs. Their feedback drives the product; without it, it won’t sell.

After all, the product’s goal is to satisfy the target market’s needs and desires.

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Looking to create a Kanban project using Jira software? 

Then you’ve come to the right place.

As an agile project management tool, the Kanban methodology offers visual signals that help teams manage work.

In 2002, Jira Software made its debut, giving organizations access to project management tools that streamline the planning and execution processes, providing maximum value for the Kanban development team.

In this Jira tutorial, we give you a step-by-step guide on how to create a kanban board in Jira Software.

Step 1: Create a Kanban Board

When you log in to Jira Software, you have the option to create a project. Jira provides a complete Kanban software development template. Select this as the project type as it equips you with a digital Kanban board that helps to visualize and track workflow. 

Credit: Atlassian

Credit: Atlassian

Once you create the project, the Kanban board is the first thing you see. Here, your team has the flexibility to plan and execute work on a regular basis.

Step 2: Configure the Jira Kanban Board

Jira Software offers a standard workflow template for the Kanban project that includes Backlog, Selected for Development, In Progress, and Done. This allows the product owner to add tasks to the backlog and label them as “ready for development” following completion. 

Use the Kanban board settings to customize the board. To do this, click the ellipses in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Here, you have a range of selections, from the number of columns to quick filters. You also have the option to edit Work In Progress limits (WIP limits). The purpose of WIP limits is to set a minimum and maximum number of tickets.

Credit: Atlassian

Team members use the various columns to signify whether a project is in-progress or done. However, you can configure the workflow status according to your preference. To remove a column, select the trash icon and select ‘Back’ to board to return to the Kanban board.

Once you finish customizing your board settings, you are free to add items to the backlog.

Step 3: Add Items to the Backlog

Jira refers to items such as Tasks, Bugs, Epics, and Stories as issues. 

Click on the ‘Create’ tab, then from the issues menu, select the issue type to add it to your backlog. In Kanban, these appear as the first column of your board. When creating issues, you have the ability to include a brief summary and a description that outlines all the issue details. 

Credit: Atlassian

You also have the option to attach documents, images or video recordings that assist the kanban team. Use the ‘Details’ tab to assign and reassign issues to the various team members and be sure to select an appropriate priority level when doing so. Take note that you can update any item or issue to reflect the workflow status.

Step 4: Prioritize the Backlog

Kanban teams focus on work that is in progress. For this reason, it is necessary to rank the items in the backlog according to their priority. 

To do this, drag and drop cards throughout the first column to arrange them by importance. As a default setting, the Kanban board includes swimlanes which help you categorize issues so that team members are aware of what to work on next. To edit these defaults, go to board configuration in the upper right hand corner of the backlog and select ‘Swimlanes’. 

Credit: Atlassian

Jira Software allows you to keep track of issues, in particular the ones with high priority labels such as bugs. It apprises team members of the urgent matters by increasing the visibility of the workflow.

Credit: Atlassian

Step 5: Enable the Kanban Backlog

Since the Kanban methodology facilitates multiple ongoing projects, it is typical that the initial backlog (the first column) becomes lengthy and difficult to manage. Consider enabling the Kanban backlog which provides more space to plan work for the team.

The Kanban backlog creates a separate backlog that appears on a different tab on the board. With more space, product managers have more flexibility to build and prioritize the backlog without hindering the progress of the team. The product manager is also free to move work from the backlog to keep the team in the loop about any upcoming projects.

To access the Kanban backlog, log in as a Jira Administrator, then select ‘Jira Administration’ from the top bar. Next, select ‘Applications’ and scroll down to Jira Software, then Jira Software Labs. Select the features you prefer.

Step 6: Hold Team Meetings

A key aspect of the Kanban framework is hosting team meetings. Although they are optional, having daily stand-ups is an efficient way to report on the team’s progress.

In Jira Software, you have the choice to generate various board reports and diagrams that illustrate the status of the team’s work in progress over a specific period of time. The diagrams show the fluctuations in workflow by taking into account the number of issues or backlogs that are incomplete.

Credit: Atlassian

On the whole, this feature helps the team improve and manage workflows so that no one falls too far behind.

Step 7: Use the Control Chart

Another Jira tool for tracking Jira issues and the kanban team’s work in progress is the Control Chart. This is another report you can generate from the board, which allows you to see the cycle time of your issues. 

Analyzing the cycle time of the team is an essential metric for Kanban teams because it demonstrates the following:

• The length of time each issue remains within a particular status
• The average amount of time it takes to complete an issue (cycle time)
• The team’s average cycle time (a low average reflects better efficiency)

Credit: Atlassian

Overall, the Control Chart helps you determine what changes to make to the workflow to avoid bottlenecks, reduce project complexity and increase efficiency across the team.

Jira Kanban Tutorial: Key Takeaways

Every software development project stands to benefit from using the Kanban methodology as it allows them to create visual representations of each new project. A product owner that makes it their duty to learn Jira and use it to create a digital Kanban board, gains a better understanding of how to manage workflows, conduct issue tracking, and embrace all the details that allow them to maximize the efficiency of any Kanban software development project.

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Curious to know what a Burndown Chart is and how to use it for project management?

Then look no further.

In the 1990s, the burndown chart became the brainchild of two of the original signatories of the Agile Manifesto: Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, in an effort to help organizations streamline the software development process.

This article explores the functions and characteristics of burndown charts and how to incorporate them into Scrum projects to enhance task management.

Let’s dive right into the discussion.

What is a Burndown Chart?

A burndown chart is an agile project management tool that agile teams use to compile information about work that is in progress or ready for completion within a specific time period or sprint. Burndown charts are visual representations of each iteration. The graphs provide estimates of the team’s ability to work through the user stories, ensuring they meet deadlines.

It is necessary to update the chart on a regular basis so that the scrum team has accurate information. Having insight into the status of work allows the team to resolve any issues, thus resulting in favorable outcomes. The typical structure of the burndown chart entails vertical and horizontal axes, which reflect the quantity of work or effort, as well as the passage of time from past to future.

Credit: visual-paradigm.com

How to use a Burndown Chart

The primary function of burndown charts is to display the overall progression of the project and the amount of work remaining. As such, team managers and developers alike make use of burndown charts to track project tasks ranging from high-level requirements to the ones that are more specific, to the development teams.

In order to compile information to populate the burndown chart, teams engage in sprint meetings to decide how to categorize the actual work and estimate the amount of time it takes to complete each task. 

Teams then use the metrics from the chart for the following reasons:

• To monitor the scope of work during each iteration 
• To display work that is complete
• To visualize remaining work
• To gather information for prospective sprint planning meetings
• For efficient management of tasks that result in successful sprints
• To estimate the completion time of a project

Setting Estimation Statistics

The estimation statistic is the key unit of measurement that teams use to estimate work. While various software tools for measuring and creating charts exist, such as Jira Software, it is possible to either personalize the statistic or use alternative settings, for example: story points.

Most agile teams now use story points as a metric compared to traditional software teams, which use time (days, weeks, months). For instance, a project with a 30-day deadline may require 40 tasks for completion. Story points estimate the overall effort that a task requires and is relative to factors such as work complexity, workload, and risks.

Setting the estimation statistic helps calculate team velocity. Velocity refers to the sum of the estimation statistics within each sprint. Maintaining a consistent velocity makes it possible to determine the amount of work a team completes during a sprint.

Credit: platinumedge.com

Types of Burndown Charts

Since burndown charts ensure that work is on schedule for completion, two variants exist: sprint burndown charts and epic burndown charts.

Sprint Burndown Charts

This graph displays the amount of work within a sprint. It tracks the total work remaining and leaves room for making projections about whether or not the team achieves the sprint goal. The team is then free to manage its progress and make any changes in accordance with its objectives. 

An example of this is if the burndown chart reflects that the team may not achieve the sprint goal, they can make the necessary changes to ensure that they remain on target.

Epic Burndown Charts

This graph illustrates the amount of work remaining for the entire project. It simplifies the tracking process because it shows the progression of work across the overall team. The epic burndown chart helps to reflect the following:

• The speed at which the team works through the epic.
• How adding or removing work during the sprint impacts the team’s overall progress. 
• A prediction of the number of sprints the project requires in comparison with past performance and when accounting for changes during the sprints.

Components of a Burndown Chart

The typical burndown chart takes the form of either a bar graph or line plot, where the leftmost point represents the commencement of a project or sprint and the rightmost point reflects its conclusion. Here are the other components of which the burndown chart comprises:

Horizontal Axes (X-Axis)

It is common that the X-Axis represents the time remaining until the project or iteration deadline. 

Vertical Axes (Y-Axis) 

The Y-axis represents the amount of work remaining on the project. To reiterate, software teams use varying units of measurement, however, scrum teams, in general, utilize story points. 

Ideal Work Remaining Line

The ideal work remaining line demonstrates the remaining work that the scrum team has at any point during the sprint or project and establishes the standard or baseline conditions that guide the team’s efforts. Team managers set the baseline by using previous data. 

It is a straight line that has a negative or downward slope and connects the starting and ending point of the burndown chart. The ideal work remaining line reflects the sum of estimates for all tasks. When the team updates the chart to show the project’s progression, they compare it to the ideal work remaining line, which allows them to deduce whether or not they are in alignment with the project objectives.

Take note that since the ideal work line depends on estimates, it is not always accurate.

Actual Work Remaining Line

The actual work remaining line is an accurate representation of the team’s remaining work for the project. Throughout the project, the team updates the line in real-time by adding new points after completing an iteration. 

The actual work remaining line, therefore, does not progress in a linear way, as with the ideal work remaining line. Instead, the actual work line fluctuates above and below the ideal work line. When it is above, it is indicative that there is more work remaining and the project is behind schedule. However, when it is below the ideal work line, there is less work remaining to make the project ahead of schedule. 

Credit: appliedframeworks.com

Advantages of Using Burndown Charts

The use of burndown charts as a project management tool has several benefits:

• The straightforward formatting of the chart makes it easy to use as well as interpret the information it reflects.

• Having a visual representation of how the project progresses ensures that all team members remain up to date with the status of their work.

• Since all team members have access to the chart, it encourages group collaboration and cohesion and allows for prompt resolution of issues with the workflow.

• Burndown charts provide insight into the velocity of the project, which is a key metric for determining the requirements and total effort necessary for completing user stories during each iteration.

• It is an effective method of illustrating to stakeholders and upper management alike, whether tasks are on schedule, ahead of schedule, or falling behind.

• A burndown chart serves as an incentive and motivation to team members because their progress is visible.

Limitations of Burndown Charts

Although there are advantages to using burndown charts, there are also some hindrances:

• The burndown chart only shows the story points that are complete, and as such, it is not a true reflection of the entire scope of work remaining in the backlog.

• Changes in the chart do not account for the level of complexity of the tasks. Burndown charts prioritize quantity, and as a consequence, they lead teams into thinking that the project is closer to completion. In reality, complex tasks may represent a small fraction of the actual workload.

Burndown Charts: Key Takeaways

A burndown chart is a graphical representation of outstanding work. It provides scrum teams with insight into the progression of their backlog by mapping out story points that reflect the actual effort, remaining effort, and the time they require.

Burndown charts ensure that team members are on the same page because they make the scope of the project clear by displaying the impact of decisions. In the end, teams maintain the flexibility to make changes to achieve project success.

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Creating and maintaining a backlog of different types of Jira issues needs a considerable amount of time and effort. Sometimes the work you have to do related to the tasks and workflows becomes repetitive. Some examples include adding sub-tasks for a support engineer’s query, assigning an issue to a user, changing the due dates, automating the development tasks using a source code management tool, etc. Jira gives you the option to use rules to do these manual and repetitive tasks automatically. This Jira automation tutorial’ describes how you can create Jira automation rules and what scenarios you can use them in.

What are Automation Rules in Jira?

JIRA software has a rule builder for automating tasks by configuring automation rules. This allows you to automate common and repetitive processes and workflows and enables you to focus on the most important work.

Triggers, Conditions, and Actions

Jira automation rules consist of triggers, conditions, and actions. The trigger starts off the automation rule by listening to events like issue creation or changing a particular parameter. Jira gives you the option to specify the trigger the way you want and configure it to run on a schedule.

Jira conditional statements such as ‘if block’, ‘else block’, and ‘JQL condition’ allow you to create more specific rules for certain conditions. An example of a conditional scenario is sending an email only if the issue is a priority 1 (P1) issue and the environment is production.

Actions specify what you need to do. Actions enable you to automate tasks and processes. Examples of actions include creating sub-tasks for an issue, sending an email, etc.

How to Create Automation Rules in Jira

1.Go to your project in Jira and click on the “Project settings” link, which appears at the bottom of the left-hand side navigation bar. Then select ‘Automation”.

2. Click the “Create rule” button in the top right-hand corner of the automation page.

Credit: Atlassian

3. Next, select “Trigger”. Jira automation lists out triggers available based on different components such as Issue triggers, DevOps, Integrations, Scheduled, Quick Actions, Jira service management, etc. Select the issue type you want and hit save.

Credit: Atlassian

4. Next, select the appropriate component from the new branch, new action, and new condition. These components allow you to control the automation’s execution.

Credit: Atlassian

5. Once you have configured the component, fill out the appropriate information and hit the save button.

6. Name your rule and hit ‘Turn it on.’ If you want, you can edit the rule. For example, you can allow only admins to edit rules.

Credit: Atlassian

7. After creating the rule, it will appear in the rules tab of the automation page. If you want to edit the rule, click on the rule and then edit all the steps. After making the changes, hit “Publish changes.”

Credit: Atlassian

Once created, you can see the full audit log, which shows triggers, actions, and conditions you used it in. The rule section shows the rule’s execution status.

Credit: Atlassian

How to Create Automation Rules for Common Tasks

Automatically Creating Sub-tasks for an Issue

Suppose you are working on a software development project epic. For most user stories of agile software development teams, you need to create common sub-tasks tested by the developer. In that case, automate sub-tasks creation rather than creating them every time you make a user story.

1. Create a new rule
2. Next, select the trigger ‘when the issue is created.’
3. Then, you have the option to add a condition. For example, automate the sub-task creation only if the issue type is a user story.
4. Next, select the create sub tasks action.
5. Finally, specify all the sub-tasks you want to create and hit save.

Credit: Atlassian

Jira lets you further expand this rule to more complex rules such as adding a sub task match status, or adding an assignee after creating the subtasks, etc. Look at the audit log of the automation rule you created, and add any component if you want to edit the rule.

Auto-send an Email When Issue Priority Increased

Suppose your project needs to escalate high-priority bugs and features as soon as you log them into Jira. In that case, the easiest thing is to create an automation rule to notify the appropriate users about their priority and make them take the necessary action on time without any delay. Here is an example of how you can auto-send emails for a change in issue.

1. Create a new rule with `create rule`.
2. Next, select your trigger. Here you monitor a specific issue field, the ‘Priority’ field. Therefore, select the ‘Field value changed’ trigger and the priority field. Specify the change type. For example, if you want to trigger the rule whenever there is a change in this field. In our case, it is a change in the priority field. Next, select for which operations you need to trigger it.
3. Next, add a condition. Select the ‘JQL ( Jira Query Language) condition’ and write your JQL to match your condition. In our case, we send an email only if the priority becomes high. Therefore, the query should be ‘Priority > High’.
4. Finally, select your action as ‘Send email’. Configure the action, including the email subject, content, and who received the email. You can also specify the sender details as well as whether to send it in plain text or HTML format.

When specifying the configurations, make use of automation smart values. Smart values enable accessing issue data. For instance, say you want to include the issue summary in your email body. In that case, you can utilize the smart value ‘{{issue.summary}}’, which returns the issue summary you enter when creating the issue. Therefore, make use of smart values to create many intuitive automation rules.

The following is the audit log of the automation rule you just created. If you want to update the automation rule add any component to it.

Credit: Atlassian

Auto-assign the User When you Create an Issue

Auto assigning issues is another feature in Jira that is easy to do using a Jira automation rule.

1. Create a new rule.
2. Select your trigger as ‘When the issue is created’.
3. Straight away, you can add the ‘Assign issue’ action.
4. Specify and select the user you want to assign it to.

Credit: Atlassian

Jira not only lets you specify simple automation rules like the ones described above, but it also lets you specify more complex automation rules combining more conditions and actions. Also, Jira has a collection of automation templates that allow you to define more common automation tasks with minimal effort. Thus Jira is a great tool to create automation rules and save your valuable time to focus on more important work.

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Are you wondering how to create a version in Jira? Well you’ve come to the right place.

A version is a term associated with Jira that refers to a set of bug fixes and features that a team releases as a single update. 

From a software development and management point of view in Jira software, versions are important since they act as timestamps that show when a team has completed a milestone. They are also important in helping the team to create a timeline for finished work, set expectations, and manage workflows.

This article explains how to create versions in Jira software step-by-step.

4 Steps to Create Versions in Jira

In total, there are four steps that you must follow to build a version in Jira. 

Let’s dive into each one.

Step 1: Create a Version in Jira

There are four prerequisites you must have before you start to create versions in Jira. 

Credit: Atlassian

To be specific, you must have: 

• An account with Jira Software
• Created a Jira Software Kanban or Scrum project
• Included one or more issues in the project
• Gone into the ‘Project Settings’ and enabled the ‘Releases Feature’. 

Once you’ve done that, follow these steps. 

1. Open up Jira Software and go to the project you’re working on. 
2. Once you’re in the project, navigate to the project menu. There, click on ‘Releases.’
3. Press ‘Create version.’
4. From the choices that appear on your screen, go to the ‘Name’ text box and type in a name. You also have the option to input a description for the version and a ‘Release’ and/or ‘Start Date.’ However, filling in these specific text boxes is not mandatory to create the version.
5. Click ‘Save.’

You are free to choose a name that you think is most suitable for the version. Most version names are numerical. However, it is not uncommon to come across versions named after an internal code familiar to the development team. 

Clicking on ‘Save’ opens up access for both the fields ‘Fix Version’ and ‘Affects Version.’

The ‘Fix Version’ refers to the version that you hope to release bug fixes and features to end-users. The development team uses this field to gauge velocity and progress, conduct feature reporting, and carry out release planning.

The ‘Affects’ version is the one where the development team first identified the problem or bug. While some teams do use it to track bugs, in Jira, most teams use the ‘Fix Version’ instead.

There is no limit on the number of versions you must create. Product leaders advise the development team to create as many versions as they see necessary. All in all, it’s your job to figure out what works best for the specific project you’re working on.

Step 2: Add Issues to Version

Some projects have backlogs while others do not. 

Let’s break down what you must do in both scenarios to continue creating your version in Jira. 

If you have a backlog

Here are the steps you must follow if you have an existing backlog: 

1. Go to your project backlog. 
2. Toggle to the ‘Versions Panel’ located on the left of your screen.
3. With your cursor, drag and drop the issue to the version you’d like to include it in. 

Credit: Atlassian

If you don’t have a backlog

1. Open the issue. 
2. Locate the field named ‘Fix Versions’ and input the version you’d like to merge with the issue. 

Step 3: Monitor the Version’s Progress

Development teams who use Jira are fortunate that the software provides them with multiple tools to view a version’s progress. 

Let us take a closer look at some of these tools. 

Roadmaps

In Jira, roadmaps allow you to gather your releases and issues into a single digital space to facilitate easier collaboration with stakeholders, monitor progress, and charter the path for a deliverable. 

Credit: Atlassian

Roadmaps have a ‘Releases’ feature that enables you to visualize a given release on a timeline and view important details from the ‘Roadmap View’ function. 

To view a release, follow these two steps: 

1. To the top-right part of your screen, click on the option ‘View Settings.’
2. Tick the box that appears next to ‘Releases.’

Credit: Atlassian

Once you’ve done so, consider exploring the additional options made available to you to plan a release. 

The Release Hub

The Release Hub is a service desk that allows you to manage all your releases. It offers an overview of your release statuses and gives an analysis of the number of issues in each version.

Credit: Atlassian

Here’s how you access this function: 

1. Navigate to your project. 
2. Choose the option ‘Releases’ found in the project menu. 
3. Once you’re then, be sure to filter out the versions that you are not looking at. This allows you to focus on the ones that matter to you at a specific point in time.
4. Rearrange versions to your liking by dragging and dropping them as you see fit.
5. Choose the status that you believe is most appropriate for the version, selecting among ‘Archived,’ ‘Released,’ and ‘Unreleased.’
6. View the progress tab to visualize the number of issues that you’ve assigned to the version as well as determine how many are within a given status.

Step 4: Complete the Version

At this stage, you are ready to release the version. 

Here are the steps you must carry out to do so: 

1. Go back to your project.
2. Visit the project window again, but this time, click on ‘Releases.’
3. Choose the version you’re looking at releasing. 
4. Click on ‘Actions’ and then hit the ‘Release’ button. 

There you have it: you have released the version. 

In case you are working with a Kanban board, you also have the option to release the issues through the ‘Done’ column in the form of a new version that the board itself generates. 

Conclusion

Creating a version in Jira and releasing it is a straightforward process. 

That said, the number of options that the software tool affords you makes it easy for some to go astray. 

Follow this guide to get precise and clear instructions on how to carry out the process for a smooth and successful version release in Jira. 

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How do you learn scrum using Jira Software? We can show you.

Scrum is a popular framework in agile software development that enables organizations to manage complex projects by breaking them into manageable tasks. It enables delivering high-quality solutions in an iterative and incremental manner through collaboration between cross-functional scrum teams. JIRA Software is a great place to learn scrum. This JIRA scrum tutorial shows how to use JIRA for scrum software development by creating different scrum artifacts like product backlogs and sprint backlogs. It also explains how to use scrum artifacts in scrum events such as sprint reviews and retrospective meetings.

How to Start a Scrum Project in JIRA?

Let’s start by creating a scrum board in JIRA software. 

1. Select ‘Create Project’ from the global navigation bar in JIRA. JIRA provides three project templates: Kanban, Scrum, and Bug tracking. To create a scrum project, select the “Scrum” template.
   

   Credit: Atlassian

    

2. Next, select the project type you want to create. If your team should set up and maintain the scrum project, select ‘Team-managed”. If your project requires collaboration with other teams across many projects, then select a “Company-managed” project type.  
3. Next, add your project details. 
4. You can then connect your project with connected tools, if necessary. 
5. Once you have created the scrum project, you get redirected to the JIRA Scrum board that shows the progress of backlog items. 

Credit: Atlassian

Create the Backlog

In scrum, the backlog shows the breakdown of work required to complete the project. You must define each work in user stories, tasks, or bugs. JIRA calls these work types ‘issues’. Once you have created the project, the next thing is to create those issues and fill the backlog. Now product owners can prioritize those items by re-ordering them.

Credit: Atlassian

Create a Sprint

The scrum framework uses ‘sprints’ to complete a set of work defined in the backlog. A sprint is a fixed time duration that typically spans two to four weeks. You can create a sprint in JIRA software once you have created all the user stories. Click on “Create sprint” in the top-right corner of the backlog. It creates an empty sprint in which you drag and drop the issues in the backlog. Create the number of sprints based on your project duration. 

Credit: Atlassian

How to Plan your Sprint Using JIRA

Once you have created the sprints, the next step is to plan the sprint by holding the sprint planning meeting. The sprint planning meeting is a special event where the scrum team gets together and discusses what issues they should commit to in the next sprint. 

The scrum team first estimates the user stores, tasks, and bugs and updates the estimation in the “Story points” field. In addition, the team enters the complete details of the issue by specifying the acceptance criteria, creating sub-tasks, setting the priority, etc. Next, drag and drop the planned issues into the sprint to create the sprint backlog. 

Start the Sprint

Click on the “Start sprint” button, then add the sprint start and end dates. The sprint start and end dates depend on the team, project, or organization. For example, some teams start the sprint on a Monday and end on a Friday, but some teams prefer to start and end the sprints on the same weekday. Also, finish assigning every issue in the sprint backlog, define the sprint goal, and give a name to the sprint if it is mandatory for the project. After you finish the initial work, click on the ‘Start’ button, and you get redirected to the Scrum board that shows the progress of the active sprint.

Credit: Atlassian

From this board, the team drags and drops the items into the ‘In Progress’ and ‘Done’ columns as they progress through them. Next, filter the issue in the board by its issue type if you want, search through the board,  and add additional progress statuses. There is also the option to group the progress by the assignee and the sub-tasks.

How to Review Sprint Progress in JIRA?

Daily Scrum

Daily scrums are short meetings that span approximately 15 minutes where team members get together and provide an update on their progress. The scrum master leads the scrum, and uses the sprint board to see the progress. Each team member briefly describes what they are working on, what they previously worked on, and any issues they face. 

The scrum master then helps to resolve team member issues. According to the teams’ actual progress, the scrum master updates the progress status of each task or requests the individuals to update them if they haven’t done so. Daily scrums help the team to know what others are working on. In addition, they help to resolve the roadblocks to project completion in advance. 

Sprint Burndown Chart

A sprint burndown chart is a good way to understand the sprints’ progress. It shows the time on the x-axis and the story points on the y-axis. The sprint burndown chart enables you to monitor the total work estimated, the remaining work in the sprint, and the possibility of completing the sprint goal. 

Credit: Atlassian

Sprint Report

The sprint report provides a detailed view of the sprint progress, enabling your team to understand if they are overcommitting or under-committing the work. It shows a status report including the completed issues, issues not completed, issues completed outside the sprint, and issues removed from the sprint. The sprint report also highlights the issues added to the sprint after the sprint started. 

Credit: Atlassian

Sprint Review Meeting

On the last day of the sprint, teams get together to demonstrate their work and what they could not complete. Stakeholders sometimes attend and provide feedback. Teams use the sprint backlog active sprint to show the progress of their sprints. Stakeholders make changes according to their decisions. Overall, the team and the stakeholders get to know if they have met the sprint goals. 

Sprint Retrospective Meeting

Once you hold the sprint review meeting, the team holds the sprint retrospective meeting where they discuss what went well, what didn’t, and any ways they can improve. The scrum master uses the sprint burndown chart and sprint report to highlight key issues. The retrospective meeting helps teams to focus on important areas to execute the project without any issues. 

Complete the Sprint

The team completes the sprint by clicking on ‘Complete sprint.’ JIRA shows the completed and open issues remaining in the sprint backlog and allows us to move the open issue to the future sprint.

Credit: Atlassian

Credit: Atlassian

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Interested in learning how to use epics in Jira Software? You came to the right place.

An epic is a major concept in Agile and DevOps environments. Epics help to organize and manage larger projects by breaking them down into smaller pieces of manageable work. Jira is a project management software that allows users to create epics and track their progress. This tutorial teaches you different ways you use epics in Jira software.

What is an Epic?

An epic is a collection of smaller tasks or user stories defining the work to achieve a project’s objectives. The epic consists of all required user stories defined according to the user requirements. However, while executing the epic, bugs, and issues get added to the epic. Epics help to manage a larger project and enable people who work on the epic to develop shippable work on a regular basis. Therefore, it is an important Agile and DevOps practice that helps to complete the project easier and faster. Also, not only does one project belongs to one epic, but epics also span multiple teams and projects.  

How to Create Epic in JIRA Software

Jira Software provides three ways to create epics. 

• Backlog
• Roadmap
• Global create button

When creating an epic in any of these three ways, you have to specify your project and issue type as ‘epic’ and then provide a summary and a name for your epic. Every user story or task created under that epic gets the name you specify. The epic summary is a small description explaining the overall objective of the epic.

Create and use Epics from the Backlog

If you navigate the backlog, you will see the ‘Epics’ panel on the left-hand side of the backlog. Click on it to show all the epics created in your project. 

Credit: Atlassian

To create a new epic, click on the ‘Create Epic’ or the ‘+’ sign from the epic panel. Enter the epic summary and name, and click ‘create.’ 

Credit: Atlassian

Create an Epic from the Global Navigation Menu

The global navigation bar in JIRA has a ‘Create’ menu button that you use to create epics and any other issue type. 

Choose the issue type as ‘epic,’ and enter the epic name, summary, and all other information required.  

Credit: Atlassian

Credit: Atlassian

Epic Creation Using the Roadmap

The roadmap visualizes the overall status of the epics. To create an epic from the roadmap, first, enable the roadmap feature by expanding ‘More (•••)’ in the top right corner of the Board settings. Then after enabling the roadmap tab, select the Roadmap tab and click on the ‘+’ sign to create your epic. 

Credit: Atlassian

How to add User Stories for the Epic

Once you have finished creating your epic, add your work breakdown by creating user stories (multiple stories), tasks, and bugs (creating issues.) While the epic represents the collection of work, these issues represent individual pieces of work the user has to accomplish within a sprint. There are two ways to create issues for the epic. 

Creating Issues from the Backlog Epics Panel

Go to the backlog and expand the epics panel. Then select the epic you have created and expand it. Click on ‘Create issue in epic.’ The issue creation window will pop up and can be used to define and create the issue by entering the appropriate information. There is an ‘Epic Link’ selected for your chosen epic name. 

Credit: Atlassian

Creating Issues from the Global Navigation bar

From the global navigation menu, select the ‘Create’ button, and choose the issue type as any other issue except the epic. Choose the appropriate ‘Epic Link’ from the list that appears. 

Credit: Atlassian

Creating Issues from the Backlog Board

There is an option to create issues from the backlog boards’ ‘Create issue’ link, which appears under every sprint and backlog. 

Creating Issues from the Roadmap

It is possible to create child issues for the epics in the Roadmap. Click on the ‘+’ icon in front of your epic, and a child issue from the create issue will pop up.

Also, there is an epic link for creating issues by clicking on ‘create issues in epic’ that appears above the top-right-hand corner of the issue list.

How to View Issues in Your Epic

If you want to see the list of issues that belong to a particular epic, there are several ways to do it. View the total number of issues in the epic, completed, unestimated, and estimated issues from the epics panel in the backlog. Navigate to your project backlog and expand the epics panel and the specific epic from all the epics you want to see. Find the statistics under that epic and see all the issues created sprint-wise.

It is also possible to view the issues in your epic by selecting the ‘epic details’ by opening the epics panel from the backlog, clicking on the expand icon (…) of the epic, and selecting the ‘epic details’. It opens a new window with all the issues created for that epic.

How to View the Epic’s Progress

Epic Report

After creating all the issues that belong to the epic, you can track the progress of your epic. Jira Software provides various kinds of reports. The ‘Epic Report’ helps you understand the epics’ progress towards its completion over time. You can see your team’s progress by tracking the remaining incomplete/unestimated issues.

Epic Burndown

You are also able to check the Epic Burndown chart to monitor sprints. This includes sprint progress, scope changes like the scope added and removed, and the projected number of sprints required to complete the epic. This helps you check if it’s possible to release an epic on time to take necessary actions to speed up the work that is falling behind.

Credit: Atlassian

How to Mark Your Epic as Done

When you have completed all your work in the epic, complete the epic by marking it as ‘done’. To do that, open the epics panel from the backlog, click on the expand icon (…) of the epic, and select the ‘Mark as Done’. 

Credit: Atlassian

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Looking to create a Kanban project using Jira software? 

Then you’ve come to the right place.

As an agile project management tool, the Kanban methodology offers visual signals that help teams manage work.

In 2002, Jira Software made its debut, giving organizations access to project management tools that streamline the planning and execution processes, providing maximum value for the Kanban development team.

In this Jira tutorial, we give you a step-by-step guide on how to create a kanban board in Jira Software.

Step 1: Create a Kanban Board

When you log in to Jira Software, you have the option to create a project. Jira provides a complete Kanban software development template. Select this as the project type as it equips you with a digital Kanban board that helps to visualize and track workflow. 

Credit: Atlassian

Credit: Atlassian

Once you create the project, the Kanban board is the first thing you see. Here, your team has the flexibility to plan and execute work on a regular basis.

Step 2: Configure the Jira Kanban Board

Jira Software offers a standard workflow template for the Kanban project that includes Backlog, Selected for Development, In Progress, and Done. This allows the product owner to add tasks to the backlog and label them as “ready for development” following completion. 

Use the Kanban board settings to customize the board. To do this, click the ellipses in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Here, you have a range of selections, from the number of columns to quick filters. You also have the option to edit Work In Progress limits (WIP limits). The purpose of WIP limits is to set a minimum and maximum number of tickets.

Credit: Atlassian

Team members use the various columns to signify whether a project is in-progress or done. However, you can configure the workflow status according to your preference. To remove a column, select the trash icon and select ‘Back’ to board to return to the Kanban board.

Once you finish customizing your board settings, you are free to add items to the backlog.

Step 3: Add Items to the Backlog

Jira refers to items such as Tasks, Bugs, Epics, and Stories as issues. 

Click on the ‘Create’ tab, then from the issues menu, select the issue type to add it to your backlog. In Kanban, these appear as the first column of your board. When creating issues, you have the ability to include a brief summary and a description that outlines all the issue details. 

Credit: Atlassian

You also have the option to attach documents, images or video recordings that assist the kanban team. Use the ‘Details’ tab to assign and reassign issues to the various team members and be sure to select an appropriate priority level when doing so. Take note that you can update any item or issue to reflect the workflow status.

Step 4: Prioritize the Backlog

Kanban teams focus on work that is in progress. For this reason, it is necessary to rank the items in the backlog according to their priority. 

To do this, drag and drop cards throughout the first column to arrange them by importance. As a default setting, the Kanban board includes swimlanes which help you categorize issues so that team members are aware of what to work on next. To edit these defaults, go to board configuration in the upper right hand corner of the backlog and select ‘Swimlanes’. 

Credit: Atlassian

Jira Software allows you to keep track of issues, in particular the ones with high priority labels such as bugs. It apprises team members of the urgent matters by increasing the visibility of the workflow.

Credit: Atlassian

Step 5: Enable the Kanban Backlog

Since the Kanban methodology facilitates multiple ongoing projects, it is typical that the initial backlog (the first column) becomes lengthy and difficult to manage. Consider enabling the Kanban backlog which provides more space to plan work for the team.

The Kanban backlog creates a separate backlog that appears on a different tab on the board. With more space, product managers have more flexibility to build and prioritize the backlog without hindering the progress of the team. The product manager is also free to move work from the backlog to keep the team in the loop about any upcoming projects.

To access the Kanban backlog, log in as a Jira Administrator, then select ‘Jira Administration’ from the top bar. Next, select ‘Applications’ and scroll down to Jira Software, then Jira Software Labs. Select the features you prefer.

Step 6: Hold Team Meetings

A key aspect of the Kanban framework is hosting team meetings. Although they are optional, having daily stand-ups is an efficient way to report on the team’s progress.

In Jira Software, you have the choice to generate various board reports and diagrams that illustrate the status of the team’s work in progress over a specific period of time. The diagrams show the fluctuations in workflow by taking into account the number of issues or backlogs that are incomplete.

Credit: Atlassian

On the whole, this feature helps the team improve and manage workflows so that no one falls too far behind.

Step 7: Use the Control Chart

Another Jira tool for tracking Jira issues and the kanban team’s work in progress is the Control Chart. This is another report you can generate from the board, which allows you to see the cycle time of your issues. 

Analyzing the cycle time of the team is an essential metric for Kanban teams because it demonstrates the following:

• The length of time each issue remains within a particular status

• The average amount of time it takes to complete an issue (cycle time)

• The team’s average cycle time (a low average reflects better efficiency)

Credit: Atlassian

Overall, the Control Chart helps you determine what changes to make to the workflow to avoid bottlenecks, reduce project complexity and increase efficiency across the team.

Jira Kanban Tutorial: Key Takeaways

Every software development project stands to benefit from using the Kanban methodology as it allows them to create visual representations of each new project. A product owner that makes it their duty to learn Jira and use it to create a digital Kanban board, gains a better understanding of how to manage workflows, conduct issue tracking, and embrace all the details that allow them to maximize the efficiency of any Kanban software development project.

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