Tools for Jira
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Looking to create a Kanban board in Jira? Then this guide is for you!
I’ll guide you through the processes of:
- Creating a Kanban project,
- Adding tickets,
- Configuring the board,
- And managing the backlog.
What a Jira Kanban board is and when to use it
- A Jira Kanban board is a visual board that maps Jira statuses to columns so teams can manage work as a continuous flow.
- Use it when work arrives continuously, priorities change often, or your team ships small updates frequently.
- Kanban helps teams spot bottlenecks early and improve cycle time by limiting work in progress.
A Jira Kanban board works for software teams and non-technical teams. The difference is not the role. The difference is the delivery style.
This guide focuses on Jira Software Kanban boards and assumes you want a simple workflow you can adapt over time.
Use a Kanban board when:
- You don’t plan work in fixed sprint commitments.
- You want work to move forward as soon as capacity is available.
- You prefer flow metrics like cycle time over sprint velocity.
Use a Scrum board when:
- Your team commits to a sprint goal and a sprint scope.
- You ship work in planned batches at the end of an iteration.
How to create a Jira Kanban project?
Jira projects are located under the projects tab on the top navigation menu. Select the “Create project” option and you will be prompted to select a project template. Obviously, we will be going with the Kanban template.
The next screen will tell you more about the essentials. You’ll see a couple of use case examples, as well as some benefits. I’d say that the most important part is located on the right side where you will see your starter work (issue) types and the default workflow. These are essentially the types of tickets you will have, as well as the statuses you will be moving them through to get from “To Do” to “Done”.
Please note, you’ll be able to customize the workflow as well as the work (issue) types to fit your project’s specific needs later on so use this screen as more of a reference to what you’ll be able to do in a Kanban board rather than a set in stone rules.
Your next choice will be a bit trickier as you’ll be choosing between a company-managed and a team-managed project. The latter is a nice fit for teams that prefer to work on their projects autonomously. It offers a self-contained working space where the Project Admin has the necessary permissions to manage and modify workflows. The settings of a team-managed project do not impact other projects.
A company-managed project, on the other hand, offers access to more advanced functionality. It gives you the ability to have specific workflows per work type meaning multiple teams across various boards will have the same experience when working with certain work items. There are more nuanced differences between team-managed or Next Gen and company-managed projects in Jira but I won’t be focusing on them too much in this article.
I’ll take a look at both, starting with a company-managed project.
Lastly, you’ll need to give your new project a name and confirm your choices.
Clicking the “Create project” button will lead you straight into your brand new Kanban board.
How to customize your Jira Kanban board?
You have your board looking nice, the columns are there, so it’s about time to start adding work items like user stories, right?
Not quite yet.
Sure, if the default layout fits within your processes, I say go for it. But something in my mind tells me you’ll probably need a bit more fine tuning. Luckily, Atlassian is a powerhouse when it comes to flexibility and customizability of Jira projects.
Kanban backlog
For starters, I don’t think that having your backlog on the board is a good idea. You’ll probably have lots of tasks with different priorities and seeing them at all times is quite distracting. I very much prefer when the board shows only the tickets the team is working on at the moment.
Luckily, it’s quite a simple fix.
Classic Kanban does not require a backlog view. Many Kanban teams work from the first actionable column (often “To Do”) and keep the board focused on items that are ready to move.
Jira treats Backlog as an optional feature for Kanban boards. The backlog is useful when you need a separate place for:
- drafts and ideas
- low-priority work items
- items that are not ready to be pulled into “To Do” yet
This separation keeps the board readable and reduces noise for the team.
- Go to the three dots menu at the top right corner of your board
- Select Board settings
- Select the Columns option
- Drag the backlog card from the board and into the Kanban backlog column
- Delete the original Backlog column by clicking on the trash bin icon
Going back to board you’ll see that it has only three columns left and the backlog has been relocated into the side panel.
This approach has an added benefit. Creating work items from the Backlog screen is much simpler and faster than from the board. Just click on the + Create Work item button and type in the name of your task. You can keep on typing and hitting enter to add new work items. And you can change their type as well.
Note
Don’t forget to drag your work items from the Backlog to the Selected for development field if you want them to show up on the board.
How to enable a Kanban backlog in Jira
A Kanban backlog is not enabled by default in many Jira Kanban setups. Enable it when you need a separate place for drafts and low-priority work. Use the backlog to keep the board focused on items that are ready to move.
Pro tip
You can also click on any work item to open the details section on the right side of the screen. This is where you can add assignees, reporters, priority, and additional details. You can also add more context, structure, and clarity to your stories with a checklist app.
How Smart Checklist supports Kanban work items
- Smart Checklist adds checklist items inside a Jira work item (issue).
- How it works: Teams break a work item into clear completion steps, assign owners and due dates, and keep links and notes next to the task.
- Outcome: Work becomes easier to review, hand off, and complete consistently, even when priorities change.
Use Smart Checklist in Kanban when:
- “Done” requires repeatable steps (review, QA, sign-off, release notes).
- Multiple roles collaborate on the same work item.
- You want to reduce missed steps during handoffs.
Smart Checklist allows you to add:
- Descriptive checklist items
- Dates and @user mentions if you’d like to break up work
- Mandatory checklist items that will block a work item from transitioning unless the work is marked as done
- And room to add notes, links, and resources
Workflow customization
By default, Jira sets up a simplified workflow for your Kanban board. In essence, this workflow allows you to drag your cards from every column and back. This workflow is fine for a lot of teams and projects and the only thing you probably want to modify from the start are the board columns themselves.
For instance, you might want a separate column for tasks that are either blocked, in QA, in review, etc.
- Go to the three dots menu
- Go to Board settings
- Go to Columns
- Click on the Add Status button (you need Admin permissions if this button is grayed out)
- Name your status
- And add a category. This category will show where your work items should be in the workflow.
- Click Add.
You’ll see that your newly added status is marked as unmapped. That’s because you still need a corresponding column for the tickets with this status to go to.
- Click add column
- Select your status
- Click add
Go back to your board and you will see that it has a new column now. You can also add a new status to your work items from the Work item Screen.
A practical Kanban workflow pattern for Jira (columns that match real work)
A Kanban workflow works best when columns represent real steps, not just generic labels.
A common Jira Kanban pattern looks like this:
- To Do (ready to start)
- In Progress (active development or execution)
- In Review (code review, content review, approval)
- In QA / Testing (validation and regression)
- Done (meets the team’s completion rules)
This structure makes it easier to spot where work slows down. It also makes board metrics like “time in status” more meaningful.
Example WIP limits (starting point):
- In Progress: Max 5
- In Review: Max 3
- In QA / Testing: Max 3
Adjust limits based on capacity. The goal is not to “move faster.” The goal is to keep work flowing and reduce blocked items.
Why this works:
Clear columns reduce hidden waiting time. WIP limits reduce multitasking and force the team to finish work before starting new tasks.
Set WIP limits (Work in Progress) with column constraints
Kanban boards make bottlenecks visible. Work still piles up if the team keeps starting new items. WIP limits prevent that.
A WIP limit is a simple team rule: each column has a maximum number of work items allowed at the same time. If a column hits the limit, the team focuses on finishing work and unblocking flow instead of pulling more items into that step.
Example:
Testing keeps growing. QA capacity is limited. Automated tests are missing. A WIP limit forces the team to fix the bottleneck instead of feeding it.
How to set WIP limits in Jira (company-managed Kanban):
- Next to your board’s name, open More actions (•••) ? Board settings
- Open Layout ? Columns
- Set column constraints (Max work items) for the columns you want to control
Jira highlights the column when it exceeds the limit. Treat the highlight as an action signal, not just a warning.
What a WIP limit prevents in Kanban
WIP limits prevent “starting too much and finishing too little.” When a column exceeds its limit, the workflow is telling you that the step is overloaded. The fastest fix is to finish or unblock work already in progress before pulling more items into that column.
Note for team-managed Kanban:
You can also set a maximum number of work items per column in the Columns and statuses settings. Jira changes the column color when it contains too many work items.
Swimlanes
Swimplanes are an additional option for grouping work items together on the board. Jira offers a selection of several types of swimlanes for grouping work items. Selecting one option like, for example, assignee, will group all work items that are assigned to a specific user together.
You can go to Board settings -> Swimlanes to make these adjustments.
Adding this option will result in a much clearer view of the board as users, Product Owners, and Project Managers can easily review the workload and capacity per each member of the team.
Work Item (Issue) Detail View
Customizing columns and swimplanes is where the fun part starts, sure. But it’s definitely not where it ends. I’d suggest modifying your work items to reflect your process as well. You can easily modify the custom fields in your work items when you go to Board settings > Work Item Detail View.
Custom fields are essentially the fields you put your data into in a work item. These are the task’s status, priority, reporter and assignee, etc.
You can easily add new custom fields or remove unnecessary ones from the Work Item Detail View screen using a rather intuitive drag-and-drop interface.
Card colors
Card colors are the last touch I’d like to mention before we wrap up this section. Adding clear and intuitive color coding to your tasks will make your board much more readable at a glance.
Go to Board settings > Card colors and select the option you’ll base your colors on. I suggest going for the Work Type option. You can also customize the color of your cards on this screen.
Kanban board reports
Jira offers a wide variety of useful insights and the best place to look for them is the reports tab. You can find it on the left sidebar right under your Kanban Board. You will have a wide selection of reports to choose from:
- Agile reports
- Cumulative Flow Diagram: Shows the status of work items over time. This helps with understanding potential blockers and bottlenecks.
- Control Chart: Shows cycle time for your project and helps predict future performance.
- DevOps
- Cycle Time Report: Helps understand the deployment pipeline better.
- Deployment Frequency Report: Helps understand how frequently you ship value to customers.
- Work item Analysis
- Average Age Report: Shows the average time it takes to complete one work item.
- Created VS Resolved Work Items Report: Shows the dynamic between created and resolved work items.
- Pie Chart Report: Shows a pie chart of work items or a project/filter group.
- Recently Created Work Item Report: Shows the number of work items created over a period of time.
- Resolution Time Report: Helps identify trends and potential solutions based on time it typically takes to resolve a set of work items.
- Single Level Group By Report: Helps you group search results by a field and see the status of the group.
- Time Since Work Item Report: Helps track how many work items were created or updated over a period of time.
- Forecasting and Management
- Time Tracking Report: Shows Original VS actual estimate of time to resolve work items.
- User Workload Report: Shows the estimated time to resolve all work items assigned to a specific user.
- Version Workload Report: Shows the time estimate for all unresolved work items.
- Other
- Workload Pie Chart Report: This is a handy report for visualizing work items as a pie chart.
Use Board Insights to spot stuck work items (without opening reports)
Jira also provides Board Insights on the same board. This is a quick way to catch problems early without opening full reports.
What Board Insights shows on a Kanban board:
- Work items that need attention (for example, items that are blocked or stuck)
- Time in status, including the average time work items spend in each status, which helps you find bottlenecks in the workflow
Where to find it:
- Open your Board (and in many cases also Backlog and Deployments) and select the Insights button/icon on the view.
How to use Board Insights in daily Kanban work
Use Board Insights as a daily check for stuck work. Look for statuses where items spend the most time. Treat that status as a bottleneck and adjust the workflow, capacity, or WIP limit to reduce waiting time.
Tip: If you want to control what appears there, you can enable/disable specific insights in board settings
Kanban board in a team-managed project (Next Gen)
A Kanban board in a team-managed AKA Next Gen project offers similar functionality. You can still add a backlog, customize your work items and statuses. The difference is that you will be doing most of this work from the Project Settings screen. It is located at the bottom of the left sidebar.
You can enable your backlog if you go to Project Settings > Features > Backlog (toggle on).
Same can be said about the reports. Project Settings > Features > Reports (toggle on).
You can customize your columns if you go to Project Settings > Board > Columns and statuses.
The very same tab allows you to manage the workflow, though the button itself isn’t too obvious.
You can customize the fields in your work items if you go to Project Settings > Work Types > Work type you’d like to edit, like Story. You can then select a field you’d like to add from the right bar menu and drag-&-drop it into the work item.
Setting up swimlanes is slightly trickier as there is no option for it. What you can do is add a filter to group work items by from the board view.
Pro tip
Team-managed projects are somewhat limited in terms of reports if compared to company-managed projects. I’d suggest enabling the Estimations feature.
It is quite helpful when it comes to capturing expected efforts, planning, and analyzing work. You can either use Story Points or Time for estimations. The latter option is a bit more suited to Kanban while STory points are a nice fit for Sprints, but both can work for you.
Kanban board VS Scrum board
Is the Kanban board what you need or would you rather opt for the Scrum board? Well, there’s no cut and dry answer as the option you should go for depends on what fits your team best.
Jira Kanban vs Jira Scrum: quick decision table
| Decision factor | Choose a Jira Kanban board | Choose a Jira Scrum board |
|---|---|---|
| Work intake | Work arrives continuously | Work is planned into iterations |
| Planning style | Pull-based (start when capacity exists) | Commitment-based (plan sprint scope) |
| Release approach | Frequent small releases (often CI/CD) | Batch releases per sprint (common) |
| Best metric focus | Cycle time, flow efficiency, WIP | Velocity, sprint progress, burndown |
| Team priority | Keep work moving and reduce bottlenecks | Hit a sprint goal and deliver a planned scope |
| Best for | Support, Ops, platform teams, continuous delivery product teams | Feature teams that benefit from timeboxing and sprint rituals |
Kanban and Scrum in Jira: pros and cons for decision-making
Jira Kanban board works best when you need:
- Continuous flow and flexible reprioritization
- Fast feedback loops and smaller releases
- Bottleneck control through WIP limits
- A simple workflow that stays readable at scale
Jira Kanban board can be a weak fit when you need:
- A sprint goal and a timeboxed commitment
- Sprint-based forecasting and velocity tracking
- A structured cadence for planning and retrospectives
Jira Scrum board works best when you need:
- A sprint goal and a clear scope for the iteration
- Sprint reporting, burndown, and velocity signals
- A predictable cadence for planning and review ceremonies
Jira Scrum board can be a weak fit when you need:
- Frequent release of small changes throughout the week
- Minimal overhead and fewer formal ceremonies
- Continuous reprioritization without breaking commitments
Scrum boards emphasize working in Sprints that typically take between two weeks to a month. The goal of the sprint is to deliver usable value to the client. A Sprint board will have a separate Sprint backlog for work items your team would like to work on during the Sprint.
A Kanban board emphasizes continuous improvement of processes. Your entire project can be broken down into cards in the backlog and you will be pulling out the ones the team should work on next. This approach helps you understand how work is done so that you can finetune and optimize your workflow for better results.
Kanban for development teams: CI/CD flow vs batch releases
Kanban is not “only for non-technical teams.” Development teams use Kanban too. The deciding factor is how your team ships changes.
Kanban fits best for continuous delivery (CI/CD):
- Work ships in small changes.
- Developers move work forward as soon as it’s ready.
- Testing and release happen continuously, not in a single “end of sprint” moment.
Scrum fits best for batch releases:
- Work is planned as a scope for a timebox (a sprint).
- Teams often test and release a bundle of changes together.
- This approach is common when manual regression testing is a major gate before production.
Many teams combine both approaches. They plan in iterations, but still keep work flowing and avoid last-day “release crunch.”
Hopefully this guide will be handy if you opt for Kanban as now you know how to set up a board and use Jira’s functionality to manage this type of a project.
Jira Kanban board FAQ
What is a Jira Kanban board?
A Jira Kanban board is a board in Jira Software that maps workflow stages (statuses) to columns. Agile teams use it as a project management tool to track work items (issues) in a continuous flow, from “To Do” to “Done.”
When should agile teams use a Kanban board vs a Scrum board in Jira?
Use a Kanban board when new work arrives continuously and priorities change often. Kanban teams focus on continuous improvement, cycle time, and limiting work in progress.
Use a Scrum board when you plan work in iterations (sprints) with a sprint goal and a committed scope. Scrum teams typically track velocity, sprint progress, and burndown-style metrics.
How do I create a Kanban project in Jira?
Go to Projects ? Create project and pick the Kanban template. Choose a company-managed or team-managed project, set a name, and create it. Jira creates a Kanban project with a default workflow and board so team members can start tracking work right away.
What is the Kanban backlog in Jira and how do I use it to prioritize work items?
A Kanban backlog is a separate view that holds work items that are not ready to start. It keeps the board focused on active work and helps product managers and stakeholders prioritize what the team pulls next.
Use the Kanban backlog to collect ideas, user stories, epics, and low-priority tasks, then move the most important items into “To Do” or “Selected for development.”
How do I enable the Kanban backlog on a Jira Kanban board?
Open your Jira Kanban board, go to board settings, and enable the backlog feature for the board. After it’s enabled, you can create new work items in the backlog and pull them onto the board when they are ready.
How do I set WIP limits and limit work in progress in Jira Kanban?
Jira supports WIP limits through column constraints. Set a maximum number of work items per column to prevent overload and reduce context switching.
WIP limits help streamline the team’s workflow, surface blockers early, and keep review or QA columns from turning into bottlenecks.
What are bottlenecks on a Kanban board and how do I spot them in Jira?
A bottleneck is a workflow stage where work items pile up and stop moving. In Jira, you can spot bottlenecks using WIP limit warnings, time spent in status signals, and flow reports. If “In Review” or “Testing” keeps growing, it usually means capacity is limited or work is arriving faster than it leaves that stage.
Which Jira metrics and reports matter most for Kanban teams?
Kanban teams track flow metrics more than sprint metrics. The most useful Jira reports are:
- Cumulative Flow Diagram: shows work in each status over time and reveals bottlenecks
- Control Chart: shows cycle time and how predictable delivery is
- Created vs Resolved: shows whether incoming work outpaces completion
These metrics help optimize process, not measure individual team members.
How can I track progress in real time on a Jira Kanban board?
Use the board view as the real-time source of truth. Combine it with Board Insights to highlight work items that need attention and see time spent in status. For stakeholder visibility, add dashboards that show key filters, aging work, throughput, and blocked items.
Can I use dashboards with a Jira Kanban board?
Yes. Jira dashboards help stakeholders and product owners track progress without opening the board. A simple Kanban dashboard usually includes: work in progress by status, blocked items, items with due dates, cycle time signals, and a filter for “stuck” work items.
Can I use swimlanes on a Jira Kanban board?
Yes. Swimlanes group work items on the board so teams can track progress without losing visibility. Common swimlane options include assignee (capacity per team member), epic (work grouped by initiative), and query-based swimlanes for specific workflow slices.
How do I manage blockers, dependencies, and assignees in Kanban work items?
Use the issue detail view (right sidebar) to update key fields quickly. Set an assignee for ownership, flag work items that are blocked, and link issues to represent dependencies. This keeps stand-ups focused because the board reflects the current state of the work.
Who can change Kanban board settings in Jira?
It depends on permissions and project type. In company-managed projects, board changes typically require board admin or project admin permissions. In team-managed projects, project admins usually manage columns, statuses, and workflow stages from project settings. If Jira hides configuration options, permissions are the first thing to check.
Should software development teams using continuous delivery run Kanban in Jira?
Yes. Kanban often fits continuous delivery and DevOps workflows because it supports small increments, continuous flow, and fast feedback. It also helps reduce release crunch by making review, testing, and deployment stages visible and controlled.
How do templates help standardize Kanban work items in Jira?
Templates help teams standardize the structure of work items and reduce missing steps. A good template can enforce required fields for user stories, define workflow expectations, and include completion rules so work moves through the process consistently across the development team, product manager, and stakeholders.
