Jira and Agile Project Delivery

Why it matters: Jira can organize delivery or bury it in tickets. Clear work items, honest workflows, and a cadence that matches how you really work keep projects moving.

By the end you can:

• Explain work items and workflows
• Choose Scrum or Kanban for a team
• Write work items with acceptance criteria
• Use a board and basic JQL

Learn (15 min)

1. Work items and workflows (5 min)

Jira tracks work items (called issues in many places): tasks, bugs, stories. A workflow defines status transitions (To Do → In Progress → In Review → Done). A board displays work using filters and column-to-status mapping; it isn't the workflow itself.

2. Scrum vs. Kanban (5 min)

3. Write work clearly (5 min)

A good work item states the need, the outcome, acceptance criteria, and dependencies:

Title: Add booking button to Team Headshots page
Why: Visitors currently must find the contact form
Acceptance criteria:
  Given a visitor on the Team Headshots page
  When they click "Book a call"
  Then they see the scheduling page within 2 seconds
  And the click is recorded as a GA4 event
Depends on: Scheduling page URL approved

Search with JQL: project = WEB AND status != Done ORDER BY priority DESC.

Apply (15 min)

Worked example (3 min). Website feature launch: three items (booking button; GA4 event; QA on mobile), Kanban with WIP limit 3 because requests arrive unpredictably. Dependency: approved scheduling URL. Progress measure: cycle time per item and number of blocked items.

Lab (7 min): Write the work.

1. Pick a feature or project.
2. Write three work items with outcome and acceptance criteria.
3. Choose Scrum or Kanban and justify it in two sentences.
4. Write one JQL query to list unfinished items by priority.

Deliverable: Three items, a method choice, and a JQL query. You're done when: A reviewer can tell from the criteria whether each item is done.

Check yourself (5 min)

1. What does a workflow define?
2. What is a sprint?
3. What is Kanban's practical focus?
4. Scenario: Stories keep "finishing" and then bouncing back from QA. What's missing?
5. Does using Jira guarantee agile delivery?

Reference

Common mistakes

Cheat sheet: Describe outcome → acceptance → dependency → prioritize → visualize and review flow.

Key terms: work item, workflow, board, sprint, WIP, JQL.

Interview prompts: When would you choose Kanban over Scrum? How do you write good acceptance criteria?

Go deeper: Jira Cloud REST API · What is a sprint · Use active sprints · Configure boards

Next: Track 4 — marketing and measurement (Lesson 31).