What is a Jira Work Item ?
A Jira work item is a unit that can be created and tracked through a workflow in Jira. If you’ve been working with Jira for a while, you could also say that work items are the Jira-thingies formerly known as issues.
Why did “Issues” become “Work Items” ?
Atlassian announced in February that as part of a broad effort to update language in Jira cloud, they are leaving the term “issues” – which dates back to when Jira was created as a bug-tracking tool, and will instead use the terms “work” and “work item.” This reflects the fact that Jira is no longer used specifically by IT and software development teams. Atlassian says that future updates will include specific terminology for different teams (ie engineering teams may have ‘bugs’ or 'stories,’ while Marketing teams may have ‘launches’ or 'copy).
Jira Work Item Types
Jira work items come in different types. Work item types allow you to categorize items into groups and define the screens (that is what data you will track) and workflows (the process you will track the items through) for each category. By default, Jira provides different work item types depending on the project type:
Jira Software Work Item Types
- Epic
- Story
- Bug
- Task
- Subtask
Jira Business Work Item Types
- Task
- Subtask
Jira Service Management Work Item Types
- Change
- IT Help
- Incident
- New Feature
- Problem
- Service Request
- Service Request with Approval
- Support
You can use the work item types Jira provides, add other work item types to a project, or create your own, custom work item type. This makes Jira almost infinitely flexible.
Jira Work Item Type Hierarchy
Work item types have a multi-level hierarchical structure. At the top, you have Epics which represent a large body of work. An Epic may include multiple Stories or Tasks (the middle level of the hierarchy). A story or task can be broken down into subtasks (lowest level in the work type hierarchy).
A work item associated with one or more items that are lower in the hierarchy is said to be a “parent” item; and the lower items are called “child” items.
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How Jira Work Items Relate to Jira Workflows
The magic happens as a Jira work item moves through a Jira workflow. You can associate different work item types within a Jira project with different workflows. This allows you to manage multiple team processes within a single project.
As with work item types, Jira provides default workflows, but also lets you create your own. See this article for more information about Jira workflows.
Organizing Information on Jira Work Items
Since any given Jira work item might entail quite a bit of work, you may want to break it down into bite-sized chunks, or you might want to add a QA list to ensure that a feature was tested in all needed environments. As an alternative to creating subtasks, you might want to simply add a checklist to a work item. Using checklists allows you to keep information on a work item organized, and make progress visible without cluttering up your boards with too many items.
Learn more about when to use a checklist and when to create a subtask.
Understanding Jira work items is key to effectively managing work in Jira. From categorizing tasks with different work item types to customizing workflows and organizing information with subtasks or checklists, work items are the basic unit of organization in Jira.
