What Are "Capabilities" in Jira?

Agile project management has many terms that can be confusing, and “Capabilities” in Jira is one of them. In Jira Align, Capabilities refer to a specific feature used to manage large-scale operations.

This article explains the basics of Capabilities in Jira, their role within the Jira Align structure, and provides a step-by-step guide for creating and managing them. Let’s get started!

Some common definitions to get you started:

• Stories: Small, manageable tasks or features that teams work on to deliver value in a project.
• Program Increment (PI): A set period (typically 8-12 weeks) where teams complete and deliver a chunk of work.
• Agile Release Trains (ARTs): Long-term, cross-functional teams that work together on a fixed schedule to deliver project outcomes.

Capabilities in Jira Align help break down large epics into smaller tasks, like stories or tasks, that are easier to track across program increment (PI) cycles. They are smaller parts of epics in the work hierarchy.

These capabilities often cover deliverables across multiple PIs within Agile Release Trains (ARTs), which are teams working together on a set schedule to release PIs. Solution Train Engineers (STE) and Solution Architects (SA) manage capabilities across ARTs to meet project goals. 

Also Read: Automating Jira: How to Create Smart Workflows

Before we explain how to create and manage capabilities in Jira Align, it’s important to quickly review common work items and how they fit into a project. Here you go:

Theme

A theme represents the vision and long-term initiatives that set apart an enterprise from competing enterprises. It allows C-level executives to detail strategic and high-level information, such as annual goals, programs, program increment (PI) cycles, strategic initiatives, and planned budgets. A theme typically includes one or more initiatives and connects an organization’s visions to its business strategies.

Initiative

Initiatives are groups of epics (within a theme) that represent broader goals in a Jira project. Unlike epics, which are usually completed within a month or a quarter, initiatives take much longer to finish—sometimes spanning several quarters or even up to a year.

Epic

An epic in Jira is a large work item (within an initiative) that outlines the objectives of a broad task to break them down into smaller, more manageable chunks of work. Epics can be shared across multiple projects or teams, meaning one epic can be relevant to several boards simultaneously. An epic is usually completed over a series of sprints.

Capability

Capabilities refer to high-level solutions within Jira Align that enterprise companies use to break down larger epics into more manageable parts. While they are similar to features, capabilities fit more within the program increment (PI) processes to ensure that they deliver continuous and measurable value in a PI cycle. 

Feature

A feature is a set of stories that describes a specific functionality of the product that customers will use. It outlines how this functionality should be developed, drawing on the details from each story that make up the feature.

Story

A story (often called a “user story”) is the smallest unit of work (also an issue type) that provides a non-formal description of product features as per the end-user requirements. They are typically written using non-technical language to break down customer requirements, providing details to development teams on how each story adds value for users. 

Also Read: How to Write Test Cases While Testing Software

Task

A task is a work item to describe an assignment for teams to complete within a set time frame (usually, in hours). Tasks are typically included under stories. However, they can also be part of an initiative, epic, feature, or other work items. Each story has a set of tasks assigned to different teams. Moreover, each task can also be divided into smaller subtasks to add further granularity.

Also Read: Trello vs. Asana: What Works Best For You

You can add capabilities to an epic only if it doesn’t have an associated feature. If an epic already includes a feature, you can’t add capabilities to it. It’s also recommended to create at least two capabilities per epic to maintain a proper structure. Here’s how to add capabilities to an epic:

Also Read: Project Reporting 101: Essentials for Every Team

Method 1: Using the “Create” Button

You can add capabilities to an epic from any page within Jira Align by using the “Create” button located in the top navigation panel.

Method 2: Navigating through Portfolios and Solutions/Programs

Alternatively, you can create capabilities by navigating to the Epics page using:

• Portfolio (from the top navigation panel)
• Solution or Program (from the top navigation panel)

Once you're on the Epics page via either option, you can proceed to create capabilities. Here’s a stepwise guide for creating capabilities using both options from scratch:

Step-by-Step Guide: Creating Capabilities from Portfolios

1. Click Portfolio from the top navigation bar in Jira Align 
2. Select the Portfolio containing the Program to which you want to add capabilities for
3. Click on “Epics” from the left sidebar. This opens up the epics page. (If you cannot find the Epics option, click on Backlog. There, you will find a list of All Programs including the list of epics.)
4. Next, choose and click on an Epic to view the epic page. This opens a slide-out panel from the right.
5. Click “Capabilities” from the slide-out panel. Add name, estimate for capability, and status for the capability. Click “Add”.
6. Close the panel.

It’s done. You’ve just added a capability to an epic.

Step-by-Step Guide: Creating Capabilities from Programs/Solutions

1. Click Solution or Program from the top navigation bar
2. Select the entity for adding capabilities for 
3. Click on “More items” from the left menu sidebar
4. Click “Epics” to open up the list of epics
5. Next, choose an Epic to open the epic page’s slide-out panel
6. Click “Capabilities”. Add the capability’s name, estimate, and status.
7. Finally, click “Add” to add a capability to an epic. 
8. Close the panel.

You can view or edit capability details using the Columns Shown option within the capabilities page. 

Note that only fields marked Active in the Details Panels Settings will show as columns on the page. 

Before we cover the most common fields (available as Column tabs) for capabilities, let’s see how to configure a specific work item (capabilities) by navigating to the Details Panels Settings. Here you go.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Manage Field Settings for Work Items (Capabilities)

1. From the top navigation bar in Jira Align, click the Settings cog wheel ⚙
2. Click Details Panels Settings from the left-hand side in the Settings.
3. Select the Portfolio and the Work Item as “Capabilities”. This displays the list of options for capabilities tabs on the right side of the page.
4. To activate fields, toggle the Active switch to the "On" position. The fields you activate will appear as column tabs for capabilities, meaning all activated fields will be visible. Please note that toggles marked in light blue cannot be hidden.
5. Activate the switches under the Required column to set up mandatory fields to fill while creating a new work item (in this case, capabilities).
6. Click the “Save” button from the top right side of the page. 

Quick Overview: Common Details Tabs While Managing Capabilities

Here are some of the most common column tabs available while managing capabilities in an epic:

• Details: Includes basic information about the capability, such as state, process step, type, owner, PI, parent epic, and others. Moreover, there’s a doughnut chart to get a visual overview of the work and the progress associated with the capability.
• Design: Provides information about the UI/UX of the capability for various parameters, such as hypothesis, design stage, prototype, etc.
• Value: Allows you to rank capabilities based on value score and other parameters. It’s a portfolio-specific configuration setting.
• Forecast: Allows you to view and customize team/program estimates for capability.
• Links: To link various work items (e.g. theme, epic, story) and define the sequence for work items for completion.
• Spend: For getting financial information and monitoring expenses. 
• Milestones: Shows progress within a theme, epic, capability, or feature, allowing you to track up to 20 milestones per work item with unique names, descriptions, etc. 

Apart from creating and managing Jira capabilities, there are other options available too:

More Actions for Capabilities

You can perform several other actions for capabilities using the capabilities toolbar, such as:

• Import Capabilities: To get Excel spreadsheets from other apps into Jira
• Export Capabilities: To save capabilities in a document format for emailing, reviewing, or exporting as Excel sheets.
• Bottom-Up Estimate: Allows teams to push work estimates up to the epic level.
• Prioritization: Identify important capabilities using WSJF, or weighted shortest job format to pre-plan upcoming PIs.
• Mass Move: Enables bulk moving of capabilities across different PIs, sprints, or programs.
• Print Capability Cards: Provides a way to print physical cards for capabilities.
• Access Recycle Bin: To recover deleted capabilities. You can also delete them permanently from the recycle bin.
• Access Canceled Items: Allows you to freeze capabilities while working on one.

Capabilities: Additional Options

Additional options available for capabilities in the slide-out details panel include discussions, subscribe, update child process steps, responsibility matrix, audit log, and others.

Also Read: What is Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)? Explained

Capability Maps

Similar to kanban boards, capability maps give a visual representation of capabilities in a grid format. Capability maps are in the X-Y axes form. Each axis can be used to show aspects of a capability’s life cycle, such as the stages, state, and complexity. Agile teams can use it to identify user journeys, manage backlogs, plan releases, and capture functionality in a project.