Building a complete software development workflow in monday.com
I'm an engineering manager setting up monday.com for my 12-person dev team. We're coming from Linear and need to replicate: • Product backlog with prioritization • 2-week sprint cycles • Story points and velocity tracking • Bug vs feature vs tech debt categorization • GitHub integration (PR status on items) • Release tracking Can someone share a detailed setup guide? I want to get this right before the team migrates. We tried once before and it was chaos because the boards weren't structured well.
2 Answers
I've set this up for 10+ dev teams. Here's the battle-tested structure:
Board 1: Product Backlog • Groups: Icebox, Backlog, Ready for Sprint, In Sprint • Columns: Title, Type (Feature/Bug/Tech Debt), Priority (P0-P3), Story Points, Epic, Requester • Keep this as the single source of truth for all work • Product manager owns prioritization
Board 2: Sprint Board (one per active sprint) • Groups: To Do, In Progress, Code Review, QA, Done • Mirror key columns from Backlog • Add: Assignee, Branch Name, PR Link, Sprint Goal • Automation: When all sprint items are Done, notify #engineering
Board 3: Release Tracker • Items = releases (v1.2, v1.3, etc.) • Connected to Sprint Board items • Status: Planning → Development → QA → Staging → Production • Release notes column
GitHub Integration: • Install the GitHub app from monday.com marketplace • Link repos to boards • PRs automatically appear on items when branch names match • Commit messages referencing item IDs update the item
Velocity Dashboard: • Chart widget: Story points completed per sprint (line chart) • Numbers widget: Current sprint burndown • Battery widget: Sprint completion %
Sprint ceremony automation: • Sprint start: Auto-move 'Ready for Sprint' items to new Sprint Board • Sprint end: Auto-move incomplete items back to Backlog with 'Carried Over' tag
The key to avoiding chaos: Keep boards focused. Don't try to put everything on one board.
Coming from Linear specifically, here's what you'll miss and how to compensate:
Linear features monday.com lacks: • Cycles (sprints) as a first-class concept → Use groups or separate boards • Automatic issue numbering → Use auto-number column • Triage workflow → Build with automations • Command-K navigation → monday.com search is slower
Linear features monday.com does better: • Cross-team visibility • Custom dashboards • Client/stakeholder sharing • Non-engineering team integration
My pragmatic advice: Don't try to replicate Linear exactly. monday.com is a different tool with different strengths. Adapt your workflow to leverage what monday.com does well.
Also: Start your team with ONE board for the first sprint. Add complexity only when you feel the pain of not having it. Over-engineering the setup is the #1 reason dev teams fail with monday.com.