What are Epics? Types, Examples & Uses Explained

In Agile project management, an epic is a large, high-level body of work that can be broken down into smaller, more manageable user stories. Epics represent significant features, functions, or objectives within a project, typically spanning multiple iterations (or sprints) to complete. They provide a way to organize and structure large projects by grouping related tasks. Epics help Agile teams maintain focus on the bigger picture while still breaking the work into smaller, actionable pieces.

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They are essential for planning and prioritization, allowing teams to understand the overarching goals and how smaller tasks contribute to achieving them. Once defined, epics are broken down into smaller user stories that can be tackled in individual sprints. For example, in software development, an epic might involve developing a new user authentication system.

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This epic could then be divided into smaller user stories, such as "Create login page," "Integrate multi-factor authentication," and "Implement password reset functionality." Each of these user stories would be completed within a sprint, contributing to the completion of the overall epic. Epics also provide flexibility, as they can be refined and adjusted as the project progresses, making them a key tool in Agile frameworks like Scrum or Kanban.

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What is an Agile Epic?

An Agile Epic is a large, high-level work item or feature that represents a significant portion of a project or product. It is too broad or complex to be completed in a single iteration (or sprint) and is, therefore, broken down into smaller, more manageable tasks known as user stories.

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Epics help Agile teams organize and prioritize work by providing a clear, overarching goal or theme that guides the development process. These large features or objectives are typically developed over several sprints, allowing teams to make progress while maintaining focus on the bigger picture.

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For example, in a software development project, an epic could be a feature like "User Account Management." This epic might include smaller user stories like "Create login functionality," "Add password recovery," and "Implement user profile page," each of which can be completed in one sprint.

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Epics are useful for:

• High-level planning: They help teams map out larger goals and understand how smaller tasks fit into the broader project.

• Prioritization: Epics allow teams to prioritize work across multiple sprints, ensuring they deliver valuable features incrementally.

• Scope management: They help manage the scope of large features, ensuring that work is broken into smaller, more achievable parts.

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Ultimately, Agile epics provide structure and flexibility in managing large-scale work while maintaining agility in delivery.

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Why Do you Need Epics?

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Epics are essential in Agile project management for several key reasons:

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• Organization of Large Features: Epics help break down large, complex features or objectives into smaller, manageable tasks. This allows teams to focus on delivering valuable, incremental work while maintaining a broader view of the project.

• Simplified Planning and Prioritization: Epics provide a high-level framework that enables teams to prioritize work and align with business goals. They give stakeholders and teams a clear understanding of the bigger picture, making it easier to plan and schedule tasks over multiple sprints.

• Better Scope Management: Epics help manage the scope of a project by breaking it into smaller, bite-sized chunks (user stories). This makes it easier to handle changes in requirements and helps avoid scope creep, which can occur when large features are not properly divided.

• Facilitating Cross-functional Collaboration: Since epics typically involve multiple user stories, they often require collaboration across different functions (design, development, testing). Having epics helps align teams and ensures all parts of the project are coordinated.

• Clearer Communication with Stakeholders: Epics help communicate the goals and progress of a project to stakeholders by summarizing major features or objectives. This way, stakeholders can easily track the overall progress of the project without getting bogged down in the details of individual tasks.

• Flexibility and Adaptation: Epics offer the flexibility to adapt and evolve as the project progresses. As the team works through user stories, they may discover new requirements or refine the original scope of the epic, allowing for continuous improvement and responsiveness to changing needs.

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Epics provide structure, clarity, and flexibility, enabling teams to manage large projects effectively and deliver value incrementally while ensuring alignment with broader business objectives.

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Four Benefits of Agile Epics

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Here are four key benefits of Agile epics:

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• Better Organization and Structure: Epics help break down complex, large-scale features into smaller, manageable user stories. This organization improves the clarity of the project's scope, making it easier to prioritize tasks and track progress over time.

• Improved Planning and Prioritization: Epics provide a high-level view of major goals or features, helping Agile teams to plan and prioritize work more effectively. This ensures that the most valuable and important work is completed first, aligning with business objectives.

• Increased Flexibility and Adaptability: Since epics are broken down into smaller user stories, Agile teams can adapt and refine them as the project evolves. This allows teams to respond to changes in requirements or market conditions while still working toward larger goals.

• Enhanced Communication and Alignment: Epics provide a clear way to communicate the larger vision of a project to stakeholders and team members. This ensures alignment between different teams and stakeholders, helping everyone stay focused on achieving the bigger objectives.

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Agile Epic Example

An Agile Epic is a big, high-level work item that represents a significant feature or objective within a project. Because it’s too large to complete in one sprint, it gets divided into smaller, more manageable tasks known as user stories.

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Example of an Agile Epic:

Epic: User Profile Management

This epic covers everything needed to allow users to manage their profile within an application. It is a broad feature that will take multiple sprints to complete.

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User Stories under this Epic:

1. User Story 1: As a user, I want to create a new account so I can start using the app.

• This might include tasks like creating the registration page and setting up email verification.

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2. User Story 2: As a user, I want to log in to my account so I can access my data.

• This would include tasks like implementing the login form, connecting to a database for authentication, and ensuring security.

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3. User Story 3: As a user, I want to change my password for security reasons.

• Tasks for this story could involve creating a "forgot password" flow, sending reset emails, and updating the database.

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4. User Story 4: As a user, I want to update my profile picture and personal information.

• Tasks include creating a profile page and allowing users to upload images or edit their information.

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Why This is an Epic:

The User Profile Management feature is too large to complete in one sprint because it involves multiple components registration, login, password recovery, and profile editing. By breaking it into smaller user stories, the team can focus on delivering pieces of the functionality incrementally rather than trying to tackle the entire epic all at once.

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As development progresses, these smaller stories help ensure the feature is developed in manageable chunks, making it easier to plan, prioritize, and adapt to changing needs. An epic is like a big goal or feature, and breaking it down into user stories helps teams deliver it bit by bit over time.

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Understanding Epics Within a Complete Agile Program

Understanding epics within a complete Agile program is essential for effectively managing large-scale projects. Epics are high-level work items that represent significant features or business goals, and they are used to organize and structure work in a way that makes it manageable for Agile teams.

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Within a full Agile program, epics are crucial for achieving alignment with overall business objectives while ensuring incremental and iterative delivery of value.

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Epics in the Context of an Agile Program:

• High-Level Business Goals: Epics represent broad, strategic objectives or large features that are often too complex to complete in a single iteration (or sprint). They are typically aligned with overarching business goals and provide a roadmap for delivering major product functionalities over time.

• Breaking Down Epics into User Stories: Since epics are too large to be worked on in a single sprint, they are broken down into smaller, more detailed user stories. These user stories are specific tasks or features that can be completed within a sprint. By breaking down epics, teams can focus on delivering smaller, manageable chunks of work that contribute to the overall completion of the epic.

• Agile Program Levels: In a comprehensive Agile program, epics may span multiple teams and sprints. Different teams may work on different user stories that contribute to the same epic, and these user stories might be executed in parallel. This coordination is necessary for maintaining alignment across multiple teams working on a common goal. Epics help structure this coordination, ensuring that all teams are working towards the same business objectives.

• Tracking Progress and Managing Scope: Epics help program managers and stakeholders track progress at a high level. They allow the program to stay focused on delivering valuable outcomes while providing flexibility to refine the scope of work based on evolving needs. Since epics are large and can change over time, they allow for adjustments as the Agile program progresses, which is essential for responding to new information or market changes.

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Creating an Agile Epic

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Creating an Agile Epic involves defining a broad, high-level feature or initiative that will be completed over multiple iterations (sprints). It represents a significant business goal, product feature, or capability that is too large to be tackled all at once. The goal of an epic is to break down large, complex work into manageable chunks so that it can be gradually developed and delivered in increments.

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Here’s how to create an Agile epic in a more simplified manner:

1. Identify a Large Goal or Feature

• Start with a big picture: Begin by identifying a large feature, goal, or initiative that needs to be developed. This is something too large to fit into a single sprint, such as a major product feature or a broad business objective.

• Tie it to business value: Ensure the epic aligns with overall business goals and delivers value to the users or stakeholders.

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Example:
Epic: "Implement a new payment system for our mobile app."

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2. Define the Outcome

• Clarify the purpose: Write a clear description of what this epic aims to achieve. Don’t focus on specific tasks or steps yet; just focus on what the feature or goal will deliver once completed.

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Example:
Description: "The goal is to allow users to make secure payments using credit cards, PayPal, and other methods."

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3. Break the Epic into User Stories

• Decompose into smaller pieces: Since an epic is too big to tackle in one sprint, break it down into user stories. User stories represent smaller, more actionable tasks that can be completed within a sprint.

• Keep them actionable and small: Each user story should be a specific task that delivers value. You’ll break down the epic until each user story can be accomplished within a sprint.

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Example:
User Stories under the Payment System Epic:

• "As a user, I want to add a new payment method so I can make secure payments."

• "As a user, I want to view my transaction history for all payments made."

• "As a user, I want to save my payment methods for future use securely."

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4. Prioritize and Estimate

• Prioritize the user stories: Organize the user stories based on their business value or urgency. What needs to be done first? What will provide the most value to users? This helps you decide what to work on first.

• Estimate effort: You may also estimate the effort required to complete each user story to give the team an idea of the workload involved.

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5. Define Acceptance Criteria

• Create success conditions: For each user story, define the acceptance criteria, which are the conditions that must be met for the work to be considered complete.

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Example (for the "Add new payment method" user story):

• "The user can enter their credit card details securely."

• "The system validates the payment method and notifies the user of a successful addition."

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6. Place the Epic in the Product Backlog

• Add to the backlog: Once the epic and user stories are defined, add the epic to the product backlog. This is the list of all work that needs to be done, and it will be prioritized based on business needs.

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7. Iterate and Refine

• Ongoing refinement: Over time, as the team works on the user stories and delivers them, you may refine and adjust the epic. New insights or feedback can lead to changes in scope or priorities.

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Example Summary:

Epic: Implement a New Payment System

• Description: "Allow users to securely make payments using credit cards, PayPal, and other popular methods."

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• User Stories:
  • "As a user, I want to add a new payment method."
  • "As a user, I want to view my payment history."
  • "As a user, I want to save my payment details for faster future purchases."

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Acceptance Criteria (for "Add new payment method"):

• "The user can enter payment information securely."

• "The system saves payment details and displays a success message after submission."

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Break Down an Agile Epic.

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Breaking down an Agile Epic is a crucial part of the Agile process. Since epics are large, high-level features or goals that cannot be completed in a single sprint, they need to be broken down into smaller, more manageable units of work. These smaller units are user stories, which are actionable tasks that can be completed in one sprint.

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Here’s a step-by-step approach to breaking down an Agile Epic:

1. Start with a Clear Epic Definition

An epic is typically a broad business objective or large feature that will add significant value to the product. The first step is to ensure that the epic is well-defined and aligns with business goals.

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Example Epic:
"Develop a user authentication system for a mobile banking app."

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Description:
The epic includes the features required for users to securely sign up, log in, and manage their credentials within the app.

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2. Identify Key Features or Sub-Objectives

Before diving into specific tasks, break the epic down into key features or sub-objectives that must be completed to achieve the full epic.

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Example Breakdown of Epic:

• Sign-Up Process: Allow users to create an account.

• Login Functionality: Enable users to log in securely using their credentials.

• Password Recovery: Implement a flow for users to recover forgotten passwords.

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These sub-objectives represent broad components that will eventually be broken down further into user stories.

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3. Break Features into User Stories

Each of the sub-objectives or features needs to be broken down into user stories. User stories are small, manageable tasks that represent work to be completed within a single sprint. They should focus on user needs and the value delivered by each feature.

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For example, breaking down the Sign-Up Process feature could result in the following user stories:

• User Story 1: "As a new user, I want to input my email and password to create a new account."

• User Story 2: "As a new user, I want to verify my email address so I can confirm my account."

• User Story 3: "As a new user, I want to receive a success message after my account is created."

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Likewise, the Login Functionality might be broken into:

• User Story 1: "As a user, I want to input my email and password to log in."

• User Story 2: "As a user, I want the app to show an error message if I enter incorrect credentials."

• User Story 3: "As a user, I want the option to stay logged in for a set period."

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4. Add Acceptance Criteria to Each User Story

For each user story, define the acceptance criteria that will outline what constitutes “done” for that story. Acceptance criteria ensure that the team understands the specific requirements of the story and when the work will be considered complete.

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Example Acceptance Criteria for "Sign-Up Process" User Story 1:

• The system allows the user to input an email address and password.

• The email is validated for the correct format (e.g., user@domain.com).

• The password must be at least eight characters long.

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For "Login Functionality" User Story 2:

• The system shows an error message if the credentials are incorrect.

• The error message states: "Invalid username or password."

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5. Estimate the Effort for Each User Story

Once you’ve broken the epic into user stories, it’s important to estimate the effort required for each story. This can be done using techniques like story points, ideal hours, or T-shirt sizes. This estimation will help prioritize the work and ensure that the team can complete the user stories in the sprint.

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6. Prioritize the User Stories

Next, prioritize the user stories within the epic. Some stories may need to be completed before others due to dependencies or business value. Prioritization helps the team focus on delivering the most important features first, ensuring that the epic progresses in a meaningful way.

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Example Prioritization:

• Highest Priority: User login and password recovery (critical for user security).

• Medium Priority: Account creation (can be completed after login).

• Lower Priority: Success message after account creation (can follow after main functionality is complete).

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7. Monitor Progress and Refine the Epic

As the team works through the user stories, they might uncover new insights or changes in scope. It’s important to regularly review and refine the epic and its user stories based on feedback and progress. This flexibility is at the core of Agile, allowing the team to adapt to changes while continuing to focus on delivering value.

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Measuring Agile Epics

Measuring the progress and success of an Agile Epic is essential for tracking its completion and ensuring that it aligns with business goals. Here’s how you can measure the success and progress of an epic:

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1. Define Clear Objectives and Outcomes

• Set measurable goals: Define what the epic aims to achieve and how success will be measured. For example, if the epic is about developing a user authentication system, the goal might be "secure user login" or "users able to recover their password."

• Establish KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): KPIs could include user satisfaction, a reduction in login issues, or an increase in active users, depending on the epic's objective.

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2. Break Epics into User Stories and Track Progress

• Track completion of user stories: As the epic is broken down into smaller user stories, track the completion of these stories through your Agile process (e.g., Scrum board, Kanban).

• Use velocity: Track how much work is being completed each sprint (velocity) to estimate when the epic will be completed.

• Burndown charts: Use burndown charts to show the progress of the work left in the epic over time. The chart should show how the effort reduces as stories are completed.

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3. Measure Business Value Delivered

• Value-focused metrics: Measure the business value delivered by completing the epic, such as user adoption, revenue generation, or improvements in user experience.

• Feedback loops: Gather feedback from stakeholders and users as you complete user stories. This helps you measure the real-world impact of the epic’s features.

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4. Review and Refine the Epic Continuously

• Regular reviews: Hold regular reviews (e.g., sprint demos) with stakeholders to ensure that the epic is still on track and is aligned with business objectives.

• Adjust as needed: Based on feedback or changes in priority, adjust the epic’s scope or break it into smaller epics to ensure that the product is evolving in the right direction.

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How to Write an Agile Epic

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Writing an effective Agile epic involves clarity, alignment with business goals, and an understanding of what needs to be accomplished. Here’s a step-by-step guide to writing a good epic:

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1. Identify the High-Level Goal

• Think in terms of value: The epic should be linked to a larger business goal or value proposition. What feature or outcome is going to add value to your customers or business?

• Big Picture: An epic is typically a broad goal, such as a major product feature or a significant improvement.

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Example Epic:
"Implement a multi-currency payment system for a global e-commerce platform."

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2. Provide a Clear Description

• Define the scope of the epic: Clearly articulate what the epic will achieve. Avoid diving into technical solutions; focus on the outcome or business value instead.

• Focus on users and outcomes: Who will benefit from this epic? What specific user needs will it address?

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Example:
"This epic aims to allow customers to pay for their orders using different currencies, thus enabling a global customer base to make purchases in their local currency."

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3. Break It Down into Key Features or Components

• Subdivide into smaller parts: An epic can be too large, so break it down into key components or major features that will make up the epic. These components will eventually be split into user stories.

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Example Breakdown:

• Currency Selection: Users should be able to select their local currency.

• Currency Conversion: The system should convert prices to the selected currency in real time.

• Payment Gateway Integration: Integrate multiple international payment gateways.

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4. Write User Stories for Each Key Feature

• Each key component of the epic can be translated into user stories. These should be small enough to be worked on within a sprint but detailed enough to capture user requirements.

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Example User Stories:

• "As a user, I want to select my currency from a dropdown list so that I can view prices in my local currency."

• "As a user, I want the system to automatically convert the prices based on the current exchange rate so that I know the exact amount I need to pay."

• "As a user, I want to use international payment methods like PayPal or credit card so that I can pay with my preferred method."

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5. Set Acceptance Criteria

• Each user story in the epic should have acceptance criteria to define when the story is done. This ensures that the team knows the expected behavior and can verify if the work is complete.

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Example Acceptance Criteria for "Currency Selection" User Story:

• The user can choose from a list of 20+ currencies.

• The chosen currency is displayed on the checkout page.

• The currency is retained across pages within the same session.

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6. Estimate Effort and Timeline

• Estimate the effort: Once the user stories are identified, you can estimate the effort required for each story. You can use story points, ideal hours, or another estimation technique.

• Set a rough timeline: While the epic is high-level, you can still estimate how many sprints it might take based on the number and complexity of user stories.

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Agile Epic Template Explained in Simple Terms

An Agile Epic is a large feature or initiative that cannot be completed within a single sprint. To manage it effectively, you break it down into smaller, more manageable tasks called user stories. A well-structured Agile Epic template helps document and guide the team through the process of defining, breaking down, and delivering the epic.

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Here’s an easy-to-understand way to structure your Agile Epic template:

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1. Epic Title

This is the name or title that represents the large feature or goal you're working on. It should be descriptive and easy to understand.

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Example:
"Enable Multi-Currency Payments for Global Customers"

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2. Epic Description

This section explains the big picture of the epic. What is the epic trying to achieve, and why is it important for the business or product? It should be clear enough to give the team an understanding of the goal without diving into technical details.

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Example:
"We need to build a multi-currency payment system so customers from different countries can pay in their local currency, making the checkout process easier and more accessible for international users."

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3. Business Value/Objective

Here, you describe how this epic will help the business. What value will it deliver to the user or customer, and why is it worth doing? This helps the team understand the why behind the work.

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Example:
"By offering multi-currency payments, we’ll increase conversion rates for international users and expand our customer base globally."

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4. Key Features or Components

An epic is a big task, so break it into smaller parts or features. These components are the main pieces of work that need to be completed in order to finish the epic.

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Example:

• Currency Selection: Allow users to select their preferred currency at checkout.

• Price Conversion: Dynamically convert prices to the selected currency.

• Payment Gateway Integration: Support multiple international payment methods.

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5. User Stories

Each feature in the epic should be broken down into user stories. User stories are smaller tasks that describe specific functionality from the user's perspective. These should be simple, actionable, and small enough to complete in a sprint.

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Example:

• Currency Selection:
  • As a user, I want to select my currency during checkout so that I can see the price in my local currency.

• Price Conversion:
  • As a user, I want product prices to change based on the currency I select so I know the exact cost in my local currency.

• Payment Gateway Integration:
  • As a user, I want to pay with PayPal or a credit card in my selected currency, so the payment process is easy and convenient.

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6. Acceptance Criteria

Each user story should have acceptance criteria. This is a clear list of conditions that must be met for the story to be considered “done.” It’s essentially a way of saying, "What needs to happen for this feature to be complete?"

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Example:

• Currency Selection:
  • The user can choose from at least 20 different currencies.
  • The selected currency is displayed correctly throughout the checkout process.

7. Priority

This tells the team how important the epic is compared to other work. Is this epic something that needs to be done immediately, or can it be handled later?

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Example:
Priority: High (Because it will help boost international sales)

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Optimize your Epics with Automation.

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Optimizing your Agile epics with automation is a powerful way to streamline processes, enhance team efficiency, and ensure that you’re delivering high-quality work on time.

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Automation can simplify the management of epics, user stories, and tasks, reduce manual effort, and improve tracking and reporting. Here's how you can optimize your epics using automation:

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1. Automate Epic Creation and Management

• Template Usage: Set up automated templates for epics so that whenever a new epic is created, it follows a predefined structure. This can include fields like epic title, description, key features, user stories, and acceptance criteria. Tools like Jira and Azure DevOps allow you to create custom templates for epics that automatically populate necessary fields.

• Bulk Epic Creation: Instead of manually creating multiple epics or tasks, use bulk import features to upload them from spreadsheets or other sources.

• Epic Linking: Automatically link related epics or connect epics with corresponding user stories to ensure traceability and visibility across different levels of work.

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2. Automate Breakdown into User Stories

• Epic to User Story Breakdown: Use automation tools to break epics into smaller user stories. For example, some tools can automatically generate user stories based on predefined rules or inputs. Once an epic is created, it can be automatically split into manageable parts, ensuring that work is better organized and distributed.

• Story Mapping: Utilize automated story mapping tools, where you input high-level goals, and the tool auto-generates possible user stories and features that need to be developed to meet those goals.

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3. Automate Task Assignments

• Automated Task Assignment: Tools like Jira and Trello can automatically assign user stories, tasks, and epics to the appropriate team members based on predefined rules, such as expertise, availability, or workload.

• Workload Balancing: Automation can balance workloads by distributing tasks across team members. For instance, when a new epic is assigned, automated rules can ensure tasks are allocated in a way that prevents bottlenecks.

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4. Automate Progress Tracking and Reporting

• Burndown Charts & Dashboards: Set up automated burndown charts and dashboards to track the progress of your epics and user stories. These charts can be updated in real-time as tasks are completed, giving you a clear visual of your team's progress and helping to spot delays or issues.

• Status Updates: Use automation to trigger status updates when certain conditions are met. For example, when all user stories within an epic are marked as “done,” an automated notification can alert the team and stakeholders, ensuring the epic is closed without delays.

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5. Automate Testing and Quality Assurance

• Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD): Implement CI/CD pipelines to automatically trigger tests and deployments whenever user stories or epics are updated. This helps ensure that new features are tested thoroughly and deployed quickly.

• Automated Testing Tools: Integrate automated testing tools into your workflow to ensure that once user stories are completed, they undergo automated testing. This reduces manual QA efforts and ensures consistent quality checks across the board.

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6. Automate Notifications and Alerts

• Epic Updates and Notifications: Set up automated notifications and alerts for changes in epic status, deadlines, and progress. For instance, you can receive automated reminders when a story within an epic is overdue or when a critical dependency has been completed.

• Stakeholder Communication: Automate reports or email updates to stakeholders about the status of the epic. This could be a weekly digest or an on-demand report that highlights epic progress and any potential blockers.

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7. Integrate with Other Tools

• Cross-tool Automation: Integrate your Agile tools (like Jira, Trello, or Azure DevOps) with other tools your team uses (such as Slack, GitHub, or Confluence) to create a seamless workflow. For example, an update in Jira can automatically trigger a message in Slack to notify the team.

• External Data Sources: Automatically import data from external systems (like CRM tools, analytics platforms, or product management software) to inform the epic’s progress and decision-making.

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8. Automate Backlog Grooming and Prioritization

• Automated Backlog Grooming: Use automation to regularly check and clean up your backlog by flagging outdated or low-priority tasks. This ensures that your epics and user stories remain relevant and aligned with the current business goals.

• Prioritization Automation: Automated tools can help prioritize epics and stories based on predefined rules such as business value, customer feedback, or dependencies. This reduces the manual effort of determining what to focus on next.

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Conclusion

Agile epics are large, high-level tasks that are broken down into smaller user stories for easier management and execution. They help organize complex features, align teams with business goals, and improve workflow efficiency. Understanding and managing epics effectively ensures better project tracking, prioritization, and successful Agile delivery.