7 Epic Examples: Plus 4 Steps on Managing Your Epic Poems - Agile Project Management Edition
By: Hajime Estanislao, PMP, CSM; Editor: Geram Lompon; Reviewer: Dr. Michael J. Shick, MSPM, PMP, CSM
Managing multiple tasks, teams, and objectives can be daunting without a framework. Rest assured; this is a common challenge for many Agile teams.
The Agile "epic" is a concept in
Envision the power to streamline your workflows, monitor progress, and update stakeholders with simplicity. Epics offers the structure required to manage large-scale projects confidently, whether software development, healthcare system enhancement, or the creation of worldwide analytics platforms.
Discover the methods of managing your epics within Agile project management.
What is an Epic?
An epic is a concept about large pieces of work divided into smaller tasks. These smaller tasks are known as user stories, which are specific, actionable steps that help achieve the overall objective of the epic. Epics are large enough to be completed in a single sprint, leading to several iterations, depending on the project's complexity and the scope of the work involved.
An epic helps teams manage broad initiatives that would otherwise be difficult to track. An epic is broken down and organized, and tasks are prioritized efficiently with the help of various tools and techniques, such as work breakdown structure or backlog items. It serves as a high-level requirement or feature, with the primary goal being to align all stakeholders and development teams around the project objectives. Through epics, Agile teams ensure that even large projects remain manageable and organized across multiple teams and sprints.
Reasons You Need to Know Agile, Epics, and Their Importance in Project Management
Epics enables project managers and their teams to decompose intricate tasks into smaller, more manageable segments, keeping the project orderly and centered on incremental value delivery. Offering a view of work elements, epics assist teams in task prioritization, resource distribution, and alignment with business goals throughout various sprints or phases. The value of epics is in preserving project adaptability, teamwork, and monitoring advancement during the development journey.
Improved project organization
Epics help manage and group related user stories, allowing teams to maintain focus on large, complex initiatives.
Enhanced visibility
They provide a high-level view of the project, making it easier to track progress and update stakeholders.
Facilitating cross-team collaboration
Epics enable better coordination between multiple teams working on different parts of a large project.
Efficient backlog management
Breaking epics into smaller stories prevents clutter in the backlog, keeping it manageable.
Alignment with business goals
Epics help link development tasks to broader business objectives, ensuring that all efforts contribute to the overall strategy.
Better prioritization
They help prioritize work by highlighting the most important features or initiatives.
Instructions to Managing Epic—Poem or Not!
Organizations and projects create epics at a higher level. However, by dividing epics into smaller, manageable parts, you can keep a transparent view of the progress and ensure alignment among teams and resources.
- Identify Your Epic’s Purpose
- Breaking down into User Stories
- Prioritize and Assign User Stories
- Tracking Progress and Adaptability
This guide walks you through the process of managing epics, from defining their purpose to tracking progress over time.
1. Identify Your Epic’s Purpose
The first step is to define its purpose. Start by understanding the problem or goal the epic is designed to address. Outline the objective to ensure alignment with your broader project or product strategy. Epics are essential to provide direction and guardrails to the development team and stakeholders and stay on track to achieving the ultimate goal.
Focus on identifying the specific issue or customer need the epic is addressing. Establish clear and quantifiable objectives for the project and communicate clearly to ensure a shared understanding of the intent and importance.
2. Breaking down into User Stories
Once the epic is understood, divide it into smaller segments called user stories. Each user story describes a specific task that is valuable to the end user. These user stories organize the workflow, priorities, and facilitation of the team's activities.
Craft actionable user stories with concise descriptions, a persona, and acceptance criteria, and then allocate story points to help enhance the team's planning.
3. Prioritize and Assign User Stories
Defining the user stories involves prioritizing them according to business value, urgency, or complexity. It ensures the completion of the most vital tasks first. Following prioritization, distribute the user stories among team members, ensuring even workload and manageability within the sprint durations.
Utilize MoSCoW (must-have, should-have, could-have, won’t-have) to order the stories. Consider the team’s velocity and allocate evenly the user stories to sprints and team members. Finally, confirming every team member is aware of their duties and the deadline for their tasks contributes to the overall delivery of the epic.
4. Tracking Progress and Adaptability
The final step is monitoring progress and remaining flexible. Using tools like burndown charts or Kanban boards can visualize how the epic is progressing. If new requirements arise or roadblocks emerge, be prepared to accept, adapt, and make changes. Feedback from stakeholders contributes to ensuring the epic is aligned with project goals.
Tools like SmartSuite, GanttPro, or
Considerations for Successfully Managing Epics
When managing epics, it is relevant to be flexible due to the changing scope based on new insights or customer feedback. One consideration is being adaptable to the project requirements without becoming too rigid. Allow adjustments and recognize that epics require new user stories as the project progresses.
Another insight is efficient and transparent communication between teams. Since epics may span multiple sprints and teams, everyone must stay aligned on goals, timelines, and progress. Regular check-ins like sprint reviews or backlog grooming sessions help prevent misalignment and ensure teams are working toward the same outcomes.
Leverage visual tools like Kanban boards or burndown charts to track the progress of the epic in real time. These tools provide clarity on completed items, work-in-progress (WIPs), and remaining backlog, making it easier to adjust and reprioritize when necessary.
Agile Epic Example(s) / Epic Poetry
Enhance your
In a healthcare or hospital management system project, an epic might focus on implementing a new patient scheduling system. It includes user stories like "As a nurse, I want to view available time slots to schedule patient appointments" or "As a doctor, I want to update my availability in the system." This epic addresses the goal of improving hospital workflow and patient care.
A software development company working on a new mobile app might have an epic called "Improve Mobile User Onboarding." The user stories could involve tasks such as "As a new user, I want to complete the sign-up process in under 3 minutes" or "As a returning user, I want my preferences to be automatically saved." This results in streamlining the user experience.
At a global information and analytics company, an epic could revolve around building a data visualization dashboard for clients. The epic might include user stories such as "As a data analyst, I want to create custom visual reports" or "As a client, I want to access live data feeds to track real-time trends." This enhances the value provided to clients by offering them powerful data insights.
Final Thoughts... This is Epic!
The word "epic" brings all your user stories into play, intertwining with end users, existing customers and stakeholders, the product owner, and other project managers to create and deliver value.
In
From defining the purpose of an epic to tracking progress and adapting along the way, the steps and product management strategies outlined in this article will help you confidently manage large bodies of work. By incorporating advanced techniques and leveraging tools like Kanban boards and burndown charts, you can take your
References
Exner, K. (2024, September). What is an agile epic? Best practices, template & example. The Product Manager. https://theproductmanager.com/topics/agile-epic/
Gowland, M. (2023, May). Tell user stories with Agile epics (examples and how-to). Notion. https://www.notion.so/blog/agile-epics-examples
Kukhnavets, P. (2024). Agile epics: What are Agile epics? Definition, benefits, and examples. Hygger. Retrieved September 2024, from https://hygger.io/guides/agile/project-management/epics/
Thakkar, B. (2022, July). What is an epic in agile? Complete guide with examples. LogRocket. https://blog.logrocket.com/product-management/what-is-an-epic-in-agile-guide-examples/
