Understanding Epic vs Story & How to Create Them
By: Hajime Estanislao, PMP, CSM; Editor: Geram Lompon; Reviewer: Dr. Michael J. Shick, MSPM, PMP, CSM
Do you find it challenging to balance delivering quick results and achieving long-term goals? To solve these challenges, you must manage epics and user stories effectively.
Imagine breaking down complex projects into manageable tasks while keeping the big picture in view. Epics and user stories make this possible, helping teams align with business objectives while consistently delivering valuable features to end users.
By mastering the difference between an epic and a user story, you will streamline your project management, improve team collaboration, and increase the predictability of delivery. Whether you are a project manager, product manager, or Scrum master, this knowledge helps you manage work more effectively, ensuring timely delivery of features that satisfy stakeholders and users.
Ready to take your Agile project management skills to the next level?
Learn how to break down large epics into actionable user stories, estimate them using story points, and deliver meaningful value sprint by sprint.
What is an Epic?
In project management and Agile methodologies, an epic is a large body of work, a big story, representing a significant feature, initiative, or functionality. It is too big to be completed in a single iteration or sprint and broken into smaller, more manageable units called user stories. Epics help structure and organize large projects by providing a high-level view of the work so teams can see how various tasks fit into the broader business goals.
Epics are a part of the Agile process, guiding the direction of the Agile development team while giving flexibility for adaptation. They allow teams to manage complexity by gradually delivering value through smaller, actionable tasks, ensuring incremental progress towards larger project goals.
Understanding epics contributes to successful project execution and maintaining a strategic view of a project, enabling project managers and teams to align work with long-term objectives.
What is a Story, specifically, a User Story?
A user story is a concise, user-centered description of a desired feature or functionality from the end user’s perspective. It captures what the user needs, why they need it, and how it will provide value. User stories are designed to be small, actionable tasks that can be completed within a single sprint, making them vital for incremental, agile development and delivering value.
Typically, user stories follow a simple format:
“As a [user], I want [feature] so that [benefit].”
This format keeps the focus on the user’s needs and ensures the software development team understands the context and purpose of the functionality they are building.
User stories are part of the broader backlog and help break down larger bodies of work, such as epics, into manageable tasks. They serve as a foundation for collaboration, help teams communicate effectively, and prioritize tasks that impact the end-user experience.
Reasons You Need to Know the Difference Between an Epic and a User Story
Understanding the difference between epics and user stories is key to managing Agile projects. Epics provide a framework for aligning tasks with business objectives, while user stories break down complex work into actionable steps. This distinction helps teams plan strategically, prioritize tasks, and deliver value incrementally, balancing long-term goals with daily progress.
- Better Backlog Management: Knowing how to structure and manage epics and stories helps keep the backlog organized and prevents it from becoming overwhelming.
- Strategic Alignment: Epics help align the team’s work with long-term goals, while stories allow teams to focus on delivering immediate value.
- Improved Prioritization: Understanding this difference allows for better task prioritization based on scope and urgency.
- Enhanced Team Efficiency: Breaking epics into user stories ensures that development work is manageable and can be delivered within the sprint.
- Effective Communication: Clear differentiation helps stakeholders, product owners, and teams communicate about the work and its purpose at both the strategic and execution levels.
The Parts and Functions of an Epic and User Story
In Agile
Epic
An epic is a high-level body of work that may take several sprints. It provides the overarching context for multiple smaller user stories and a strategic guidepost for the project. The parts and functions of an epic include:
- Title – A clear, outcome-focused name that summarizes the goal of the epic, for example, Streamline User Registration Process.
- Description – A broad overview of what the epic should achieve, focusing on the “what” and “why” without diving into details.
- Acceptance Criteria – Meet the high-level conditions for the epic to be considered complete.
- Success metrics or key results measure if the epic has achieved its desired outcome.
User Story
A user story is a granular, user-centered task that helps complete an epic. It will be finished within a single sprint for continuous value delivery. The parts and functions of a user story include:
- Title – A simple, actionable name that describes the specific task, such as Enable Social Media Login.
- User Role – Describes the end-user or customer for whom the feature is being developed, such as a new user.
- Goal – Specifies what the user wants to achieve, such as I want to log in using my social media credentials.
- Benefit – Explains why the functionality is valuable, ensuring that the task provides a clear benefit to the user or business.
- Acceptance Criteria – Detailed, specific conditions defining when the story is done, often focusing on functionality and user experience.
Example of Using Story Points:
For a user story like “As a user, I want to enable two-factor authentication on my account so that I can enhance the security of my login process,” the team might assign the user story format:
- 3 Story Points: if it involves building a basic reset feature.
- 5 Story Points: if it requires integration with third-party authentication services.
- Story point estimation is a powerful tool in making sprint planning more predictable. It helps Agile teams deliver value consistently and efficiently.
Considerations For Successfully Integrating Epics and User Stories into Your Project Management Practice
When integrating epics and user stories into
Adopting flexible planning is expected. As epics tend to span multiple sprints and are more likely to evolve, it is essential to allow room for adaptation. New insights or changes in scope may emerge as the team progresses through the user stories. The flexibility to adjust the stories within an agile epic without losing sight of the overall goal ensures the project remains responsive to user feedback and business needs.
Consider the importance of prioritization and estimation. Breaking epics into manageable user stories allows teams to prioritize tasks and estimate accurately. It helps manage resources and timelines more efficiently, ensuring small tasks and long-term objectives are completed successfully. Regular backlog grooming and reprioritization ensure the most critical user stories are tackled first, while the smaller stories keep the epic’s broader goal in mind.
Taking it to the Next Level: Story Points Estimation
Focusing on user story point estimation improves planning accuracy and team efficiency. Using a user story map to visualize and estimate effort within an epic helps manage workload, prioritize tasks, and ensure timely delivery. Involving developers and stakeholders fosters collaboration, bringing diverse perspectives on task complexity. This leads to more realistic estimates, aligning the work with business goals and technical capacity.
Here are three techniques that can help enhance story point estimation:
- Planning Poker: This collaborative estimation technique involves the team assigning story points by discussing each user story and its complexity. Each team member independently chooses a point value from a deck and discusses it with the team to reach a consensus. This approach leverages diverse insights and helps prevent biases in estimation.
- T-Shirt Sizing: Another simple method is T-shirt sizing, where stories are differentiated into sizes (Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large) based on complexity and effort. This technique works well for quickly estimating the size of an epic before breaking it down into detailed user stories, providing a broad sense of scope.
- Bucket System Estimation: Place stories in different buckets of pre-determined point values. The team evaluates each story assigned to the appropriate bucket based on its perceived complexity. This system helps estimate the number of stories efficiently while collaborating.
These estimation techniques enhance collaboration and planning, ensuring that epics and user stories align with the team’s capacity and strategic goals.
It is a Story of Epic Proportions!
Understanding epics and user stories is a necessity for anyone involved in Agile project management. Moreover, understanding how to structure and manage these two elements directly impacts project execution and overall customer satisfaction.
Agile user stories focus on incremental value delivery. By managing epics and user stories effectively, you can ensure your team consistently delivers high-quality work that meets user needs, maintains project momentum, and adapts to changing requirements.
Ultimately, well-executed agile epics and stories improve team collaboration, planning, and continuous value delivery, resulting in a satisfied customer base. Take the time to learn these Agile fundamentals, and watch your project outcomes and client feedback improve.
References
Exner, K. (2024, February 29). What is an Agile epic? Best practices, template & example. The Product Manager. https://theproductmanager.com/topics/agile-epic/
Keita, B. (2024, August 27). Epic vs Story: Understanding the differences with example. Invensis Learning. https://www.invensislearning.com/blog/epic-vs-story/
Rehkopf, M. (2024). Stories, epics, and initiatives: These simple structures help agile teams gracefully manage scope and structure work. Atlassian. Retrieved October 2024, from https://www.atlassian.com/agile/project-management/epics-stories-themes
Understanding epics, user stories, and their differences. (2024). User Story Map. Retrieved October 2024, from https://userstorymap.io/epics-user-stories/