Epic in Agile

 

Epic are used in Agile product management to structure tasks and establish hierarchy during the Agile Development phase. A user story is a smaller task that is part of an epic, which is a larger piece of work. An Epic frequently spans several sprints, teams, and even numerous projects. Before they can begin to extract functionality from epics, product folks must first deconstruct them into stories.

Within an Epic, all user stories have the same strategic objective i.e. Agile Development and high-level client objective. Similar to this, when numerous epics have a similar goal, they are compiled into a larger body of work known as a "theme." The scope of an Epic will alter as sprints are finished and our knowledge of the demands of the client grows, and new user stories may be added to or taken out of the epic.

Putting epics into a larger agile framework

Product teams may make well-informed decisions and continue to work towards a larger strategic goal by understanding where epics fit into the overall agile structure by the help of Agile Methodology.

·       The roadmap explains the product strategy and unites the entire company behind it. The roadmap, which often contains a calendar, feature releases, and objectives, illustrates how the product will change over time.

·       Themes are broad-based, long-term strategic objectives. They give decision-making context and aid organisational navigation of the product strategy. The work breakdown hierarchy is topped by Agile themes, which direct the development of epics.

·       User tales, or sets of tasks, make up epics. With epics, development effort is divided into deliverable parts while remaining tied to the overall topic. Epics are more detailed than themes and can be quantified, allowing PMs to see how they contribute to the overarching objective of the organisation.

·       The smallest unit of work in the Agile framework is a user story. A user narrative is a succinct description of a product feature that describes how the user will perceive value and is written from the end user's perspective. Larger user stories (stories that cannot be delivered in a single sprint) may be classified as epics by some companies. Larger storylines could also be divided into smaller assignments.

Theme
Convert from a conventional travel agency to a comprehensive online supplier of experiences and activities.

Epics

·       Open a marketplace online where experience providers and customers can transact.

·       Establish a programme for integrating experience providers.

·       Upgrade the reservation system to include experiences and activities.

·       Create a mobile application to draw in a younger demographic of seasoned customers.

·       To be conveyed, each of these objects must be divided into numerous smaller stories, yet they are all connected by the same topic.

Stories
"Launch a marketplace for experiences" may involve projects like developing the website's user interface or luring experience suppliers and end users to the brand-new marketplace. The Epic will be accomplished by members of various teams over the course of multiple sprints.

The product team might prepare the following narratives or follows Agile Methodology to introduce the marketplace:

·       Create the experience providers' registration process. to the development team be assigned.

·       Create a view with a single experience. the group in charge of product design.

·       Shorten the experience search loading time. a member of the IT Operations group.

·       Write a newsletter for the launch. given to the marketing department.

Guidelines for writing Agile epics

With the use of a well-written epic, you can steer clear of arguments and misunderstandings during the creation process. Each Epic needs to be discussed in detail because it will be the main source for team members to leverage when developing user stories.

Engage the entire team in the Epic writing process.
It is your job as the product manager to create the epic and keep up with its specifications. However, it's crucial that you work closely with the entire team. As you are drafting the requirements, involve the engineering and design teams and make sure everyone is aware of the project's purpose.

Specify the epic's details.

1.      Introduction. The "why" and "what" of what you're building must be included in the introduction.

2.      Product requirement: a general description of what the team will plan, create, and present.

3.      Technical prerequisite

4.      Design prerequisite

Choose a measure for the epic
With each Epic, whatever metric are you attempting to raise? Make sure your Epic includes a metric you intend to monitor in order to gauge the effectiveness of the new features. Additionally, an improvement in KPIs will keep stakeholders aware of your work and the team engaged.

Make sure the Epic doesn't end up being too long or too short.
While it takes longer to deliver an epic than a user story, be careful not to make it take too long. Two weeks is often thought to be a reasonable length for epics.

About Advance Agility

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