Epics and Features: The Cornerstone of Agile Success

Agile project management evolved as a response to the drawbacks of traditional “waterfall” methodologies, which often involved rigid project plans and little adaptability. Over time, software development teams realized the need for iterative, flexible processes. This led to the creation of agile practices that emphasize collaboration, incremental delivery, and rapid feedback loops.

Why Agile Thrives in Modern Environments

• Customer-Centric: Agile prioritizes delivering customer value quickly, enabling teams to pivot based on feedback.
• Flexibility: Iterations (or sprints) allow teams to adapt project goals as requirements change.
• Transparency: Frequent check-ins, demos, and retrospectives foster accountability and clear visibility into project progress.

Because agile frameworks need to account for changing priorities, teams often use hierarchical structures for their work items—this is where epics and features come into play.

Defining Epics in Agile

An epic in agile is a high-level body of work that captures a broad business objective or large user need. It’s essentially a “big idea” that can be broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces (often called features or user stories).

Characteristics of an Epic

• Large Scope: An epic spans multiple sprints or even entire quarters, as it addresses broad objectives.
• Longer Timeline: Epics may stay active for weeks or months before completion.
• Foundational to Product Strategy: Because of their broad scope, epics often relate closely to the strategic roadmap or product vision.

Why Use Epics?

1. Strategic Alignment: Epics ensure that large-scale objectives are prioritized and tracked over time.
2. Better Organization: By categorizing smaller work items under an epic, teams can handle complex projects more systematically.
3. Resource Planning: Epics help teams visualize how resources are allocated over a longer term, which is crucial for budgeting and forecasting.

Defining Features in Agile

Features represent specific functionality or capabilities that solve particular customer or business needs. They are often derived from epics and can be further broken down into smaller user stories.

Characteristics of a Feature

• Specific Functionality: While an epic covers a broad theme, a feature focuses on a particular subset of functionality.
• Shorter Timeline: A feature generally spans multiple sprints, but it has a narrower scope than an epic.
• Actionable: Features can be estimated, developed, tested, and delivered within relatively shorter timeframes compared to epics.

Benefits of Using Features

1. Granular Focus: Features allow teams to tackle product objectives in smaller, more manageable chunks.
2. Improved Accountability: Because features have clear acceptance criteria, teams know exactly what to build and when they are done.
3. Better Risk Mitigation: Delivering features iteratively means teams can test real functionality, reducing the risk of building something that doesn’t meet user needs.

In short, epics are used as the overarching container, while features often live within these epics to provide structure and clarity. In the agile process, features help break down the complexity of an epic into more tangible pieces, making it easier to track and deliver value incrementally.

Structuring Epics and Features for Success

Epics and features should not be used haphazardly. To get the most out of them, it’s crucial to structure and manage them effectively.

Aligning with the Product Roadmap

• Top-Down Planning: Start with high-level objectives or themes you want to achieve in a specific timeframe. These become epics.
• Breaking Down Epics: From each epic, derive multiple features that represent customer or business capabilities.
• Prioritization: Use frameworks like MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have) or Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) to prioritize features within each epic.

Creating Clear Acceptance Criteria

• Set Specific Goals: What does success look like for each feature? Define it with measurable criteria.
• User-Focused Stories: Each feature can be broken into user stories that describe the functionality from the end-user’s perspective.
• Definition of Done: Establish a consistent standard, so the team knows what “done” means for each feature. This often includes coding, testing, documentation, and stakeholder approval.

Ensuring Continuous Feedback

• Iteration Reviews: After every sprint, showcase completed features to stakeholders for feedback.
• Agile Retrospectives: Reflect on what went well, what didn’t, and how to improve for the next round.
• Backlog Refinement: Continually groom the product backlog to keep epics and features updated according to new insights and changing priorities.

Structuring epics and features in a logical way ensures transparency, predictability, and efficient collaboration.

Tools and Techniques for Managing Epics and Features

Numerous tools and methodologies have emerged to help teams better manage epics and features within agile projects. Here are some of the most common approaches.

Kanban Boards

A Kanban board is a visual method for tracking work items through different stages of completion (e.g., To Do, In Progress, Done). While epics and features might not appear directly on a Kanban board, they can be traced through the user stories that make up each feature.

Scrum Boards

Scrum boards operate similarly to Kanban boards but are tailored to sprint-based work. Each sprint backlog may contain user stories related to specific features. The overall epic remains visible at a higher level, ensuring that the team stays aligned with bigger goals.

Backlog Hierarchies

Agile project management tools (e.g., Jira, Azure DevOps, Trello) often provide hierarchical backlog views. You can see epics at the top level, with features beneath them, and user stories under each feature. This hierarchy offers clarity into how each story contributes to the overarching goals.

Agile Metrics

• Burndown Charts: Track the progress of user stories, which roll up to features and then to epics.
• Velocity: Analyze how many stories your team completes in a sprint, helping you forecast epic and feature completion.
• Cumulative Flow Diagrams (CFD): Visualize how work progresses through stages over time, identifying bottlenecks.

Each technique provides different angles for monitoring progress and ensuring that the team remains aligned with project goals.

Aligning Epics and Features with Team Roles

In agile, roles are not as rigid as in traditional project management. However, certain roles do have specific responsibilities that relate to epics and features.

Product Owners

• Epic Formulation: Often responsible for defining and prioritizing epics based on market research and strategic objectives.
• Feature Prioritization: Decides which features should be tackled first, ensuring they align with the product vision and deliver maximum value.
• Backlog Management: Maintains and refines the product backlog at all levels—epics, features, and user stories.

Scrum Masters

• Process Facilitator: Ensures that the team follows agile practices, including how epics and features are managed and tracked.
• Impediment Removal: Works to remove any blockers that could slow down the team’s progress toward epic or feature completion.
• Coaching: Guides the team and stakeholders on agile best practices, including the effective use of epics and features.

Development Teams

• Implementation: Builds the features and user stories associated with each epic.
• Estimation: Provides estimates for how complex each feature might be, helping Product Owners prioritize effectively.
• Continuous Improvement: Participates in retrospectives to improve how epics and features are defined and delivered.

By clearly defining responsibilities, teams can ensure that epics and features are used effectively, driving agility and efficiency across projects.

Overcoming Common Pitfalls in Agile

While epics and features are powerful constructs, they aren’t a silver bullet. Here are some typical challenges teams face and how to address them:

Overly Broad Epics

• Challenge: An epic that’s too broad can become unwieldy, making it difficult to track progress or deliver incremental value.
• Solution: Break down epics into smaller, more focused epics if necessary, or define clearer features. Regular backlog refinement can help keep epics at a manageable size.

Vague Features

• Challenge: Features with unclear objectives lead to confusion, rework, and misaligned stakeholder expectations.
• Solution: Develop clear acceptance criteria and user stories that address specific customer needs. Collaborate closely with stakeholders to ensure clarity.

Lack of Stakeholder Involvement

• Challenge: Agile thrives on feedback; if stakeholders are absent, epics and features may be built without a real understanding of user needs.
• Solution: Schedule regular reviews and incorporate feedback loops. Encourage stakeholders to attend sprint reviews and planning sessions.

Scope Creep

• Challenge: Adding too many features to an epic mid-sprint can overwhelm the team and derail project timelines.
• Solution: Use strict backlog management, and track changes through established processes. Evaluate new requests against existing priorities before incorporating them into the epic.

Inadequate Tools or Processes

• Challenge: Failing to use a cohesive toolset or consistent processes can fragment visibility and reduce agility.
• Solution: Centralize your agile workflow in a single tool, and ensure all team members follow established best practices.

By addressing these pitfalls, teams can maintain momentum and deliver the right features at the right time, keeping the focus on delivering value.

In Summary

Epics and features are cornerstones of agile project management, helping teams organize large-scale objectives and deliver tangible value in iterative increments. By understanding how to define them, structure them, and align them with stakeholder expectations, teams can build products that truly meet user needs.

When teams effectively manage epics and features, they can streamline product development, reduce confusion, and ensure ongoing alignment between strategic objectives and day-to-day tasks. This approach to agile is not limited to small teams; organizations of all sizes can apply these practices to enhance transparency, collaboration, and overall project success.

At Harness, we enable teams to manage their entire software delivery lifecycle with precision and speed. Our AI-powered platform—spanning Continuous Delivery, Continuous Integration, Feature Management & Experimentation, Chaos Engineering, Incident Response, and more—helps organizations track and measure outcomes at every stage. By aligning your agile practices with our solutions, you can scale your epics and features more effectively, minimize risk, and continuously improve the software delivery process.

FAQ

Do agile projects have epics and features?‍

Yes. Agile projects commonly use epics to represent large objectives and features to break down these objectives into specific, deliverable capabilities.

How do epics differ from features?‍

Epics are broad, high-level goals that can span multiple sprints or even quarters. Features are more focused chunks of functionality derived from these epics.

Why should teams use epics and features in agile?‍

Epics and features provide a hierarchical structure that makes it easier to plan, prioritize, and deliver complex work in smaller, more manageable segments.

How do you know if an epic is too large?‍

If an epic remains open for too long or lacks clear deliverables, it’s likely too broad. Breaking it into smaller, more focused epics or defining clearer features helps maintain manageability.

Which agile roles are most responsible for managing epics and features?‍

Product Owners typically define and prioritize epics and features. Development teams estimate and implement them, while Scrum Masters ensure the process runs smoothly.‍

Can tools like Scrum and Kanban boards help manage epics and features?‍

Absolutely. Many agile tools offer hierarchical backlog views, burndown charts, and visual boards for tracking epics, features, and user stories, improving visibility and alignment.