What is the best practice for Agile breakdown - Epics and Stories OR Stories and SCRUM Tasks
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07-10-2023 11:55 AM
We know SPM has flexibility and provides a hierarchical breakdown structure of Agile development into Epics - Stories - SCRUM Tasks, but we are struggling to reach a consensus on which approach we should take. What is recommended?
- How should we break down Agile functional items and assigned work?
- Should stories be used to detail functionality and the work to complete the stories be assigned through SCRUM Tasks? For example, we write a story, and SCRUM Tasks are created for each resource working on the story.
- Or should Epics be used, and work be assigned through Stories and not use SCRUM Tasks? For example, we write an Epic with the same format as a story and then create a Story for each resource working on the Epic. Work is managed via Stories, not SCRUM Tasks.
- What is the intended use of SCRUM Tasks? Are they to assign specific work to resources that rolls up to a Story, such as a development task or testing task?
- Updating SCRUM tasks for a Story do not seem to update the Story. Does the Story need to be updated in addition to the tasks?
Any feedback or direction is greatly appreciated. We have reached out to our ServiceNow rep, but he doesn't seem to be able to get us an answer, so I'm trying it here. Thanks 🙂
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07-10-2023 12:23 PM
Hi Stephen,
Based on the Agile methodology, on a high level:
- Epic is the highest level work item. We use epics to provide the vision and context of the planned work, to allow teams to effectively plan out the development process, to capture the business and customer value, capture the KPIs to measure success, and describe the overall requirements in scope. Some use epics to deliver a full feature end-to-end, others use it for larger efforts and other for smaller, but on a high level it's expected to be a large work effort that would require several stakeholders, and several iterations to deliver.
- Story is usually described as a small enough scope of requirements, that can be delivered by one team, within a single iteration (sprint), and can be shipped as an independent work that would generate value to customers.
- Scrum tasks are smaller tasks that may sometimes be required as part of a story. Some examples are development tasks, test tasks, design or product review. Some teams like using these tasks to keep track of different activities that are required from different team members to deliver a story, like a check list.
I hope this helps, but let me know if there are any other questions.
Best regards,
Galit
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07-10-2023 12:33 PM
This does help at a high level, but we're wanting to know more at a logistical level. Should we create a story for each person who needs to work on a piece of functionality and move that story through the different states eventually completing it OR should we create a single story and then create SCRUM Tasks for each work assignment and move the tasks through the different states? SPM provides a Story board and a Task board within the Agile Board. Should work be managed and tracked via SCRUM Tasks or a story for each resource?
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06-21-2024 07:12 AM
If I were advising in the above example, I would recommend focusing on Stories a small piece of functionality that can be developed and tested in a Sprint and then very importantly demonstrated at the Sprint Review. An Epic would be a larger collection of functionality that requires two or more stories to fully meet the desired functionality.
Tasks are optional and could be used to show individual work completion building towards the story development. I say optional because a well-designed Kanban board provides similar clarity, and many teams find the use of tasks to be more time consuming than the value they provide.
Hope this helps
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07-10-2023 12:43 PM
Hello @StephenPMO
Greetings!
Epics are for high level detail. epic is a collection of user stories with a unified goal.
Example of Epic:
User Experience - under this, you can have many stories that falls under User Experience
under Epics, we can have stories with Acceptance criteria (what needs to be achieved).
Under stories, we can have scrum tasks devided among developers as per their skills.
The hierarchy is Epic -> Story -> Scrum Task.
You can use Stories without Scrum tasks depending on kind of work, skill set.
If the set up is independent developers working on different independent individual tasks, then Epics and Stories would suffice.
If the tasks have to be segregated or devided among developers to complete big tasks, then scrum tasks to be used.
refer the below docs:
Please hit the thumb and Mark as correct based on Impact!!
Kind Regards,
Ravi Chandra
