What is an Epic in Kvasar Agile Management?
In agile project management, an Epic represents a significant initiative or body of work that drives meaningful business outcomes. In Kvasar Agile Management, Epics serve as the highest-level unit of work and are designed to be broken down only into features, which can either be business features or enabler features.
1. The Role of an Epic
An Epic captures a strategic goal or a large piece of functionality that typically spans multiple teams or sprints. It acts as a north star, guiding teams on what needs to be delivered and why.
For example, an Epic could be “Launch a new customer onboarding experience.” Within this Epic, features might include:
Business feature: “Implement guided onboarding for new users.”
Enabler feature: “Integrate authentication API to support onboarding workflows.”
2. Breaking Down an Epic
In Kvasar, an Epic is decomposed directly into features:
Business features: Deliver tangible value to customers or the business.
Enabler features: Provide the technical foundation or capabilities needed to support business features.
Unlike other frameworks, Kvasar does not require stories under features, simplifying the structure and keeping the focus on value-driven work.
3. Benefits of Using Epics
Strategic alignment: Connects team work with organizational goals.
Clear structure: Epics → Features keeps planning simple while maintaining visibility.
Flexible delivery: Features can be prioritized and assigned to different teams or ARTs for parallel work.
Focus on value: Ensures every piece of work under an Epic contributes to business outcomes or enabler capabilities.
4. Managing Epics in Kvasar
Kvasar Agile Management provides tools to create, assign, and track Epics:
Assign features to Agile Release Trains (ARTs) to synchronize teams.
Visualize Epic progress through dashboards showing completion of associated features.
Use AI-assisted decomposition to generate features from an Epic quickly, saving time while maintaining alignment with strategic goals.
In short, an Epic in Kvasar Agile Management is a high-level initiative that drives value through features, whether they are business-driven or technical enablers. This approach keeps planning simple, ensures alignment across teams, and focuses on delivering meaningful outcomes.