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Stories and Epics

A Shared Understanding of value (and its boundaries) is hard, but great teams figure out how to keep their mental model accurate.

Profile image of John Cutler
Sep 06, 2017 • 6 min read
4.33 (3)
Backlog
Product Specifications
Product Increment
Backlog Refinement
Epic

Takeaways

  • Product Increments must be in a usable condition and must meet all the agreed standards of completeness and correctness to be provided for deployment.
  • Stories are items of a broken-down epic that is usually too big to fit into a sprint. Thus the business value of stories isn't realized until the entire epic is complete.
  • Stories focus our efforts on discreet bits of user-impacting functionality (feedback on these stories can be instantaneous and continuous), Increments regularly inspect and adapt, while Releases coordinate the decision to get something new in front of our users. On the other hand, Epics act as a container for business value (or at least an assumption around business value).

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