Agile basic knowledge
#design/agile
Epic vs story vs task
In Scrum here is the rough break-down:
Epic - something so big it probably won’t fit into a sprint, is not clearly understood in terms of customer requirements, and should be broken down into stories. T-shirt sizing is a common way to size epics. Another way is to say we think it could take X to Y iterations to do this work. Epics are usually defined during initial product roadmapping and decomposed into stories in the product backlog as more is learned.
Story - something actionable and small enough to fit in a sprint. These are story pointed and defined using INVEST criteria. Stories should deliver a vertical slice of functionality to the customer that is valuable and complete by the end of an iteration. Stories are usually created throughout product development, more so leading up to iteration planning and also during higher level product roadmapping.
Tasks - decomposed parts of a story that get into the HOW the story will be completed. Tasks can be hour estimated if desired. Tasks are usually defined by the people doing the work (developers, QA, etc), whereas stories and epics are generally created by the customer or the product owner representing the customer. Tasks are created within the bounds of an iteration because they are short lived. There is very little value is tasking out stories that won’t be worked on in the upcoming iteration.