Epic Breakdown
The Epic Alignment sessions team come together to break down work from mid sized(Epic level) requirements to smaller (User Story sized) work to pass through the delivery machine. Operating this process in a “Just in Time” method allows the team to utilise Lean principles and pull the backlog in as needed to ensure they have a constant flow of work of work. This is key as the team need to operate efficiently to allow them to pivot with minimum cost and delay if priorities change further upstream.
As required
Key Focus: Decomposition of Epics into smaller work items
Product Owner, Business Analyst & 3-Amigos
Epic Board
- Shows Epic level deliverables, stack ranked in priority order
- Grouped by time box (i.e. Month) based on delivery capacity
- Allows re-prioritisation by the product owner at any point
- Epics are pulled into an Epic Review session as and when the team require more work items to feed the pipeline
Epic Review
- High Level 3-Amigo Session focused on one Epic
- Original Project Map used as a starting point to identify stories
- Epic level analysis undertaken to break work down into suitable child work items (Stories, Spikes, Tech Work, etc.)
- NFRs identified and discussed at Epic level
- Contents of Epic reviewed to see if be split to allow re prioritisation (i.e. Basic & Enhanced versions of the Epic)
Initial Analysis
- Used to “prep” the user story ready to take into 3-Amigos session
- Usually takes the form of a rapid PO / BA session (15 mins) to discuss the story.
- Documents the Success / Acceptance Criteria (Definition of Done) for the user story
- Outcome is the BA has understanding on what the story is trying to achieve and hasenough to act as conversation starter in the 3-Amigo Session