What are Agile Epics, User Stories, and Story Points?

Epics, User Stories, and Story Points are three terms that are widely used in Agile Project Management and some of its methodologies, like XP (eXtreme Programming) and Scrum.

But if you haven’t worked on agile projects, then Epics, User Stories, and Story Points may be confusing terms.

Let me explain.

User stories
A user story describes something a user wants.
It is a simple description of a product requirement, in terms of what the product must be able to do…. And for whom.

So, they represent features that a client or user expects from the project. Together, user stories that have not been built by the project team form the Product Backlog.

They are usually documented on cards that typically contain:
• A title
• A unique ID
• An estimate of the work required
(usually in Story Points)
• A description of what the feature needs to achieve
• Maybe a list of tasks (like WBS elements) that are needed to create the product or feature

The description will usually define the scope and quality requirements and may often be articulated in a form similar to this one:
• As a … (user/persona)
• I want to …(action)
• So that … (benefit)
And they may also have a validation test like this:
• When I … (action)
• This happens … (outcome)


Epics
An epic is nothing more than a big user story. Often, they are described as ‘over-sized’ user stories, because they are too large to complete in one sprint or iteration. They are a higher-level story that is really a group of closely related user stories. So, epics are usually split into user stories that represent smaller product features. There is no definitive threshold to distinguish a big story from a small epic.

Themes
A theme is a collection of user stories that go together in some way – they have a ‘thematic’ connection to one another.

Story Points
Story Points are unitless measures of the amount of effort needed to complete a user story. What matters is not the scale of effort in story points but the relative values between the sizes of each user story.
Estimates of relative numbers of story points depend most often on:
• The amount of work
• The complexity of the work required
• The risk or uncertainty of that work

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What is...

A while back, I asked Project Managers in a couple of forums what material things you need to have, to do your job as a Project Manager. They responded magnificently. I compiled their answers into a Kit list.

Note that the links are affiliated.

#Epics #UserStories #StoryPoints

[Onlinepmcourses]

If you are new to Agile or more of an observer than a practitioner, you may not be clear on the precise meanings of Epic, User Story, and Story Point. So, let me explain.

[davidparker]

Best explanation I have ever heard. I have been on courses and asked multiple Scrum Master to explain User Stories and received a lot of contradications and vague explanations.

[ThursdayDog]

Where have you been in my life? Best explanation ever!

[amoprince]

The clarity here is “Epic”! Thanks Sir!

[dorinemukoya]

I passed my PMP on 23 August-3 ATs! Most of the questions were agile. Your tips were very helpful. All the best to those who are preparing for the exam. Thanks a lot!

[anaispirotte]

Hello from France! I am currently studying PM and your video is the first one that has really helped me understand the differences and links between these terms : Epics, User Stories and Story Points. Very clear and well explained! Thank you! I'll go watch your other videos 😊

[muhammadabdullahqureshi]

Love your channel. There are so many bogus PM teachers online who use terms interchangeably and confuse the heck out of students, but you, my friend are the ultimate myth debunker!
Subscribed! :)

Thank you for this video!

[eheh]

Finally some one explaining effectively the topic, thanks a lot!

[Seema]

In a row I watched 3 videos and yours is 4th Video Sir, Thank you for explaining in comman words and making it understandable in layman words. Subscribed to your channel.

[trinikenshin]

This guy is INCREDIBLE. thanks so much for this clear and simple explanation

[fannyritouet]

I really like the way you explain. I can follow you super well and understand everything. Thank you very much!

[stephaniejackson]

Excellent Instructor- easy to understand and apply

[saudpm]

Well, it depends upon the industry as to which approach to adopt. For construction projects, we go for Waterfall and for IT projects we settle with Agile. I have served a decade leading projects in Waterfall approach so I am comfortable with it :)

In IT the projects are incremental and require a lot of iterations

[angelinawilson]

Thank you! The explanation is very clear and well-structured. It made me want to see some of the examples.

[pmpbatais]

nice video and clear explanation many thanks

[ananthapadmanabhanss]

Thanks a lot Mike for giving valuable insights on Userstories:)

[luigiardingo]

Love your videos Mike, they're simply fantastic!

[rahuljindal]

Great! Thanks for making my concepts crystal clear😊

[qrrbgwl]

Awesome explanation Sir. A big Salute!

[sevidzemboris]

You are a great teacher. Thanks for the video