The Difference Between Agile Themes, Epics and User Stories
People often (myself included!) get confused about the difference between Agile Themes, Epics and User Stories.
Here’s a simple explanation of what they are and a diagram showing how they relate to one another.
Agile Themes
A Theme is a top-level objective that may span projects and products. Themes may be broken down into sub-themes, which are more likely to be product-specific. At its most granular form, a Theme may be an Epic.
Themes can be used at both Programme and Project Level to drive strategic alignment and communicate a clear direction.
Agile Epics
An Agile Epic is a group of related User Stories. You would be unlikely to introduce an Epic into a sprint without first breaking it down into it’s component User Stories so to reduce uncertainty.
Epics can also be used at a both Programme and Project Level – Read more using Epic Boards to manage programmes and projects.
Agile User Stories
A User story is an Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimatable, Small, Testable requirement (“INVEST Acronym”). Despite being Independent i.e. they have no direct dependencies with another requirements, User stories may be clustered into Epics when represented on a Product Roadmap.
User Stories are great for Development Teams and Product Managers as they are easy to understand, discuss and prioritise – they are more commonly used at Sprint-level. User Stories will often be broken down into Tasks during the Sprint Planning Process – that is unless the stories are small enough to consume on their own.
Read more about Scrum Backlogs and Stories on Agile101.net
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The Hierarchy of Agile Requirement Formats - Themes, Epics, User Stories, Tasks
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Thanks for the diagram, very easy to understand with this.
Hello, very good post. I’ve translated it in french : La différence entre les termes Agiles Thèmes, Epics et User Stories. Regards, Fabrice.
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May be I’m wrong but if you look at the explaination of Mike Cohn of Epic, Theme and User Story it seems you interchanged the notion of Epic and Theme.
see: http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/system/presentation/file/119/Cohn-ADP09-Introduction-to-User-Stories.pdf
We use for many years in our Product Backlog Breakdown Structure Epic, Theme and User Stories where theme is a collection of user stories around a functional area.
confusion persist…
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: Yes, there’s some confusion.
Cohn describes a Theme as “a collection of related user stories” and an Epic as “a large user story.”
On this page, a Theme is “a top-level objective” and an Epic is “a group of related user stories.”
Any author for this page willing to re-assert their statement, or offer further explanation?
Thanks!
Jacque
Hi Achaput and Jacque,
I’m also confused with the terms Theme and Epic. Initially I found that Epic would be the the large picture and the theme is the collection of related stories. However, at an interview that I attended, I was told the other way around. The theme is the top-level objective and Epic is the group of related stories. And that’s how they use it in the organisation also!
Hope someone can help to clarifying this.
Thanks,
Moo
Hi All,
I think we’re all agreed that an epic is a very large user story, however in my experience, *most* ‘very large’ stories can and should probably be broken down into smaller stories so as to minimise complexity.
With that said, you may choose not to release the individual stories until the full epic is ‘done’ – this is quite common.
Themes can be used at different levels of hierarchy and on multiple levels i.e. you may have themes within themes.
At the highest level, you’d probably want to ensure they’re aligned with your overall business objectives – they may span programmes or projects.
I guess the main point here is a theme is a grouping technique whereas epics and stories are actual deliverables… although a story could never be broken down into an epic.
Hope that makes sense and helps to clarify my thinking.
Tara
Interesting take — if these words are from English then isn’t their interrelated meanings obvious … regardless of the newer “principles” of Agile and its consequent usage of English terms ?
After one quick read of the diagram and just off the top of my head, my reaction:
A Theme is a overriding, recurrent direction of events with a large magnitude, for example, “Continued Unemployment and It’s Impacts on Labor Markets”.
An Epic is a collection of stories, about events, that produce major impacts during a given period of time, for example, Homer’s works in the Iliad and Odessy.
A User Story is merely a tale recounting the experiences of an individual, through their own perceptions, of their participation in an Epic, with an overriding Theme.
A Task is simply an action a User may have taken during their own [User] story.
Thus, symbolically: Theme O O Epic -> User Story -> Task
O=Optional
In other words, Theme and Epic are fundamentally unrelated, only interrelated by their usage. Wide-spread unemployment may or may not have been present when Homer wrote his works ;>.
Perhaps a weakness in Agile in this regard however I interpret the diagram as accurate.
Cheers
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[...] you can go to any dozen blogs that argue that it is Theme -> Epic -> User [...]