An epic in Scrum is a large, high-level piece of work that is too big to finish in a single sprint and therefore gets broken down into smaller user stories that can be delivered incrementally.

Quick Scoop: What is an epic in Scrum?

Think of an epic as a big storyline or feature that describes a broader goal, such as “Enable users to manage their subscriptions,” which will later be split into several user stories like “As a user, I can update my payment method” or “I can pause my subscription.”

It usually spans multiple sprints , sits above user stories in the hierarchy, and often aligns with a business objective or theme.

How epics fit into Agile/Scrum

In many Agile setups, the typical hierarchy looks like this:

  • Theme or initiative → high-level business goal.
  • Epic → big chunk of work supporting that goal.
  • User stories → small, sprint-sized slices of value inside the epic.
  • Tasks → concrete actions developers do to implement a story.

For example, a theme could be “Improve mobile shopping,” an epic could be “Launch mobile app checkout,” and user stories cover specific screens and behaviors.

Why teams use epics

Teams use epics to:

  • Keep focus on a shared product goal instead of isolated tickets.
  • Organize and prioritize large work in the product backlog.
  • Plan work that will run across several sprints while still delivering incremental value story by story.
  • Track progress at a higher level than individual user stories (for instance, “epic 70% complete”).

Epic vs. user story (and theme)

Here’s the relationship in simple terms:

  • A user story is small enough to complete within one sprint and focuses on a single need.
  • An epic is a collection of related user stories contributing to a bigger goal and often spans multiple sprints.
  • A theme or initiative groups several epics that serve an even broader business objective.

You can think of it like a TV series (theme), a season (epic), and individual episodes (user stories).

How an epic is written and refined

In practice, an epic usually starts as a short, high-level description of a feature or outcome, then gets refined over time:

  1. Describe the goal and value (what business or user problem this epic solves).
  2. Outline basic product, design, and technical assumptions.
  3. Split it into user stories that are small, testable, and sprint-sized.
  4. Prioritize those stories and bring them into sprints as the team is ready.

The epic itself often stays out of the sprint; what actually gets committed are the user stories derived from it.

In one sentence: An epic in Scrum is a big, goal-driven chunk of work that you break into smaller user stories so a team can deliver value over several sprints instead of trying to ship everything at once.

TL;DR: An epic in Scrum = large, high-level feature or initiative, too big for one sprint, broken down into user stories that you deliver across multiple sprints while tracking progress against a shared goal.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.