releavo
Templates · Epic template
Product brief templatePRD templateUX spec templateArchitecture doc templateEpic templateUser story templateReadiness check templateTest plan templateChange request templateRelease notes template
Template 5 of 10

Epic template

An epic is a body of work that delivers one outcome a user would notice and takes more than a sprint. The epic describes the outcome; its stories carry the tasks.

Signed off by:
The product owner
Comes after:
Architecture doc
Leads to:
User story
BO-1-upload-order-sheet.md
# <KEY>-<n> · <outcome in the user's words>

**Status:** Ready · **Owner:** <first name or Unassigned> · **Points:** 0 · **Release:** <release name>

## Outcome
One paragraph: who gets what, and why it matters.

Implements: FR-1, FR-2

## Scope
- What's in

## Out of scope
- What's deliberately not

## Done when
- Observable results, not tasks

## Risks and dependencies
- Only real ones

When to write them

After the PRD, when you break the release into work. Three to eight epics for a first release is typical.

How to fill it in

  • Name it by the outcome, in the user's words: "Buyers upload an order sheet", not "Upload service". Split epics by user outcome, never by layer (frontend, backend) or team.
  • Implements. List the requirement IDs. Every requirement in the PRD should land in at least one epic; anything that doesn't is a gap to raise.
  • Done when. Things you could observe in the product: "a 200-line sheet becomes cart lines with no retyping". Not "API merged".
  • Don't list stories in the epic. Stories point at their epic. Lists of stories inside the epic go stale the first time someone splits a story.

Progress comes from the stories

An epic's points and progress are the sum of its stories. Keep the epic file about the outcome and let the backlog do the arithmetic.

Common mistakes

  • Epics that are really one big story, or a whole product.
  • Epics per team, so no epic is ever done on its own.
  • "Done when" written as a task list.

Example

BO-1 · Buyers upload an order sheet

Status: In progress · Owner: Sam · Points: 21 · Release: March

Outcome

Buyers at wholesale accounts place a 200-line order from the spreadsheet they already keep, in minutes, without retyping a line.

Implements: FR-1, FR-2, FR-3, NFR-1

Scope

  • Upload from the cart
  • SKU matching with suggestions
  • The review step

Out of scope

  • Scheduled orders (next release)

Done when

  • A 200-line sheet becomes cart lines with no retyping
  • Every unmatched row is shown with suggestions before anything is added

Risks and dependencies

  • Per-account SKU maps need sales to collect the codes

Have Releavo write the epic

In Releavo this lives at planning/epics/BO-1-upload-order-sheet.epic. Releavo drafts it from the docs before it and your team's conversations; every edit is a draft until the product owner approves it, and approved versions are never overwritten.

Start a project, freeHow Releavo works