Helping defining what is epic / or task

[david stokes]

I'm looking for a little help/guidance 

I've been using Jira for a while but only as a user take task and completing them. 

I've never starting a project from scratch and I do have to now. 

What I'd like to know is what labels each of the following would be

Example Project: Build a website for shopping site

+Create Project called New WebSite Shopping - NWS 

So i know the project will be called New Website shopping ( I think this is correct )

For this example lets say I'm breaking the site down to these large bit of work

User Interface

User Create account 

Shopping catalog

Payments gateway

Would these be classed as EPIC's ? or am I thinking about this wrong ?

What I was going to do is add those Epics.. and then add user stories/task for each bit of work needed for each EPIC. 

But I think i'm using the EPIC incorrectly. 

As when i added the EPIC's it added the NWS-1 and NWS-2 and when I added a task I couldn't attached it to an EPIC to show it's a story related to the EPIC. 

If i'm doing it wrong and I think I am what it the correct way to do this ? 

Lets say I've broken my project into 4 main areas listed about and each has 20-30 task/stories related to them. Should I just add all stories to the project and work from there ? or is there a better way ? 

thanks and sorry for the long post 

[Jonathan Do · Accepted solution]

Good morning David,

I think you're on the right path in regards to making these epics. But before we get to these epics, how are you approaching your project? In Jira you can choose from Scrum, Kanban and a bunch of other project schemes. Based on your use of epics, stories and tasks it sounds like your using Scrum or Kanban. Forgive me if you've already figured this out, I just want to make sure I get where you're working from. If you plan on working in sprints, I think Scrum would be best. If you're going to work on this continuously, Kanban may be best. These two should enable you to make epics and link stories and tasks to said Epics. 

A suggestion in regards to naming these as epics:

User Interface --> User Interface (Keep this as is, it's pretty good)

User Create account --> Account Creation

Shopping catalog --> Shopping Catalog

Payments gateway --> Billing Structure

I like to think of Epics as big parts of your project and thus should be specific but not TOO specific.

When it comes to linking Stories and Tasks to an Epic, there should be a field called Epic Link. This is where you'd link the Stories/Tasks to Epics. Please keep in mind that subtasks inherit the epic link from their story/task and can't be assigned one physically.

I know I just threw a lot at you, but if you have any questions please feel free to ask! Hope this helps.

[david stokes]

Thanks for your reply. 

You are right we are using Scrum and using 2 weeks sprints.

Ok so I understand a bit more now.

So I would create those EPICs

and any new stories/task I make would get the ID NWS-05 NWS-06 and then I would assigned a ticket type/label of the epic it belongs to?

I was just testing there and seen when adding a ticket there was a drop down called EPIC link.. so this appears to be the correct way to link ? 

[Jonathan Do]

Hi David,

Yes that's the way to link it. If you have multiple issues that need linking to the same epic, you can sort them in the issue search screen and then bulk edit.

[david stokes]

Great. Thanks for your help Jonathan. 

[Jonathan Do]

Glad to be of help! 

[Joe Pitt]

I suggest you look at Scrum/Kanban books. The Epic and Story issue types were introduced with their original Agile (Greenhopper) plugin to align with the existing external documentation