How to distinguish between a Portfolio Epic and Program Level Epic in Jira Align?

Question

Hi,

At our organization the portfolio Epics are any epics within the portfolio that has an investment of $3M or More. But while creating an Epic we choose 1 Primary program and assign additional programs if required. However how do we filter results for visibility on Portfolio level Epics only. What can I use to identify an epic as Portfolio Epic Vs Program Epic

Edvaldo Lima · Answer

@Dhruv Doshi

Another option is to use the suggestion from @Samit Mehta _321 Gang_ see below

"if you need a work item that goes across multiple Planning Increments and across multiple ARTs and also be able to decompose the work item into Features, then you will need to consider either Epics or Capabilities.

Typically, the reason for differentiating between Portfolio-level Epics and Program-level Epics is so that the Portfolio leadership and Program leadership each have a distinct Kanban / Backlog of Epics that they review and approve.  Also, you need a way to move these from one Backlog to another - e.g. if a Program Epic exceeds a threshold established by the Portfolio-level team (LPM) then the Program Epic is changed to a Portfolio Epic.

Some options that you can use to filter the data in the Portfolio Kanban (Epic Backlog - Kanban Process Flow view) - the Apply Filters supports only a limited set of fields to filter:

* use tags - a tag to indicate that this is a Program Epic or a Portfolio Epic
* put something in the title of the Epic to indicate it is a Program or a Portfolio Epic
* create separate "Intake" ARTs for Portfolio and Program Epics and set the Primary ART of the EPIC to the appropriate "Intake" ARTs.  The "Intake" ARTs are separate from the ARTs you would create that contain the Scrum/Kanban Teams and will only be used to maintain a backlog of Epics for Program or Portfolio leadership.  This mechanism would also allow you to stack rank the Program Epic and Portfolio Epics separately if needed.

Dhruv Doshi · Answer

Hello @Edvaldo Lima , it does not. I did reply on that conversation as well. The solution given there is to create portfolio Epics as standalone features, but this is not correct. Features only span 1 single PI while epics span multiple PIs, so a portfolio Epic should not be created as stand alone features as that would break the information necessary and its relationship to multiple PIs

Edvaldo Lima · Answer

Hello @Dhruv Doshi

I believe the following community article is a good start.

* How to flag Portfolio Epics vs Program Epics without turning on Capabilities

I hope it helps!