Define Epic Status

[Sam]

Hello All,

I am novice to the concept of epic statuses. Every site I have visited seems to have a simplified epic status. I have been asked to draft how our epic status should look like and was asked to include the evolution of the epic including: intake process, estimation phase, ready to start work and so on and so on. I am a bit confused by this ask because normally I have seen where the epic workflow is much more simplified, usually capturing: to do, in progress, and done. I have attached our agreed epic statuses How does this workflow seem to you from an agile perspective or overall knowledge you may share of working with epics. 

Epic status as follows: 

1. New

2. Processing Intake 

3. Primed for work description (This is where we learn about the type of work it is in much more detail)

4. Work description in progress 

5. Ready to gather work estimates

6. Ready to schedule

7. Work Scheduled

8. Work in Progress

9. Prepared for decision on viability

10. Deployed

11. Completed

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi @Sam  - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

That looks more like the workflow for a story than an epic. an epic is a high-level collection of multiple lower pieces of work like what you’re describing in your workflow.

What does the workflow look like for the stories?

[Sam]

Hi@John Funk 

Our status for stories: new, in progress, deployed, and done. I believe though there’s an interest for capturing the evolution of the epic, but my understanding the epic status should be a streamed line summary of the actions happening on the epic - new, it’s in progress, then done - or something close to that, but this I feel is too long of a list - it’s almost like story telling through the epic status - sure it can work. Do you see any cons with this approach?

[John Funk]

Yes, it is way too complicated. Why so many steps? What's the justification for it? 

[Sam]

@John Funk  Yeah, that was my first impression too. Believe they want to track from the initial intake request.