Understanding epics, features and user stories in software development
Software development can sometimes feel overwhelming, especially when trying to balance user needs, technical complexity and business goals. That’s why it’s important to break work down into structured, manageable components. Three key concepts in agile delivery that support this structure are epics, features and user stories.
This hierarchy helps product and engineering teams work together more efficiently while maintaining clarity, focus and adaptability.
1. Epics: the big picture
An epic represents a significant business goal or objective. It’s a large body of work that is too broad to be completed in a single sprint and is typically broken down into smaller features.
Epics help guide the strategic direction of the product and ensure that everyone is aligned on high-level outcomes. The collection of all defined epics often represents the overall scope of a product or major initiative.
🔹 Example: “System maturity – performance”
2. Features: functional components
A feature is a subset of an epic that delivers a specific piece of functionality. It describes what the product will do from a functional point of view and is tangible to the end user or client.
Features are smaller than epics but may still take multiple sprints to complete. Each feature typically includes multiple user stories (and sometimes non-user story requirements too).
🔹 Example: “Improve speed of connections to Azure resources”
3. User stories: the user’s perspective
A user story describes a requirement from the point of view of the end user. It follows a simple format:
“As a [type of user], I want [a specific capability], so that [benefit or goal].”
User stories are testable, small enough to be delivered within a sprint and designed to focus on real user needs.
However, not all requirements need to be written as user stories. Trying to force every piece of work into this format can lead to overly complex requirements or artificially contrived ones. Use them when they genuinely help describe functionality from a user perspective, especially for customer-facing features.
🔹 Example: “As a returning customer, I want my payment details to be pre-filled so that I can complete my purchase faster.”
4. Tasks: work for delivery
Once user stories (or other requirement types) are defined, they are broken down into tasks. These are specific units of work assigned to individuals or teams such as writing code, creating tests or designing screens.
Tasks are the smallest work items in the delivery process. They’re action-oriented, estimated in hours or days, and typically do not require user-centric framing. Tasks ensure clarity at the execution level and are essential for managing progress during a sprint.
🔹 Example: “Implement backend endpoint for pre-filling saved card details”
How they work together
- Epics define the strategic goal or area of focus.
- Features break epics into grouped functionalities.
- User stories (where appropriate) describe individual user needs tied to each feature.
- Tasks are the delivery steps required to implement stories or other requirements.
By structuring development in this way, teams maintain clarity, improve prioritisation and ensure iterative delivery of value to users.
The smallest chunk of work that can be assigned to a team member is called a Task. Tasks are parts of User Stories that represent an action to achieve that user story completion.
Final thoughts
Understanding the roles of epics, features, user stories and tasks is essential for anyone involved in software development, from product managers to clients. This structure provides a shared language and framework that supports better planning, clearer communication and more predictable delivery.
By breaking work down into the right levels of detail, teams can remain focused on value while staying flexible enough to adapt as needs evolve.