What is an Epic in Agile?

An Epic is a large body of work that cannot be completed in a single Sprint and must be broken down into smaller User Stories. Epics represent significant business objectives or features: "Implement single sign-on (SSO)", "Build mobile app", "Migrate to microservices". They sit above User Stories in the hierarchy: Epic → Feature → User Story → Tasks/Subtasks (this hierarchy varies by tool and framework). Epics help with: (1) Long-range planning — tracking large initiatives across multiple Sprints; (2) Roadmap communication — communicating high-level plans to stakeholders without story-level detail; (3) Progress tracking — seeing how many stories within an Epic are complete. Epics are split into User Stories during Backlog Refinement. A Story is typically small enough to complete in ≤3 days; an Epic may span multiple Sprints. In Jira, Epics are a specific issue type that parent Stories; in SAFe, Epics are portfolio-level work items that span multiple Program Increments.