Epics, Stories, Tasks, Subtasks… what’s the difference
Epic, Story, Task, and Subtask are common terms to use in issue tracking systems, helping teams break down work into actionable pieces. Initiatives and Themes are sometimes included too. This article explains what these terms mean, their key differences, and how they work in practice.
Sections:
Quick definitions of Epic, Story, Task, and Subtask
What’s larger than an Epic?
Aligning on Agile terminology
Understanding Epics, Stories, and Tasks in practice
Breaking down Epics and Stories into actionable Tasks
Quick definitions of Epic, Story, Task, and Subtask
Epics, Stories, Tasks, and Subtasks form a hierarchy in issue tracking systems. Here’s a short overview of each:
Tasks
Items that are ready to be assigned to team members, with no further discussion or instructions needed. Tasks can be broken into Subtasks if needed — for example, to make it easier to assign issues to individuals.
Subtasks
The smallest items of work. Not all Tasks and Stories need to be divided up into Subtasks. But if they are, they should be done so completely, meaning the parent Task is complete when all its subtasks are done.
Stories
Stories are user requirements, often written in the format: “As a [persona], I want to [goal], so that [reason].” For example: “As a product owner, I want to know how to split Stories, so that I can help make issues actionable for my team.” Stories describe the “what” but not the “how”. They’re on the same level as Tasks, but unlike Tasks they aren’t actionable yet.
Epics
Epics can be thought of as your largest Stories. These big ideas get broken down into smaller Stories and Tasks. An Epic might take months to complete, and can span multiple teams or projects.
What’s larger than an Epic?
Some organizations might use the following terms to organize work into even higher-level ideas:
Initiative
A collection of Epics, often from various teams, that drive toward a common goal. Initiatives might be completed over several quarters or years.
Theme
A custom grouping of Initiatives and everything under them. Themes might include high-level organizational goals or product verticals, for example.
If the above seems appropriate to your team, at enterprise scale you might consider an add-on tool like Jira Advanced Roadmaps. However, most teams can develop, define, and split Epics in any collaborative documentation, such as Google Docs or Confluence.
Aligning on Agile terminology
Classifications in Agile project management tools can vary. For example, Basecamp doesn’t have an explicit concept of an Epic so we might use a ‘To Do’ list to represent it. Teams should collaborate on their own classifications to suit their contexts and needs. It’s easy to gloss over this step — actually getting things done might seem more important! But when you aren’t aligned on terminology, the very systems that are supposed to make work smoother become a source of confusion.
Understanding Epics, Stories, and Tasks in practice
Epics, Stories, Tasks, and Subtasks help us to discuss ideas and define requests so that we can make all issues actionable. ‘Actionable’ means it’s clear what needs to be done. No further conversation or answers are needed to complete the work.
Actionability is important because it allows team members to evaluate a request and commit to doing it. It’s too risky to commit to work before you know what it entails, especially in a team setting. Commitments are the currency of trust, so we need to take them seriously.
Epics aren’t actionable yet, so we break them into smaller Stories, and then into actionable Subtasks. The diagram below illustrates an example of this in practice. It shows a Sprint Backlog containing several items, with one broken down and pulled into the next sprint. In the Scrum meeting, the Product Owner works out their list of stakeholder requirements and brings it to the development team. At this point, breaking the work into actionable issues is the only way to responsibly gain commitment from developers.
Breaking down Epics and Stories into actionable Tasks
Epics and Stories describe something you’d like to make true, but not how to make it happen. Teams therefore need to discuss these ideas with the intention of making them actionable. The ‘INVEST’ technique ensures your Epics and Stories are ready to be broken down:
- Independent — Ensure the story doesn’t depend on anything else being done first. It can become true on its own.
- Negotiable — Those who want the story to become true need to be flexible with how that might happen.
- Valuable — The story explains what value it delivers and why it matters.
- Estimable — The story is clear and simple enough for the team to estimate its effort. This might be done using Story Points, which focus on complexity, risk, and repetition rather than time.
- Small — Splitting large stories into smaller ones can help make them estimable and independent. Avoid splitting stories by architectural layer, as they generally need to touch multiple layers to deliver observable value to the user.
- Testable — The story is clear enough that, once it’s built, you can check whether it works as expected.
Teams can use the INVEST technique to distill conversations into ready Stories. These Stories can then be tracked, split, and broken down using tools like Jira and Confluence.
Bonus tip: Not everything needs to be a Story! Tasks sit on the same level but don’t need the same treatment as they’re self-explanatory. For example, if someone asks you to paint the walls blue, it would feel odd to frame it as a user story: “As a viewer of the wall, I want to see a blue color, so that I’m viewing a wall painted blue.” This example should therefore be classified and written as a Task.
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