define-features-epics.md

title	titleSuffix	description	ms.custom	ms.technology	ms.assetid	ms.author	author	ms.topic	monikerRange	ms.date
Define Azure Boards features and epics, organize backlog items	Azure Boards	Define Azure Boards features and epics to organize your product and portfolio backlogs	boards-backlogs, seodec18	devops-agile	9B517FEE-14FA-41FA-87CD-99D33168D01E	kaelli	KathrynEE	tutorial	>= tfs-2015	10/11/2021

Define features and epics in Azure Boards to organize your product and portfolio backlogs

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While many teams can work with a flat list of items, sometimes it helps to group related items into a hierarchical structure. Perhaps you like to start with several major features or scenarios and break them down into smaller deliverables. Or, you've got an existing backlog and now need to organize it.

The following image shows a Features portfolio backlog that consists of a flat list of Feature work items.

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No matter your starting point, you can use portfolio backlogs to bring more order to your backlog. Use your backlogs to plan your project and to:

• Manage a portfolio of features that are supported by different development and management teams
• Group items into a release train
• Minimize size variability of your deliverables by breaking down a large feature into smaller backlog items

Use this article to learn how to:

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• Determine what is a good feature or epic
• View a backlog or portfolio backlog
• Add features and epics
• Add child items

With portfolio backlogs, you can quickly add and group items into a hierarchy. You can also drill up or down within the hierarchy, reorder and reparent items, and filter hierarchical views. Portfolio backlogs are one of three classes of backlogs available to you. For an overview of the features supported on backlogs and the types of boards, see Backlogs, boards, and plans. To learn how to track progress across teams, see Visibility across teams.

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What makes a feature or epic?

The epics and features that you create should reflect your business focus. As user stories or product backlog items roll up into features, and features roll up into epics—you'll want to name your features and epics with that in mind.

Typically, a feature is a shippable software component. An epic is a business initiative you want to accomplish. Here are a few examples of each.

Features

• Add view options to the new work hub
• Add mobile shopping cart
• Support text alerts
• Refresh the web portal with new look and feel

Epics

• Increase customer engagement
• Improve and simplify the user experience
• Implement new architecture to improve performance
• Engineer the application to support future growth
• Support integration with external services
• Support mobile apps

View a backlog or portfolio backlog

To focus on one level of a backlog at a time, choose the name of the backlog you want to view. If you don't see all three backlog levels— Epics, Features, and Backlog items— you can enable them for your team.

For example, when you choose Epics, you'll see a list of all Epics in your team's active area paths. From there, you can drill down to see child features and backlog items.

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1. (1) Check that you've selected the right project, (2) choose Boards>Backlogs, and then (3) select the correct team from the team selector menu.

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   To select another backlog, open the selector and then choose a different team or select the View Backlog directory option. Or, enter a keyword in the search box to filter the list of team backlogs for the project.

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   Choose the :::image type="icon" source="../../media/icons/icon-favorite-star.png" border="false"::: star icon to favorite a team backlog. Favorited artifacts (:::image type="icon" source="../../media/icons/icon-favorited.png" border="false"::: favorited icon) appear at the top of the team selector list.

2. Check that you have selected Stories (for Agile), Issues (for Basic), Backlog items (for Scrum), or Requirements (for CMMI) as the backlog level.

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3. (Optional) To choose which columns should display and in what order, choose the :::image type="icon" source="../../media/icons/actions-icon.png" border="false"::: actions icon and select Column options. To learn more, see Change column options.

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1. (1) Check that you've selected the right project, (2) choose Boards>Backlogs, and then (3) select the correct team from the team selector menu.

   

   To choose another team, open the selector and select a different team or choose the :::image type="icon" source="../../media/icons/home-icon.png" border="false"::: Browse all backlogs option. Or, you can enter a keyword in the search box to filter the list of team backlogs for the project.

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2. Choose the portfolio backlog that you want, Features. or Epics.

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3. (Optional) To choose which columns should display and in what order, choose the :::image type="icon" source="../../media/icons/actions-icon.png" border="false"::: actions icon and select Column options. You may want to add the Iteration Path to the set of columns that appear on your backlog. To learn more, see Change column options.

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1. From your web browser, open your team's backlog. (1) Select the team from the project/team selector, choose (2) Work, (3) Backlogs, and then (4) the portfolio backlog of interest, which is Features or Epics.

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   To choose another team, open the project/team selector and select a different team or choose the Browse option.

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2. Choose Epics to see a list of all epics defined in your team's active area paths.

   

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Tip

Each team can choose the backlog levels that are active as described in Select backlog navigation levels for your team.

Add features and epics to your backlog

Just as you can add items to your product backlog, you can add items to your features and epics backlogs.

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1. To add a feature, choose the New Work Item, enter a title, and then press Enter or choose Add to top.

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2. Repeat this step to capture all your ideas as work items.

   Here, we've added six features.

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   You can add epics in the same way. Open the Epics backlog from the backlogs selector.

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1. To add a feature, enter a title and choose Add. If you don't see the Add link, choose New to open the quick add panel.

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2. Repeat this step until you've captured all your main ideas.

   Here, we've added six features.

   

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Add details to a feature or epic

Open each item by double-clicking, or press Enter to open a selected item. Then, add the info you want to track. Enter as much detail as possible. The team will need to understand the scope, estimate the work, develop tests, and ensure that the end product meets acceptance criteria.

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:::row::: :::column span="1"::: Field :::column-end::: :::column span="3"::: Usage :::column-end::: :::row-end::: :::row::: :::column span="1":::

Value Area :::column-end::: :::column span="3"::: The area of customer value addressed by the epic, feature, or backlog item. Values include:

• Architectural —technical services to implement business features that deliver solution
• Business (Default) —services that fulfill customers or stakeholder needs that directly deliver customer value to support the business

:::column-end::: :::row-end::: :::row::: :::column span="1":::

Effort
Story Points
Size :::column-end::: :::column span="3":::

Provide a relative estimate of the amount of work required to complete a Feature or Epic. Use any numeric unit of measurement your team prefers. Some options are story points, time, or other relative unit. :::column-end::: :::row-end::: :::row::: :::column span="1":::

Business Value :::column-end::: :::column span="3":::

Specify a priority that captures the relative value of an Epic, Feature, or backlog item compared to other items of the same type. The higher the number, the greater the business value. Use this field when you want to capture a priority separate from the changeable backlog stack ranking. :::column-end::: :::row-end::: :::row::: :::column span="1":::

Time Criticality :::column-end::: :::column span="3":::

A subjective unit of measure that captures how the business value decreases over time. Higher values indicate that the Epic or Feature is inherently more time critical than those items with lower values. :::column-end::: :::row-end::: :::row::: :::column span="1"::: Target Date

:::column-end::: :::column span="3"::: Specify the date by which the feature should be implemented.

:::column-end::: :::row-end:::

Add child items

With your features defined, add child items to them. You can add child items from any backlog. And you can add features to epics and backlog items to features.

Tip

You can also add child user stories (Agile), or product backlog items (Scrum) or requirements (CMMI) from the Kanban board for Features. And, you can add child features from the Epic board. For details, see Kanban board features and epics. Also, you can quickly parent or reparent children from a backlog using the mapping pane as described in Organize your backlog, map child work items to parents.

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To add a work item, choose the and choose from the options provided.

Here we add a product backlog item as a child to the Customer Web - Phase 1 feature.

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Whenever you see the plus , you can add a child item. The work item always corresponds to the hierarchy of work item types that are defined for your project.

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To add a work item, choose the :::image type="icon" source="../media/icons/green_plus_icon.png" border="false"::: and choose from the options provided.

Here we add a product backlog item as a child to the Customer Web - Phase 1 feature.

Whenever you see the plus :::image type="icon" source="../media/icons/green_plus_icon.png" border="false":::, you can add a child item. The work item always corresponds to the hierarchy of work item types that are defined for your project.

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For Scrum projects, your hierarchy is as shown:

Because teams can also set bugs as tasks, bugs can be added as children of PBIs.

The work item types you'll see depends on the process you selected to create your project.

If you want bugs to show up on your backlog and you're not seeing them, enable them for your team.

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Try this next

Portfolio backlogs are a great way to organize your project plan and provide visibility of project plans across enterprise teams. With portfolio backlogs, management teams gain insight into project status across their development teams.

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Organize your backlog

Related articles

• Azure Boards FAQs
• Product backlog controls
• Filter product and portfolio backlogs
• Select backlog navigation levels for your team
• Work with multi-team ownership of backlog items
• Product backlog controls
• Keyboard shortcuts