Capture epic data
The license package Lean Portfolio Management is required to work with epics. The use case Portfolio Backlog Management must be activated.
Epics are large-scale initiatives that drive strategic change and innovation, often spanning multiple teams and departments. Typical epics include launching a new product line, initiating an AI-powered customer support system, or implementing a company-wide sustainability program.
Epics have distinct oversight, execution strategies, and success metrics, and stakeholders must clearly define the expected outcomes and business benefits. Epics are broken down into features that provide tangible benefits to users. Given an epic's wide-reaching scope, it is important to specify one or more features as a minimum viable product (MVP). Due to their complexity, epics are typically tracked and managed in Kanban boards.
Users with the user profiles Portfolio Manager, and Portfolio Admin can add and edit epics in Alfabet. Click for an overview of permission concepts.
In the navigation panel, click Agile Architecture > Epics. Per default, the data workbench displays only a set of basic attributes. You can add more columns to capture other attributes directly in the data workbench or you can navigate to an epic's content area and define it in more detail there. Click to learn about how to use data workbenches.
Create a new epic from scratch. Go to Agile Architecture > Epics and click New > Epic. Specify the epic's attributes as well as the relationships that the epic has to other assets in the repository. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the epic and save it.
Edit the attributes and relationships for an epic. Click the Navigate 
button next to an epic to open its content area. Specify the epic's attributes as well as the relationships that the epic has to other assets in the repository.
Try to capture as much information as possible about the epic because complete data considerably improves the results of business questions and other analytics.
Once an epic is in the repository, you can define more details about it in the Epics data workbench.
Per default, the data workbench displays a limited set of basic attributes. You can add more columns via the Structure column to capture other attributes directly in the data workbench.
Or specify and analyze the epic in detail in its content area . In the data workbench, click the Navigate button for an epic to open its content area > Overview page.
Define the epic's basic data. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the epic and save it.
- Name: (Mandatory) Enter a unique name for the epic. The name should help others easily understand the purpose of the epic.
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Status: This indicates the current status of the epic from initiation to execution.
- Funnel: New epic under initial consideration.
- Reviewing: Epic being evaluated to determine if it is aligned with business goals.
- Analyzing: Deeper assessment of epic for feasibility and impact.
- Backlog: Epic is waiting to be prioritized and allocated resources.
- MVP: A minimal viable product (MVP) with one or more features is created to test assumptions and gather feedback.
- Persevere: Based on feedback, the epic continues, pivots, or stops.
- Done: Epic is complete, tested, and ready for release.
- Funnel Entry Date: The date that the epic enters the status Funnel and is thus under consideration. Click the calendar icon to select the date or enter the date in the date format Month/Day/Year. For example: 4/30/2023
- Planned Target Date and Planned Target Date The dates that the epic is expected to be started and completed.
- Epic Type: Select Business Epic if the epic provides business value directly to the customer, or select Enabler Epic if the epic is a technical development initiative that advances the architectural runway to support upcoming business or technical needs.
- Features: Add existing features to the epic or create new features and assign them to the epic.
- In Scope and Out of Scope: Document what is expected to be in the scope of the epic and what is outside of the scope of the epic.
- MVP Features: Defines the features that constitute the epic's minimum viable product. Only features that are assigned to the epic can be selected.
- Description: Enter a meaningful description that will clarify the purpose of the epic.
A role represents a functional responsibility that a user or organization has for the epic. Assigning users and organizations to roles is critical to understanding responsibility for assets in the IT and is required to answer the business question Who is responsible for our assets?.
Responsibilities are based on preconfigured role types. Your company may also configure custom role types via the Portfolio Admin user profile. Depending on the role type, a specified user and/or a specified organization may fulfill the responsibility for the epic. A user assigned responsibility via a role has read-only permissions to the epics. To change data about the epic, they must also be specified as an authorized user or member of an authorized user group.
Roles can be assigned to an epic in the Epics data workbench or the epic content area via Overview > Responsibilities. A person can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company:
- Epic Owner: A person who is the responsible owner of the epic.
- Stakeholder: A person or organization that has an interest in the epic and therefore requires read-only access permissions.
To specify responsibilities for the epic:
- Click in the relevant role field to open the selector.
- Expand the ORGANIZATION or USER sections in the selector and select the person or organization fulfilling the role.
- Click OK to save the role definition and close the selector.
An evaluation is a measurement of the performance of an epic. Preconfigured indicator types and possibly custom indicator types added by your company are available to evaluate and are used in various analyses in Alfabet. Some indicator types are automatically computed by the system and others must be manually defined.
Define the epic's indicators. Click the navigate button of the epic to open the content area. Go to the Overview page and scroll to the Evaluations view and open it. The evaluations Cost of Delay and Epic Cost Estimation each have several indicators that should be defined. Point to the tooltip symbol 
for each indicator to learn more about it.
Select an indicator type and click Edit Indicator or click Group Edit to open a dialog where all indicator types can be edited that are not automatically computed by the system.
Update computed indicators. Click the Calculate button to update computed indicators via the Calculate button. The indicators will be recalculated based on the current data.
A feature can only be assigned to one epic. Once features are assigned to the epic, they may be specified in the epic's MVP Features attribute to indicate that the feature constitutes the epic's minimum viable product.
Create a new feature from scratch. Go to the epic content area via Overview > Features and click 
plus sign button > Create Feature. Specify the feature's attributes as well as the relationships that the feature has to other assets in the repository. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the feature and save it. You can assign features to the epic in the data workbench and specify the indicators in the columns.
Move an existing feature to this epic. Click the plus sign button > Move Existing Feature Here. Select the feature that you want to assign to this epic. If the feature was assigned to another epic, it will be moved to his epic.
The assets that are impacted by the epics make up the architectural scope of the epic. You can add any application, business capability, business process, component, information flow, or organization to the architecture of an epic.
Information flows specified for applications that have been added to an epic's architecture scope will not be automatically added to the eipc. You must explicitly add the relevant information flows to the epic in the Affected Architecture Scope view.
- Go to the epic's content area > Architecture Scope > Affected Architecture. The rows in the matrix visualize the epic.
- Select the cell below a class header to add an asset to the architectural scope of an epic and click New > Add Existing Architecture Element.
- Select one or more assets and click OK.
Review an epic's affected architecture and analyze what affected architecture elements are also impacted by other epics. Consider whether the epics could be consolidated to reduce complexity.
- Go to the epic's content area > Architecture Scope > Affected Architecture Overlap. The following columns are displayed:
- Class: Displays the class that the shared asset is based on.
- Asset: Displays the architecture element assigned to the selected epic and another epic
- Epic: Displays the other epic that the identified architecture element is also assigned to.
- Status: Displays the epic’s release status.
Go to the epic's content area > Investment Context > Strategic Themes. Specify the strategic themes that the epic supports.
The business question How do we manage our portfolio flow? relies on epic data.