what we build · part two
Epics
Naming the activity, not the area. The Epic kickoff as the moment the brief enters the team room. Story backbones — one sentence per scene — that come out of the kickoff. Technical Epics where the witness is a system.
Events in this phase. Epic kickoff — one per Epic, two to four hours, trio in the room. Produces Epic name, JIRA description, what done means for the Epic, and the first set of story backbones.
An Epic is an activity, not an area
The Epic is the first artifact downstream of the brief that has a name in JIRA. The name will be read hundreds of times — by developers picking up stories, by stakeholders reading roadmaps, by new team members trying to understand the work. The name carries the meaning forward to all of them. Or it doesn't.
[Verb] [activity] — the person is named in the description, not the title
Epic naming
- ✗ "Grading and reporting improvements"
- ✗ "Teacher dashboard"
- ✗ "Phase 2 — backend refactor"
- ✓ "Grade exam results and publish to the school system"
A verb. An activity with a clear start and a clear end. Stories are scenes within it. Anything that doesn't serve the activity is out of scope — and the name is what makes the boundary visible. Gal — the specific person from the brief — is named in the Epic description, where it grounds the activity in the witnessed moment.
The name is a scope constraint. When a developer finishes a story and wonders whether the next piece of work belongs in this Epic, the answer comes from the name: does it serve the activity? If yes — it belongs. If not — it doesn't, no matter how related it feels technically.