How To Create Epic In Jira

When managing complex projects, keeping track of the individual tasks can become a daunting task. This is where Jira, a popular project management tool, becomes an excellent assistant. One crucial feature of Jira is the ability to create ‘Epics’. An Epic in Jira is a large body of work that can be broken down into a number of smaller tasks (Stories).

Creating an Epic in Jira is a simple and straightforward task. Here’s how it can be done.

Step 1: Navigate to your Jira Software Backlog

Once you’ve logged into Jira and navigated to your project, click on ‘Backlog’ in the left-hand menu. This is where you’ll find the ‘Create epic’ button.

Step 2: Create a New Epic

Next, to create a new Epic, click on the ‘Create epic’ (you may find it on the bottom of the ‘Backlog’ list), and a new Epic will be created.

Step 3: Define your Epic

Once the new Epic is created, you need to define it. This is done by filling the fields provided. The typical fields to complete include:

  • Epic Name: This is a short identifier for your epic. It’s best to keep it short and descriptive.
  • Summary: A brief one-line summary of the epic.
  • Description: Detailed explanation of the epic, its importance, and what it should achieve when completed.

Remember to click on the ‘Create’ button once you’ve filled in the details to save the Epic.

Step 4: Add Stories to your Epic

Once your Epic is created, you can start adding stories to it. These stories are the individual tasks that, when completed, will fulfil the Epic.

To add a story to an epic, you can simply drag and drop the story issue onto the epic in the backlog list.

Conclusion

And that is how you create an Epic in Jira! With this feature, you can effectively manage large bodies of work by breaking them into smaller, manageable tasks. This is just a glimpse into the power of Jira and its capabilities.

Code Snippet

Just to illustrate how the data structure of an Epic might look like, here is a pseudo-code example:

Epic epic = new Epic();
epic.name = "Epic Name";
epic.summary = "Summary of the Epic";
epic.description = "Detailed description of the Epic";

Story story1 = new Story();
story1.name = "Story 1";
story1.description = "Detailed description of Story 1";

epic.addStory(story1);

Note: This is not actual code for creating epics in Jira. This is a pseudo-code meant to illustrate the concept.