Epic
A large body of work that is too big to be delivered in a single Sprint, typically broken down into smaller stories.
What it means
The term epic is not part of the Scrum Guide; it comes from Agile and Scrum practice more broadly, particularly popularized by tools like Jira, as a way to group related user stories under a shared theme.
Epics are refined over time and split into smaller, independently valuable Product Backlog items before they can be selected in Sprint Planning, since a single Sprint cannot absorb something epic-sized.
Common mistakes
Left unrefined, epics create false confidence during roadmap planning; teams should split them early enough that estimates reflect real, actionable scope rather than a vague theme.
Example
'Redesign the onboarding experience' is an epic split into six sprint-sized stories over two months.