ID: Milestone / Epic Name

• A one sentence description of the feature

• Written in the syntax of a user story “As a [user] I can [do something] to [achieve
some benefit]. This is probably the “epic” on your product backlog.
• Benefits
• A list of the specific benefits to be achieved via the implementation of the feature.
The goal is to answer the question of “why bother.”
• Scenarios
• This particular feature supports a few different business process scenarios. To
make sure we don’t overlook one, list them here. Capturing the scenarios keeps
the requirements process aligned with how people will actually be using the new
software.
• Features list
• A set of about 5-7 statements to capture the essence of the feature in more detail.
This is the meat of the “scope” of the epic. These can be written in the user story
syntax as well and might logically become the product backlog items or be broken
up into multiple user stories.
• Existing functionality to integrate
• Are we building this feature on top of some existing functionality? Overlooking
the current capabilities the software needs to continue to fulfill is a common
requirements oversight we want to avoid.
• Assumptions
• A list of things assumed to be true that were validated (or invalidated in some
cases) by the business stakeholders.
• Nice to have features
• More of the above, but these will result in lower priority or non-existent product
backlog items.
• Out of scope
• What are we not doing? Included to keep us on track of delivering what we
absolutely need to create value. Out-of-scope items were features discussed but
determined they just wouldn’t deliver adequate benefits to be included in the
scope of this epic. Without this section, otherwise out-of-scope items might creep
into your product backlog and divert your team’s focus from delivering on the
value proposition.