Strategic Planning: Epics

Strategic planning happens once per initiative. You take a high-level objective and decompose it into epics that can be delivered in 2-4 sprints each.

Step 4: Break Down Epics

Decompose an initiative into manageable delivery chunks.

The AI analyzes the initiative scope and proposes epics sized for 2-4 sprints. Each epic is:

• Self-contained — delivers a coherent set of features
• Independently releasable — can go to production without waiting for other epics
• Sized for a team — enough work for 2-4 sprints, not more

Epic 0: Foundation Work

For new projects, the skill includes an Epic 0 assessment — infrastructure, tooling, and foundation work that must happen before feature development:

• Repository setup, CI/CD pipeline
• Core libraries and shared components
• Development environment and quality gates
• Authentication/authorization foundation (if needed)

Epic 0 is created only when the assessment identifies essential setup work.

Optional: Domain Modeling (DDD)

If your project benefits from domain-driven design, add two intermediate steps between initiatives and epics:

Define Subdomains

Classifies problem areas as:

• Core — your competitive advantage, build in-house
• Supporting — necessary but not differentiating, build or buy
• Generic — commodity, buy or use open source

Define Bounded Contexts

Establishes service boundaries and integration patterns between contexts (synchronous, asynchronous, shared kernel).

Skip DDD if your project is a simple CRUD app or doesn't need service decomposition.

What You Have After Strategic Planning

PM Tool:
├── Initiative (P0): User Management
│   ├── Epic 0: Foundation & Infrastructure
│   ├── Epic 1: Authentication & Registration
│   ├── Epic 2: Profile & Preferences
│   └── Epic 3: Admin Dashboard
└── Initiative (P1): ...
    ├── Epic 4: ...
    └── Epic 5: ...

Each epic is ready for iteration — the next level breaks them into sprint-sized stories.

Next

Iteration — break epics into stories, refine them, and create tasks.