How to visualize epics in Kanban Tool?

It’s worth noting, that in Agile workflow management, the term epic can hold different meanings for different people. Some see an epic as a general outline of a task. For others, it’s a goal that breaks down into a series of smaller jobs.

There will also be those people for whom each project is an epic. These differences stem from a lack of a uniform definition of the concept. However your team defines an epic, it should be fairly easy to incorporate them into your Kanban Tool project.

1. A dedicated board for each epic

The most straightforward approach, giving you complete control over who can access the epic, and in what capacity (editing or view only).

Reporting: automated metrics - the Cumulative Flow chart, Lead & Cycle Time, Breakdown Charts, and Time Reports.

2. A designated swimlane for each epic

Although not offering the control of access to specific epics, using board swimlanes for each epic minimizes the amount of project switching required to work on parts of several epics during a day. It will show you the real-time progress across each epic in one place.

Reporting: automated metrics - the Lead & Cycle Time, Breakdown Charts, and Time Reports, all sortable by swimlane.

3. A different card type for each epic

A highly visual approach, letting you shuffle your work across a board, or several boards, without losing track of which card belongs to what epic.

Reporting: automated metrics - the Cumulative Flow, Lead & Cycle Time, Breakdown Charts, and Time Reports, all sortable by card type. Real-time filtering by card color or using the Card Legend power-up can also make tracking easier.

4. A master card as an epic with dependent cards as stories

For a strictly hierarchical view of en epic and its sub-tasks, Task Dependencies are the best way to go. Both the master and the dependent tasks show cues on what they connect to; and multi-level nesting dependencies are possible.

With a neat little Developer Tools add-on, you can also get a visual highlight on the tasks connections, for as long as they are all on the same board.

Reporting: non available.