Why You Should Have Epic Champions | John's Tips 2024W46
Learn how to implement the Epic Champion role in your company, a strategy for accountability, streamlined leadership communication, and impactful epic or feature delivery.
In the world of product and engineering, it’s easy to lose clarity when managing complex initiatives. That’s why I advocate for appointing Epic Champions - a practice deeply rooted in my Discover, Build Framework.
If you’re unfamiliar with this framework, I’ve outlined how it works below, it’s a way of separating discovery from delivery to remove ambiguity and enable better planning and execution.
At its core, the Epic Champion role isn’t just about assigning responsibility - it’s about fostering growth, streamlining collaboration, and creating smarter, more impactful epics. Before diving into the benefits of this role, let’s take a step back and define what an Epic Champion is.
What is an Epic Champion?
An Epic Champion is the directly responsible individual (DRI) for a specific epic or feature
Think of them as the epic’s steward, guiding it from ideation to delivery. Their job isn’t to do all the work but to ensure that every aspect of the epic is on track and aligns with the team’s goals.
This is already a tried and tested method in many very successful companies, and I’m just trying to emulate that with something similar with a catchier name. I have links in the guide below.
Here’s what sets an Epic Champion apart:
Ownership: They are accountable for the success of the epic, serving as the go-to person for leadership and team members.
Technical Involvement: They engage deeply in technical design, spikes, and prototyping.
Collaboration: They work closely with product managers, engineering leads, and other stakeholders to refine the epic and remove roadblocks.
While the Epic Champion is the primary driver, the role is not about isolation - it’s about leading through collaboration and ensuring the epic is delivered successfully.
Benefits of Having an Epic Champion
1. Career Growth for Engineers
One of the biggest advantages of appointing an Epic Champion is the opportunity it creates for engineers to own their impact. When someone is tied to the success of an epic, it provides them with tangible achievements they can point to during performance reviews or promotion cycles.
This is especially valuable for engineers who may not naturally gravitate toward leadership roles but are ready to step up in a specific capacity. Epic Champions don’t just oversee tasks; they guide the technical design, participate in spikes and prototyping, and are active throughout the build process.
This level of ownership demonstrates accountability and is a great leadership signal for career growth.
2. Streamlined Communication with Leadership
Epic Champions simplify things. Instead of leadership needing to juggle updates from multiple team members or track down the right person to refine an epic, they have a single point of contact.
This makes it easier to have focused discussions about the scope, blockers, or adjustments. The Champion serves as the epic’s representative, ensuring leadership always has the context they need while also safeguarding the team’s focus by minimising ad-hoc interruptions.
What Does an Epic Champion Do?
Here’s a breakdown of the responsibilities of an Epic Champion as outlined in my guide:
Involvement in Design and Prototyping: From spikes to technical design, the Champion is deeply involved in shaping the epic from the outset.
Contributions to Epic Creation and Refinement: They work closely with product managers and team leads to define technical requirements and estimations.
Active Engagement During Build: The Champion remains a central figure throughout the build process, ensuring the team stays on track.
Post-Release Activities: After deployment, the Champion leads clean-up and analysis to ensure the epic’s long-term success.
While the Champion is accountable for the epic, it’s important to note that they aren’t expected to do all the work. Collaboration is key - other engineers can (and should) contribute, but the Champion ensures there’s a cohesive plan and clear communication.
Below, you’ll find the full Epic Champion Guide. It provides all the details you’ll need to empower and support your Epic Champions effectively.
Feel free to copy this guide for use in your own projects or to share with your teams as your own way of working. I’d be very happy if you left the link in when you share it, as I’d like people to contribute if they have suggestions!
The Epic Champion Guide
For more information see here
This guide delineates the responsibilities and expectations of the Epic Champion in overseeing parts of projects or initiatives. Aimed at guiding individuals in effectively embracing this role, it serves as a comprehensive manual for operational excellence and a channel for leadership feedback.
As with all guides, these instructions may and should change over time, and we encourage people to leave feedback for change in the way of working outlined below. Changes may also be suggested during the coworking sessions or retros.
High Level
The Epic Champion is a strategic methodology designed to instill clear ownership and accountability for project leads.
By picking a single Epic Champion for each epic, it fosters improved accountability, simplifies decision-making, and encourages collaboration. Rooted in proven industry practices, this model aligns with our organisational values of diligent and empowered project management.
Note: Initiatives will also have Champions, but they will most likely be the Team Lead or the PM
Core Elements
Defined Accountability: Every epic is entrusted to an Epic Champion, marking a clear line of responsibility and ownership over the project's outcome.
Proactive Leadership: The Epic Champion is tasked with ensuring the epics momentum and success, not by working in isolation but by mobilising and directing the collective efforts of the team.
Integral Concepts
Supportive Collaboration: The Epic Champion is never isolated but supported by the members of the product triad for removing barriers and facilitating real-time feedback.
The work identified as part of the epic can be shared across the team if capacity requires it to be so. This can also be a way of cross training members who don’t have knowledge in some specific aspects of the epic.
Empowered Decision-making: Epic Champions are vested with the authority to make critical decisions to advance the epic, keeping the EM or leads informed to ensure backup support. This involves:
Transparent decision-making processes, with a focus on documenting significant choices and maintaining open communication channels within the project team.
A balanced approach to autonomy, ensuring that while small decisions can be made swiftly, more substantial decisions are carefully documented and shared.
Adaptive and Resilient Leadership: Facing challenges, roadblocks, and setbacks is part of the journey. The Epic Champion:
Maintains composure and clarity in the face of obstacles.
Proactively communicates risks and issues, ensuring the team is informed and prepared to adapt.
Regularly evaluates decisions against potential biases, ready to pivot strategies based on new insights.
Effective Communication and Reporting
This could be an automated process in slack, where emojis can be used on forms to get inputs from champions. This guide has instructions for those scenarios:
These are the reporting tasks that come with the role.
Commitment to transparency with all stakeholders through structured, regular reporting, tailoring communication methods to the project's scale.
Adoption of a standardised reporting framework, incorporating the RAG (Red, Amber, Green) system for at-a-glance project status assessment.
Encouragement of proactive, ongoing communication beyond formal reports to ensure all team members and stakeholders are consistently aligned and informed.
Path to Continuous Improvement
The role of the Epic Champion is dynamic, evolving through feedback and iterative refinements to enhance both process and project outcomes. Champions are encouraged to seek feedback actively and incorporate lessons learned for continuous improvement.
Engineers are encouraged to step into the Champion role in areas where they can develop new skills, as long as it aligns with the epic’s goals and timelines. This approach not only strengthens the team’s expertise but also cultivates a culture of learning and growth.
Best Practices for RAG Status Updates
Choose the Correct RAG Status: Define what constitutes a Red, Amber, or Green status for your project, so team members and stakeholders have a consistent understanding. For example:
Green: Project is on track, with no significant issues or risks.
Amber: Minor issues or risks may impact timelines, but mitigation is in progress.
Red: Significant issues are impacting progress, and immediate intervention is needed.
Update Regularly: Schedule RAG updates on a regular cadence, such as bi-weekly, at the end of a sprint or at key project milestones. This consistency helps leadership and stakeholders maintain visibility into the project’s health.
Explain Amber and Red Statuses: For any status that isn’t Green, provide a brief explanation of the issue, along with the actions being taken to address it. This can prevent misinterpretation and demonstrate proactive management.
Template Link: The template for your reporting can be found in Jira Discovery Part 3: Automating Bi-Weekly Project Reviews | John's Tips 2024W42, where you can implement a standardized reporting method in Jira Discovery.
Reading materials
The Epic Champion is in essence the same as the Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) model, and here are some other reading materials that show how it works in practice.
—End of template—
Delivering Better Epics, Faster
Having an Epic Champion on your team isn’t just about assigning responsibility; it’s about creating a culture of ownership and clarity. By providing a clear point of contact for leadership, fostering opportunities for engineers to grow, and ensuring every epic is guided by a dedicated leader, you’ll find your team can deliver impactful features faster and with greater efficiency.
So, if you’re not already appointing Epic Champions, now’s the time to start. Empower your engineers, improve collaboration, and create smarter, more effective epics. Your team - and your outcomes - will thank you.
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