Features, stories and sprints

Watch

You will be able to

• Know where epics, features, requests and stories live
• Give every story its story points: 1, 3, 5 or 8
• Plan, run and complete a sprint

Step by step

1. Epics come from the organisation Organisation › Work › Portfolio Kanban
   Epics are strategic: six months or more of work, sized S, M or L. They live on the organisation’s Portfolio Kanban and break down into features on each product.
2. Features and requests on the product board Product › Work › Boards
   Features are strategic: up to three months, sized S (up to 15 story points), M (up to 30) or L (up to 40). Requests are ad hoc. Both are ordered by the DelPulse Value Index.
3. Break them down Feature or request › Child items
   Features, and bigger requests, break down into stories. A story is no more than one two-week sprint of work. A small request can simply change type to a story.
4. Stories live on the team board Team › Work › Backlog
   The team refines its stories at Backlog Refinement: acceptance criteria and what done looks like.
5. Give every story its points Story › Story points
   1 = XS, up to 1 day; 3 = S, up to 3 days; 5 = M, up to 5 days; 8 = L, up to 8 days. Anything bigger is XXL and is broken down. A story without points cannot go into a sprint.
6. Plan the sprint Team › Work › Sprints
   Pull the highest-value stories into the sprint, within the team’s capacity. Keep room for service requests and small changes, guided by the team’s service share.
7. Run the board Team › Boards
   Cards move across; blocked items stand out. Progress rolls up to the product, the epic and the organisation.
8. Complete the sprint Team › Sprints › Complete
   Anything unfinished moves to the next sprint, to be re-prioritised.
9. Learn from the actuals Story › Estimate: original and actual
   When a story is done, the working days it took set its actual points. A 3 that took 5 days becomes a 5 and is flagged; the original is kept.

Try it yourself

Practise as Priya Shah in the demo.
View as Priya Shah. Open the Faster discharge epic on the Digital portfolio’s Portfolio Kanban, follow it down to its features on EPR core and their stories, then plan the next sprint for EPR team Alpha.

Open the demo as Priya Shah Password pulse-demo-2026. The demo resets every night.

The examples use a made-up healthcare organisation. DelPulse is not only for healthcare: it can be set up for any industry, with your own names for every portfolio, programme, product and team.

Part of

Delivery team members · Product Managers and Product Owners