Within Team Practices, we have been having discussions about how to map quarterly goals into phabricator. So I would like to split this into two questions:
1. Should we have an epics column in the Analysis (and other) sprint board?
2. Should we use epics to track quarterly goals?
For point #1, the tradeoff is visibility vs. clutter. Unfortunately, phabricator boards become increasingly awkward as you add more columns. So each column has to be valuable enough to justify the space it is taking up.
I'm definitely willing to try having an Epics column, and later deciding whether or not to keep it.
For point #2, I believe there are three approaches already being used within the foundation to track quarterly goals in phabricator:
a. Each goal is a project[1]
b. Each goal is a column in a board (not a sprint board, but a high-level board)[2]
c. Each goal is a task[3] blocked by other tasks that are in service of that goal[4]
There are pros and cons to each, but at the moment I am leaning toward option (b). However, the answer to that question could involve rethinking how our Discovery product board is organized, which also relates to the rethinking we are doing about our standups, which has gotten me thinking more about how the department itself is structured. It's a big topic(s).
[2] VE does something along these lines
[3] Whether this "task" is an "epic" or a "saga" or something else is open for discussion. Technically, to phab, it's just a task.
[4] My understanding is that FR Tech uses this approach