What was the determining factor?

According to the PMI Agile Practice Guide (Section 5.2 Requirements and User Stories) and Mike Griffiths’ PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book (Chapter 6: Adaptive Planning), epics are large user stories that must be decomposed into smaller user stories for accurate planning and inclusion in sprints.

The two main drivers for breaking down epics are:

Size – Epics are typically too large to be completed in a single iteration and must be divided to create manageable pieces of work.

Priority – High-priority epics are decomposed early to allow the team to work on the most valuable items first.

This makes Option A the correct answer. The decision to decompose the epic is based on the need to fit it into sprint capacity and to align with backlog prioritization.