A burndown chart is a graphical representation of the rate at which the user stories in an agile project are being completed.
The work that is yet to be completed is shown on a vertical axis (y-axis), while the time that has passed since the project or sprint began is shown on the horizontal axisn(x-axis).
The burndown chart is regularly updated so that it can be used by the project team to keep track of the project or sprint’s progress.
There are two different types of burndown charts and they are :
- Sprint burndown chart : this is used to keep track of the work that is yet to be completed in a sprint.
- Product burndown chart : this is used to keep track of the work that is yet to be completed in the project.
So why should you use a BurnDown Chart ?
The burndown chart is used to keep track of the project or sprint as it progresses. This helps keep the stakeholders updated on the project or sprint’s progress and enables them to take corrective actions to get it back on track.
Some of these actions can include increasing the assigned project resources to correct a project or sprint that is lagging behind or updating the project timeline for a project or sprint that is ahead of schedule.
The burndown chart is also simple, easy to draw and understand.
So how do you draw a Burndown Chart ?
A burndown chart is drawn using the x and y axis of a line chart.
The project or sprint timeline is drawn on the x-axis while the amount of work that is yet to be completed in the project or in the sprint is drawn on the y-axis.
The x-axis is drawn from left to right, the first point represents the first day of the project or the sprint, while the last point represents the last day of the project or the sprint.
Then the ideal work remaining line is drawn, the ideal work remaining line is used to connect the start and end points of the project or sprint. It is used to sum up the estimates of the pending work in the sprint or project.
But this ideal work remaining line is based on estimates so it might not be accurate.
Once the projects starts the project team would keep track of the work that is being completed and that is used to draw the actual work remaining line.
This actual work remaining line is used to represent that actual work that remains in the project or sprint. The actual work remaining line might vary based on the amount of completed work and it would probably differ from the ideal work remaining line.
Once both the ideal work remaining line and the actual work remaining line are drawn, they can be used for some analysis and make some decisions.
This analysis includes the following :
If the actual work remaining line is above the ideal work remaining line, then this means that the projected work estimates were inaccurate and the project might fall behind schedule.
But if the actual work remaining line is below the ideal work remaining line, then this would mean that the pending work was overestimated and the project might be completed ahead of schedule.
