Burndown Chart

Burndown chart are used in scrum process which will give a graphical representation of the pending work with respect to the time.

The pending work generally defined as a backlog is represented on the vertical axis of the graph and the time is along the horizontal axis.

Burndown chart is used to estimate the time to complete all the work. We can determine the velocity of the sprint using the burndown chart.

After the completion of a few Sprints the velocity of scrum team will be likely to be predictable and would allow an accurate estimation about the time required until all entries in the Scrum Product Backlog will be completed.

In the process of a project burndown charts can be used at 3 stages:

• Release
• Iteration
• Team Iteration

The daily velocity of a project can also be calculated using the burndown chart which will include the average daily completed work for the time elapsed shown in the chart timeline.

Whenever there is a release/ completion/iteration in progress we can fix the scope creep to avoid it, add or remove the task from the product/project or sprint backlog by looking at the burndown chart statistics.

DISADVANTAGES OF BURNDOWN CHART

The actual work done is above or below the ideal work will clearly depend on the accuracy of the original time estimates.

If a team continuously overestimated the time requirements then the progress of work will appear ahead of scheduled time and if the team underestimates time requirement then they will appear behind the schedule.

An efficiency factor can be introduced in the burn down chart and after

the first iteration of the project the factor can be recalculated to allow more accurate estimations in the next iterations.