COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
Burn Down Chart:
Burn down chart is a graphical illustration of the remaining work to do versus time. The quantity of labor remaining is shown on the vertical axis and time is pictured on the horizontal axis.
The chart shows the entire effort against the amount of work we tend to deliver every iteration. These charts are very simple to understand.
In the burndown chart X- axis is used to represent the project timeline and y- axis represents the remaining work in the project.
There are two types of Burn down charts:
- Sprint burn down chart
- Product burn down chart
Product burndown charts provides a complete read of the project. The chart shows how many product goals the team has met and the remaining which must be done. The sprint number is pictured on the horizontal axis and the story points is pictured on vertical axis.
The sprint burndown chart mainly focuses on the ongoing sprints.
- Usually, product teams use both product and sprint burndown charts to estimate their performance.
- Usually these are displayed in the office headquarters, or it is digitally shared across the different departments to keep the operations transparent and let everyone know what’s happening with the project.
Burndowns are very much useful because it:
- Helps us to understand the project clearly.
- Show the impact of decisions.
- Warns us if we are not going with the plan and miss the steps in the process.
The advantage of a burndown chart is that it provides an updated status report on the progress of the project. By visual illustration of the data keeps everyone on an equivalent page.
Burndown charts are useful because it shows us how the teams are performing. For example:
- If we notice that the team finishes the work early and this might be a sign that team is not spending much time during the sprint planning.
- If the team miss their forecast very often, then it is a sign that they have committed to too much work.
Burn down chat is said to be good if:
- The ideal line is going down in a straight line from top left to down right. This indicates a healthy project and a well-functioning Scrum team.
- If the burndown chart is a flat line, it indicates that we have too many features and requires assistance of the Scrum consultant.
While creating burn down chart we tend to contemplate the below points:
- Estimate Effort of your Tasks
· Plan Number of Days which must be spent for Sprint
· Calculate Total Estimated Effort
· Calculate Remaining Estimated Effort
· Enter Actual Effort
· Calculate Remaining Actual Effort
· Insert Chart
Burndown charts helps the agile groups in:
- Recognizing the target date for the completion of the project
- Setting up the expectations
- Focussing the project by preventing scope creep
- Managing multiple teams.
- Continuously monitoring the release and managing the to-do list
The visual representation burndown charts help to maintain effective collaboration. Managers keeps everyone in the loop and make sure that everyone are on the same page. A burndown chart provides status reports and does not take too much time to make and read, so everyone can keep track easily.
A burndown chart can also prove to be an excellent motivating tool for team members. It keeps everyone involved and the constant comparison with ideal performance on the graph encourages members to perform consistently. In most agile workplaces, the burndown chart has special importance and is usually the focal point of the room as it keeps everyone updated.
