Project management, Tools

Burndown chart explained: what it is, how it works and why it’s essential for agile teams

How do you maintain your team’s work pace and ensure your project is on track to reach its goal? A burndown chart makes visualizing sprint progress easy – it’s a tool that presents data in a clear and accessible way. Thanks to it, you can quickly identify potential threats and gain control over task completion.

In this article, you will learn: What a burndown chart is and how it helps Agile teams track progress The difference between Agile and Scrum methodologies The types of burndown charts: sprint, release, and product How to use burndown charts in both Scrum and Kanban How to interpret burndown chart deviations and what they mean How to analyze sprint issues like blockers, unplanned work, and team velocity The differences between burndown, burnup, and Gantt charts How tools like FlexiProject can automate and visualize burndown charts

What is a burndown chart?

Burndown charts are useful in various project management methodologies like Scrum, sprints and Kanban. They help teams control work progress, quickly detect potential delays and adjust their pace accordingly.

Burndown charts are essential for effective project management in practice because they:

• provide a clear picture of progress,
• help the team stick to the plan,
• Motivate the team to deliver results on time,
• enable early detection of obstacles and delays,
• facilitate planning the next steps.

It’s important to clarify the difference between Agile and Scrum. Agile is a set of guiding principles and values that promote flexibility and adaptability in project management. Scrum, on the other hand, is one specific framework or method that implements these Agile principles. It provides a structured way for teams to build products incrementally, step by step, through short, iterative cycles called sprints.

Types of burndown charts

In agile project management, such as Scrum, various types of burndown charts are used to track work progress at different levels:

• The sprint burndown chart visualizes how much work the team plans and completes within a sprint (typically 1-4 weeks). It measures progress in hours or tasks and is used to monitor progress and achieve the sprint goal. This chart is a key topic during daily stand-up meetings. Using sprint management tools is very helpful for effectively utilizing this chart.
• The release burndown chart illustrates the progress of work on a product release, which typically spans several months and comprises multiple sprints and related functionalities. This chart measures progress in story points and helps the Product Owner and stakeholders track overall progress and plan the release date.
• The product burndown chart displays the progress of work on the entire product (including all features and requirements) over a long period, typically using story points. This chart provides a high-level overview of product development, making it useful for long-term planning and reporting to management.

To calculate Product Burndown:

1. Estimate total work: at the very beginning of your project, estimate all the work that needs to be done. This initial estimate forms the scope of your product backlog.
2. Determine project duration: decide how much time the entire project will take, measured in sprints.
3. Update after each sprint: after every sprint, review how much work your team has completed. Subtract this completed work from the total remaining and then update your chart accordingly.

Burndown chart in Kanban - visualizing task flow

While traditionally associated with Scrum, the burndown chart also finds its place in Kanban. Unlike Scrum, where work is broken down into fixed iterations (sprints), a Kanban board focuses on the continuous flow of tasks. In Kanban, the burndown chart visualizes the pace of task completion and helps identify potential bottlenecks or issues in the workflow.

To effectively utilize a burndown chart within Kanban, a proper Kanban board setup is crucial. In Kanban, this line doesn’t necessarily have to be straight, as the pace of task delivery can fluctuate. The key is to analyze deviations from the actual progress and respond by implementing improvements in your Kanban workflow management process.

How to interpret burndown chart results?

Interpreting results on a burndown chart involves analyzing the deviations of the actual burndown line from the ideal burndown line:

• The ideal burndown line represents a consistent and even pace of work completion throughout the sprint or project. It’s often shown as a straight diagonal line from the starting amount of work to zero.
• The actual burndown line reflects the team’s real-time progress and how much work has actually been completed.

Deviations from the ideal line indicate differences between planned and actual progress and these can provide valuable insights into your team’s work pace.

To truly understand sprint progress and manage it effectively, the burndown chart alone isn’t enough. You need to combine the information from the chart with other data, such as:

• Team velocity: this is a measure of the amount of work your team is consistently able to complete within a sprint.
• Blockers: these are obstacles or impediments that prevent the team from progressing with their work.
• Unplanned work: these are tasks that emerge during the sprint and were not initially included in the sprint plan.

Combining data from the burndown chart with information about velocity, blockers and unplanned work provides a complete picture of sprint progress. This allows the team to:

• Understand why deviations occur: are delays due to incorrect estimates, blockers or unplanned work?
• Implement changes and adjust the work plan.
• Improve their operations: draw conclusions for the future to better plan and work more efficiently.

Burndown chart vs. other charts

It’s important to distinguish the burndown chart from other methods of visualizing work progress commonly found in project management software:

• Burnup chart: this chart displays the amount of work that has been completed over a given period, rather than the amount of work remaining. It shows progress accumulating upwards.
• Gantt chart: this chart presents a project schedule, outlining the timeline and dependencies between individual tasks. It’s more about scheduling and less about tracking real-time work completion against a defined scope.

How to create and use burndown chart in FlexiProject?

FlexiProject features offers a feature to automatically generate burn charts based on data from sprints and task boards. This allows you to visually monitor the pace of your work directly on the user panel. The platform, as a comprehensive project management system, also enables workflow automation and Gantt process monitoring, integrating these burndown chart insights with other aspects of project management, including the Gantt chart, backlog and team priorities. 

Gain complete control over your team’s progress. Use the burndown chart in FlexiProject to deliver value iteratively – with no surprises.