{"id":287783,"date":"2022-12-06T09:52:27","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T09:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.co\/?p=287783"},"modified":"2024-06-18T16:11:45","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T16:11:45","slug":"burndown-chart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.co\/burndown-chart\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Burndown Chart and How Do I Use It?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last edited on 18th June 2024<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether you\u2019re working in sprints, or just trying to get your projects wrapped up – one of the key skills of project management is dividing \u2018effort\u2019 into \u2018time\u2019 to ensure stuff gets finished on schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not just doing this at the beginning of a project and then forgetting about it: but responding to your projects as their progress inevitably ebbs and flows throughout its life cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, you can\u2019t measure what you can\u2019t see – <\/em>and that\u2019s where burndown charts come in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a burndown chart?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A burndown chart is an agile tool that visualises how much work is left to do, and how much time there is to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can help manage resource allocation – and, indeed, help you to actually forecast deadlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It looks a little bit like this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Burndown<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The X (horizontal) axis shows us how much time there is remaining, while the Y (vertical) axis shows us the remaining effort or work. (This is a numerical value which generally refers to the number of \u2018tasks\u2019 remaining on a project.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lines, as you can see in the key, represent \u2018actual time remaining\u2019 and \u2018ideal time remaining.\u2019 (Alternatively there might be an ‘ideal work remaining’ line and an ‘actual work remaining’ line.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018ideal time remaining\u2019 burndown represents the perfect scenario where effort is distributed evenly across each day. It\u2019s this line that\u2019s often used to work out and forecast deadlines and is often a straight line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as we all know – in the real world – that equal distribution isn\u2019t how projects really work! This is why the \u2018actual time remaining\u2019 or ‘actual work’ line is often a bit more wobbly. Sometimes you\u2019ll be ahead of schedule, sometimes you\u2019ll slip behind, so the actual work line fluctuates along the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Burndown<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But being able to visualise this in this way will allow you to spot projects that are behind schedule, and move resources around to amp up production where required to ensure course is corrected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bullet points along the line are milestones and events as the project unfolds – these are often referred to as ‘story points’ in sprint burndown charts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why use burndown charts?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Using burndown charts gives you a series of key benefits:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n – You can realistically define deadlines based on a clear idea of how much work is required.
– They help you visualise the status of projects at a glance.
– You gain the ability to respond to \u2018lagging\u2019 projects to avoid delays. (The burndown chart should be somewhere centrally accessible – many teams choose to display this physically in their office or on a data dashboard.)\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

Limitations of burndown charts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

That all sounds great. But burndown charts aren\u2019t without their problems and limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They require regular updates<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

By their very nature, burndown charts need to be updated regularly – usually at least once a day – and this can create another bit of admin to keep updating, unless it\u2019s synched with your PM tool in some way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the data isn\u2019t up to date, the burndown chart becomes completely redundant as a yardstick for project progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They rely on good estimates and honest updates<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Equally, we have a problem that\u2019s inherent with any exercise in forecasting and reporting: is the data right?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How often have you worked on a project where, on paper, delivery within a certain timescale was more than achievable – but faced with the realities of other work, unexpected loss of resource or other circumstances beyond your control – you realise that it wasn\u2019t quite as simple as you thought?<\/p>\n\n\n

\n <\/i>Our Insight\n<\/div>\n
\n Burndown charts need honesty and accuracy throughout, or they just won\u2019t work.\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

They lack nuance and detail<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The simplicity of a burndown chart is both a strength and a weakness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re great for getting a general overview of how many tasks are done and how many are outstanding – and that means they\u2019ll work well where all tasks are roughly similar in scope and scale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, they don\u2019t take into account the fact that Task \u2018A\u2019 and Task \u2018B\u2019, for example, might be wildly different in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, if you were creating a YouTube video, your tasks might be:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n – Create a script
– Record the raw footage
– Source the B-roll
– Edit the video
– Upload and promote it\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

Clearly, these will all take different amounts of time and effort, require different skills – but within the parameters of a burndown chart, all you\u2019ll be able to see is whether they\u2019re done or not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes them potentially an unreliable data source for planning resource allocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They don\u2019t take into account team capacity vs other projects<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Another limitation is that they\u2019ll only give you a view of *one* particular project at a time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you operate in a business where your teams are routinely working on multiple projects at any given time, you can\u2019t plan resource allocation at a \u2018team\u2019 level using a burndown chart alone – because you wouldn\u2019t know what else they had on their desk at any given time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about burnup charts?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some people talk about \u2018burnup charts\u2019 rather than burndown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are essentially the same thing but \u2018inverted\u2019 so the lines work \u2018up\u2019 towards the total number of tasks that need to be completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Burnup<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The difference here is purely notional – it\u2019s the same thing but viewed from a different perspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burnup charts encourage your people to \u2018work up\u2019 towards a number of completed tasks, rather than racing that downward, nosediving timeline in a burndown chart!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final thoughts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To summarise, a burndown chart is an interesting way to measure overall project progression. By comparing your remaining work (or time) against the work (or time) you have planned for a project, a burndown chart shows how your actual progress is lining up with your plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Combining a burndown chart with a project management tool like Project.co<\/a> is a great way to keep your team on the same page, giving everyone clear visibility of work completed as a project progresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you do <\/em>decide to use burndown charts, make sure to display them somewhere prominent where everyone has access to it, e.g. on a wall or whiteboard in your physical office, or in the \u2018Embeds\u2019 section of Project.co<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Burndown charts are an interesting way to measure overall project progression. Find out how they work and how to use them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":287787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-productivity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/what-is-a-burndown-chart.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgGBe0-1cRF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}