Burndown Charts

A Burndown chart is a simple way of measuring a team's progress during a sprint by comparing the working days in the sprint to the total number of story points to which the team committed.

A story is considered complete when it does not have any remaining story points and after it has been accepted by a product owner. A sprint can be considered complete when the total story points to which the team committed reaches zero or when the time allotted to the sprint (1-4 weeks) runs out. Ideally, this occurs on the last working day of the sprint. Stories not completed in time are not accepted by the product owner and are moved to a subsequent sprint. Working days in a sprint are defined by the working days in your organization's company calendar.

Burndown charts can be useful at several points within the agile lifecycle: during a release, during a sprint, and for a specific task.