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Project Management vocabulary · Agile & Scrum

Burndown chart

Meaning in project management, with examples

/ˈbɜːrndaʊn ˌtʃɑːrt/nounCommon term

In project management, burndown chart means: A chart that shows how much work is left over time, usually in a sprint or release, so the team can see if it will finish everything by the end date.

In Turkish: kalan iş grafiği, burndown grafiği, tükenme grafiği

How it is used

Common in Scrum teams and agile tools such as Jira. The line should go down towards zero; a flat line means work is not being finished. A burnup chart shows completed work going up instead.

Example sentences

  1. The burndown chart has been flat for four days, so something is clearly blocking the team.

  2. I share the burndown chart at the end of each daily stand-up.

Common collocations

  • sprint burndown chart
  • release burndown chart
  • burnup chart
  • flat burndown
  • velocityThe amount of work an agile team usually completes in one sprint, often measured as the total story points of the finished items.
  • sprintA short, fixed period, often two weeks and never longer than a month, in which a Scrum team completes an agreed set of work.
  • story pointsA unit agile teams use to estimate the relative size of work, combining effort, complexity and uncertainty instead of counting hours.
  • dashboardA one-page visual summary of a project's or portfolio's key information, such as progress, budget, risks and KPIs, usually with charts and status colours.

More terms: Agile & Scrum

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