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Glossary
Agile & Scrum

What is Burndown Chart?

A Burndown Chart is a graphical representation of work left to do versus time, commonly used in Agile software development. It maps the remaining effort—usually in story points or hours—on the vertical axis against the duration of a sprint on the horizontal axis to show progress toward zero work remaining.

When to use it

Teams use burndown charts during an active sprint or fixed-length project to monitor their daily progress and ensure they are on track to meet their commitments. It is an essential tool for Scrum Masters and Product Owners to identify scope creep or bottlenecks early, allowing for course correction before the sprint ends.

Example

A SaaS team starting a 14-day sprint assigns 100 story points to their backlog, represented by the highest point on the chart's vertical axis. By day seven, the burndown chart shows 65 points remaining, which is slightly above the ideal diagonal 'burn' line indicating they should have 50 points left. Seeing this visual gap, the team uses their daily standup to identify that a specific database migration is blocked, allowing them to reallocate resources and stay on target for the release.

How Planet Roadmap helps with Burndown Chart

Planet Roadmap features a dedicated Sprint view that automatically generates real-time burndown charts as tasks are moved to the 'Done' column. This eliminates manual data entry and provides the team with an instant visual health check of their current sprint.

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FAQ

How is a burndown chart different from a burnup chart?
While a burndown chart shows how much work is left, a burnup chart tracks both the total work completed and the total project scope. Burnup charts are often preferred for projects with fluctuating scope because they clearly show when a finish date is pushed back due to added tasks rather than slow progress.
What does it mean if the burndown line stays flat for several days?
A flat line indicates that no tasks were marked as completed during that period. This often signals that the team is facing a blocker, that the tasks are too large and should be broken down into smaller sub-tasks, or that the team is working on 'dark matter' work that isn't captured in the sprint backlog.

Related terms

SprintSprint PlanningProduct BacklogVelocityBurnup ChartStory PointsScrumKanbanDefinition of Done

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