In the agile approach of project management, the whole project is divided into several equal short timeframe sprints. User stories are the responsibilities of project managers and teams for a particular agile sprint.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The graphical representation of the velocity of the project team is known as an agile burndown chart excel template. Also, it can be defined as “how quickly the project team is working on the customers’ user stories of a sprint”.
Agile Burndown Chart
It helps to define the description of a feature from the customer’s perspective. However, it’s actually the representation of the total effort against the amount of work in each sprint.
The vertical axis of the chart is used for the representation of the remaining work. While the total elapsed time since the start of the project is shown on the horizontal axis of the chart.
It is recommended to update the burndown chart regularly to keep the information accurate and useful at any instant during a sprint period.
The agile burndown chart Excel template is available with two main variations. Product burndown and sprint burndown charts.
The sprint burndown chart only displays the items and tasks that are remaining in the sprint backlog. While the product burndown chart displays the remaining work for the whole length of the project extracted from the product backlog. Also, review the agile project plan.
Benefits of Agile Burndown Chart Excel Template
There are several advantages of having a burndown chart excel template available for each sprint of a release.
Moreover, the compatibility and flexibility of its use make it more popular for professionals to utilize it in their projects.
It provides a quick visual update on the progress of the release or sprint. Also, the display of this important information keeps scrum on the same page.
Moreover, the visual display motivates the project team to stay active and deal with issues well on time.
It just not tells about the present and future of the project teamwork velocity. It also contains the historic visualization of the velocity.
Agile team velocity can be understood as the total work completed during a sprint by the project team and by putting in how many efforts.
Key Elements of Agile Burndown Chart
There are eight basic key elements of this excel chart template that are following below;
- Time-Frame
- Task in Days
- Date of Start
- Date of Completion
- Tasks Remaining Estimation
- Tasks Remaining Actual
- Schedule on Time
- Off the Schedule
If we see the burndown chart, on the horizontal axis, that is the time frame. This may consist of days, months, or years according to the project plan.
The vertical axis represents days or months to complete all tasks on time. This axis also evaluates how many tasks are remaining or pending. And that is likely to Gantt chart methodology.
Now, come to the date of start, that is the basic point of starting a project which represents actual work started on a project.
The date of completion can easily determine by this formula “(estimated days of work ÷ numbers of working staff) ÷ (expected work efficiency factor 70% or 0.7). This Agile formula will give you the actual task completion date.
Tasks Remaining Estimation is a straight line from starting to the finishing line of tasks on the time frame axis. This helps to evaluate how many days are required to complete a task i.e; if we have 40 tasks remaining and our date of completion is 20 then the average days of completion task are 2.
Tasks Remaining Actual is a non-straight line in this agile burndown excel chart because all these estimations are based on ideal situations.
The schedule on Time section is related to when the task remaining actual line falls before or on the estimated task completion point on the horizontal axis chart. Then we can say that it is according to schedule.
Off the schedule is vice versa of schedule on time. When the actual task completion bar line falls after the estimated task completion point.
How to Read the Agile Burndown Chart
It is easy to understand an agile burndown chart excel template. As described earlier, the x-axis of the chart is used to show the timeline of the project or a sprint. The y-axis is used to display the remaining efforts or work required to perform for a particular user story.
The starting point of the project is the extreme left point on the chart that lies on the zero project or sprint day.
While the project endpoint is the extreme right point on the chart marks on the final day of the sprint or project.
There is an ideal work remaining line on the burndown chart whose starting point is on the top left of the y-axis where the x-value of the chart is zero and endpoint are on the bottom right of the chart where the y-value of the chart is zero. At the start, it shows the total work required to perform while in the end, it represents that all the work has been completed.
While there is another line that is for the representation of actual remaining work. It fluctuates above and below the ideal line.
If it’s above, it shows that the project is behind schedule and more work is left than planned. While if below the line, it shows that the project is ahead of schedule and less work is left than planned at that sprint timeline.
