I’ve been considering the value of a burn down chart for measuring the progress of an Agile project. We are using DSDM Atern at work and as a consultancy company we like to try to use the techniques we recommend to others in house before preaching the benefits of them to others. I realise that Burn Down charts originated in Scrum but I would propose that Scrum does not have enough of a robust framework to be of any real value as a complete Project Management framework.

My question is: Are Burn Down charts a realistic progress indicator for a timebox?

My reason for this questioning is that when we used the burn down chart in house we discovered that at any point within a timebox we had some requirements completed others in progress and others not started. With this situation the completed tasks are indicated accurately on the burn down, as are the incomplete tasks.

The grey area is around the tasks that are in progress. Realistically the tasks that are in progress have not been completed so should therefor not be burnt down on the chart. It has however had work completed upon it so should you burn down the work to date on the task? It gives a misrepresentation of the status of the progress. If a task is not complete it’s not been delivered. If near the end of completing a task a sizeable problem occurs meaning the task will take much longer to complete than expected the burnt down progress becomes inaccurate.

My thoughts on this are that we do not burn down any progress on the burn down chart until a task is completed. That way we have a accurate view of what has been completed. I think it needs to be understood when doing this that the chart only displays 100% completed tasks and does not cover in anyway the in progress work.

The other inaccuracy is in relation to the prioritisation of Requirements. When we talk about DSDM Atern we are aware that we need to remember that it is very possible that some requirements will get de-prioritised and not completed to allow the project to stay on track. With this in mind then the bottom of the burn down chart which sits at “Zero Story Points” remaining is not an accurate view. Should you consider the base line of the chart to be the point at which all “Must Have” requirements have been completed and then any of the “Should Have” and “Could Have” requirements are added bonuses?

The thoughts behind this are that in theory the Timebox has not breached the plan if all the must have requirements are completed.

As a reporting tool to management the view of what the chart is showing should be made very clear. The chart could be used to display the information that fits with the requirements of the person creating it. If management are not aware of what is included and what is being displayed it can be very misleading.

I’m interested in what peoples usages are of burn down charts so add a comment to the post start a discussion.