What Is a Sprint Burndown Chart?
A sprint burndown chart is a visual tracking tool that shows how much work remains in a sprint over time. It plots remaining work (Y-axis) against days in the sprint (X-axis), creating a line that ideally burns down to zero by the last day. This simple visualization answers one critical question: "Are we on track to finish?"
Sample Burndown Chart
Story
Points
│
40 ●━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IDEAL LINE
│ ╲
35 │ ●
│ ╲
30 │ ╲━●━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
│ ╲ ●
25 │ ╲ ╱
│ ● ACTUAL LINE
20 │ ╲
│ ●
15 │ ╲
│ ╲
10 │ ●━━●
│ ╲
5 │ ●
│ ╲
0 ●━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━●━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
└────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬─
Day Day Day Day Day Day Day Day Day
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Perfect scenario: burn exactly 4 points per day
Reality: varied pace, but trending toward completion
Anatomy of a Burndown Chart
Y-Axis (Vertical)
Represents remaining work, measured in story points or hours
Example: 0 at bottom (finished), 40 at top (total sprint)
X-Axis (Horizontal)
Represents time, typically each day of the sprint
Example: Day 1, Day 2... through Day 10 (for 2-week sprint)
Ideal Line
Perfect linear descent if work burned evenly each day
Example: Straight diagonal from top-left to bottom-right
Actual Line
Reality—shows what work remains at end of each day
Example: Jagged line that hopefully trends toward zero
Common Burndown Patterns & What They Mean
Flat Start (Slow Burn)
📉Meaning: Team took time to get started, rushed at end
Common Causes:
- Stories not ready
- Blocked tasks
- Vacation early in sprint
Scope Increase
📈Meaning: Work was added after sprint started
Common Causes:
- Unplanned bugs
- Scope creep
- Poor initial estimates
Healthy Descent
📉Meaning: Team burning work consistently
Common Causes:
- Clear stories
- Good collaboration
- Minimal blockers
Late Spike Down
🔻Meaning: Large story completed late, or optimistic updates
Common Causes:
- One big story
- Delayed testing
- Premature "done"
How Story Points Connect to Burndown
Each completed story reduces the burndown by its point value. Here's a real sprint example:
Sprint starts with 8 stories totaling 40 points
Completed 3-point story and 5-point story
Finished two 4-point stories
Big 13-point story completed!
Last 11 points done, sprint complete
Burndown vs Burnup Charts
Both track sprint progress, but from opposite perspectives. Here's how they compare:
| Aspect | Burndown Chart | Burnup Chart |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | Starts high, trends down to zero | Starts at zero, trends up to total scope |
| Focus | Work remaining (what's left to do) | Work completed (what we've finished) |
| Scope Changes | Hard to see if scope increased | Shows scope line separately from progress |
| Best For | Fixed scope sprints, team motivation | Dynamic scope, stakeholder reporting |
Use Burndown When:
- •Sprint scope is fixed
- •You want to motivate completion
- •Team prefers "countdown" mindset
Use Burnup When:
- •Scope might change mid-sprint
- •You need to show scope creep
- •Stakeholders want completion focus
How to Read Your Burndown Chart
Are we on track?
Compare actual line to ideal line. If actual is above ideal, you're behind pace.
When do we update it?
Daily, typically at standup. Update with remaining work, not completed work.
What if we finish early?
Great! Pull in more stories from backlog, or use time for tech debt/learning.
What if we won't finish?
Negotiate scope ASAP. Which stories are must-have vs nice-to-have? Move items out.
Quick Status Indicators
On Track / Ahead
Actual line is at or below ideal line
At Risk
Actual line slightly above ideal
Behind Schedule
Actual line well above ideal
✓ Key Takeaways
- 1Burndown charts show remaining work over time—ideal line is straight, actual line is reality
- 2Update daily (usually at standup) with remaining story points, not hours worked
- 3Flat starts and scope increases are warning signs—address them early
- 4Burnup charts show the same data from opposite angle—better for changing scope
- 5Use burndown for sprint forecasting and team transparency, not blame
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