Glossary
What is Burndown Chart?
A line chart showing remaining work over a sprint, ideally trending to zero by the last day.
A burndown chart plots remaining work (in tasks, story points, or hours) against time over the course of a sprint. The ideal line is a straight slope from full to zero on the last day. Deviations tell a story - flat lines mean nothing got finished, sudden drops mean stuff was dropped from scope, and a curve that doesn't reach zero means the sprint is over-committed.
When to use
Look at the burndown daily, not just at retro. A flat line on day 3 is a leading indicator that the sprint goal won't land - fix it in the next standup, not in the post-mortem.
Related terms
Scrum
An agile framework where teams work in fixed-length sprints, with defined rituals (planning, daily standup, review, retro).
Sprint
A fixed-length iteration (1-4 weeks) during which a team completes a planned chunk of work.
Velocity
The average amount of work a team completes per sprint, used to calibrate future sprint commitments.
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