The standard for project management

Figure 5-1. Burndown Chart for Remaining Story Points

Story

Points

Remaining

LEGEND

Day

1

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

Day

2

Day

3

Day

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Day

5

Day

6

Day

7

Day

8

Day

9

Day

10

Story Points Remaining

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Some project teams prefer burnup charts. The same data used in Figure 5-1 is shown in Figure 5-2 in a burnup chart.

Figure 5-2. Burnup Chart for Showing Story Points Completed

Burnup charts show the work completed. The two charts in Figures 5-1 and 5-2 are based on the same data, but 

displayed in two different ways. Teams may prefer how to see their data.

When a team sees what it has not yet completed as it works through an iteration, the team may become dispirited and 

possibly rush to complete the work without meeting the acceptance criteria. However, the team could have any number 

of good reasons for not completing work as it expected. Burndowns show the effect of team members multitasking, 

stories that are too large, or team members out of the office.

LEGEND

Day

1

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

Day

2

Day

3

Day

4

Day

5

Day

6

Day

7

Day

8

Day

9

Day

10

Story

Points

Done

Story Points Done

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64 

  

Section 5

Especially with teams new to agile, the burnup will show changes in scope during the iteration. Burnups allow teams 

to see what they have accomplished, which helps the team proceed to the next piece of work.

Whether teams use burndown or burnup charts, they see what they have completed as the iteration progresses. At 

the end of the iteration, they might base their next measure of capacity (how many stories or story points) on what they 

completed in this iteration. That allows the product owner along with the team to replan what the team is more likely to 

succeed in delivering in the next iteration.

Velocity, the sum of the story point sizes for the features actually completed in this iteration, allows the team to plan 

its next capacity more accurately by looking at its historical performance.

Flow-based agile teams use different measurements: lead time (the total time it takes to deliver an item, measured 

from the time it is added to the board to the moment it is completed), cycle time (the time required to process an item), 

and response time (the time that an item waits until work starts). Teams measure cycle time to see bottlenecks and 

delays, not necessarily inside the team.

TIP

Teams might discover it can take four to eight iterations to achieve a stable velocity. The teams need 

the feedback from each iteration to learn about how they work and how to improve.

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65

Kanban Board

Ready

Develop and

Unit Test

Dev-Done

System

Test

Done

8

3

2

Cycle time: from

the time you start

a task until you

complete it.

Lead time: from the time you 

put it on the board until you

deliver it. Because you can 

change the order of the items

in the Ready column, this can

be unpredictable.

There is a limit

on this column.

You can swap

out something

and swap some-

thing else in at

any time.

Deliver to Customer