Reading the burndown

What the ideal line means, what a flat start really tells you, and where scope change shows up.

3 min read

The two lines

The straight line is the ideal: total scope divided evenly across working days. The stepped line is the real remaining work. They almost never match, and are not supposed to.

Shapes worth noticing

  • Flat for the first half, then a cliff — work is being finished in a batch at the end, usually because review is a bottleneck.
  • A step upward — scope was added mid-sprint. Hover it to see what and when.
  • Ending above zero every sprint — you are planning above your velocity, not working too slowly.

Where the numbers come from

Remaining work is the sum of estimates on incomplete sprint tasks, measured at the end of each day in the workspace timezone. Tasks without an estimate count as zero, which is the usual reason a burndown looks better than the sprint feels.

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