Create Your Successful Agile Project

Understand Burndowns and Burnups

Many teams that use iteration-based agile approaches use burndown charts, with which they measure progress against time, as shown in the following figure.

Many teams add an Ideal line to their burndown, as shown in the figure. The Ideal line is supposed to be a reality check—it allows the team to measure against time and what it thought it might do. The idea is that the team should make steady progress, completing work throughout the iteration.

In either of these charts, you can see there are times when not much ...