Sprint Burndown (Scrum)

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By reviewing a sprint burndown report, you can:

  • Track how much work remains in a sprint backlog.
  • Understand how quickly your team has completed tasks.
  • Predict when your team will achieve the goal or goals of the sprint.

This report is similar to the report available from your team backlog page. The sprint burndown report is built from data in the Analysis Services cube, and the team burndown chart references the WIT data store in real time.

Prerequisites

  • The on-premises Azure DevOps Server deployment and the team project collection that contains your team project are configured with SQL Server Reporting Services. This report isn't available if Report Reports doesn't appear when you open Team Explorer and expand your team project node.

    If you need to add reporting services to your deployment or reports for a team project, see Add reports to a team project.

  • To view the report, you must be assigned or belong to a group that has been assigned the Browser role in SQL Server Reporting Services. For more information, see Grant permissions to view or create reports in Azure DevOps Server.

Data in the report

A sprint burndown report shows how much work remained at the end of specified intervals during a sprint. The source of the raw data is the sprint backlog. The horizontal axis shows days in a sprint. The vertical axis measures the amount of work that remains to complete the tasks in the sprint. The work that remains is shown in hours.

A sprint burndown graph displays the following pieces of data:

  • The Ideal Trend line indicates an ideal situation in which the team burns down all of the effort that remains at a constant rate by the end of the sprint. The line is drawn from the total remaining work on the sprint start date to intersect the x-axis on the sprint end date.

  • The In Progress series shows how many hours remain for tasks that are marked as In Progress in a sprint.

  • The To Do series shows how many hours remain for tasks that are marked as To Do in a sprint.

    Both the In Progress and the To Do series are drawn based on the actual progress of your team as it completes tasks.

    The following illustration shows an example of a sprint burndown graph.

    Sprint burndown chart

    You can filter the report by selecting the Iteration or Area.

Required activities to support the sprint burndown report

For the burndown report to be useful and correct, your team must carry out the following activities for tracking tasks:

  • Define sprints for your team.

  • Define tasks for each product backlog item you're working on within the sprint. If you work from your team's backlog and task board, the items you create will automatically be assigned to the current sprint (Iteration) and to your team's default Area path.

  • Specify and update the Remaining Work field for each task or subtask as it is worked on.

    Important

    If you divide a task into subtasks, specify hours only for the subtasks. These hours are rolled up as summary values for the parent task. For more information, see Address inaccuracies published for summary values.

  • Update the State of each task as it progresses from To Do to Done.

Interpret the report

You can review the report to determine the progress that your team has made in a release and answer the following questions:

  • How much work remains in the sprint?

  • Is your team on track to finish all work for the sprint?

  • When will your team finish all work for the sprint?

  • How much work for the sprint is in progress?