Burndown charts: when to use them—and when they mislead engineering teams

What is a burndown chart? (Definition and examples)

A burndown chart (also called a burn chart) is a graphical representation used in Agile project management to track progress over time. It shows the amount of remaining work over time, typically with user stories, tasks, or hours on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis. As the project moves forward, the line “burns down” toward zero, reflecting the team’s actual progress.

What do burndown charts track?

In Scrum and agile methodologies, burndown charts track the remaining effort (measured in story points, hours, or task count) needed to complete a sprint, release, or project. They provide visibility into whether teams are on pace to meet their commitments.

Understanding what burndown charts measure —and what they don’t —is essential. They track task completion but miss deeper agile metrics, such as team health, code quality, and systemic blockers that affect engineering efficiency.

A burndown chart contains two primary lines:

• Ideal work line: A straight diagonal line showing the perfect pace for completing all work by the deadline. This represents your planned trajectory.
• Actual work line: A line plotting real progress as your team complete tasks each day. This line shows whether you’re ahead of schedule (line below the ideal), on track (line matching the ideal), or behind (line above the ideal).

This visual representation helps Scrum teams and agile project managers quickly assess whether a project is on track. If the actual work line deviates significantly from the ideal line, it signals a need for corrective actions, such as addressing scope creep, balancing the burndown rate, or adjusting estimates.

Where burndown falls short

However, while burndown charts in agile provide clear daily progress visibility, they often lack essential context, such as the quality of work or complex project challenges. For a more complete picture, teams pair them with burnup charts (more on burnup vs burndown chart differences below) or use them alongside tools like the user story map and issue count tracking.

Today, most modern teams go even further, recognizing that a burndown chart alone can’t capture the fundamental dynamics of software delivery. Frameworks like DX’s Core 4 offer a more complete picture by combining four critical dimensions: speed, effectiveness, quality, and impact. Together, these metrics reveal how work actually gets done, balancing speed with sustainability and performance with the human factors that drive lasting productivity.

Burndown chart example

Imagine a two-week sprint with 100 story points of planned work. The ideal burndown line would decrease by 10 points per day (100 points ÷ 10 working days). If on day 3 your team has completed 35 points, leaving 65 remaining, your actual line would be below the ideal line, indicating you’re ahead of schedule.

Types of burndown charts

There are three main types of burndown charts in Scrum and agile project management, each serving a distinct purpose for engineering teams.

Sprint burndown chart: Monitoring short-term project goals

The sprint burndown chart (also called an iteration burndown chart) is the most common type and is valuable for scrum masters and agile teams. It shows daily progress updates on the remaining work for a sprint (usually 2-4 weeks). By tracking this graphic representation each day, teams can quickly spot potential risks, adjust tasks, and ensure the current sprint is on track to meet its sprint goal.

The sprint burndown chart always reflects the relationship between remaining work and time left in the sprint, providing real-time visibility into whether the team will complete the committed work by the sprint end date.

Sprint burndown charts are the most commonly used type, with most agile teams relying on them for sprint tracking. They’re one of the key Scrum artifacts that provide transparency and opportunities for inspection and adaptation. Sprint burndown charts help teams monitor daily progress, identify bottlenecks quickly, and adjust the sprint workload.

Example: If a SaaS team is launching a new feature, daily burndown updates can highlight if QA testing is dragging. The team can then prioritize bug fixes or add resources to stay on track and avoid underestimating tasks.

Release burndown chart: Tracking long-term project progress

The release burndown chart (sometimes called a release burndown report) provides a high-level project plan of multiple sprints, helping agile development teams see how much work remains until a major release. It tracks project goals, plans future sprints, and keeps everyone on the same page.

Release burndown reports are helpful for multi-sprint initiatives, quarterly releases, or any significant product milestone spanning multiple iterations. Unlike sprint burndown charts that reset each sprint, release burndown charts track cumulative progress across all sprints toward a release goal.

For a team working towards a quarterly update, the release burndown highlights whether development is on pace for successful completion. If feature delivery falls behind, leadership can reallocate resources, adjust the project management strategy, or re-prioritize the roadmap to hit the target date.

This adaptive project management methodology ensures teams have a clear view of their project burn-down chart timeline, making it a powerful tool for Scrum roles and product management teams. Many teams also use a Jira release burndown chart for this purpose, as it automatically aggregates data across multiple sprints.

Product burndown chart: Enterprise-scale tracking

Also known as Epic burndown charts, these track the entire product backlog or prominent features across extended timeframes. They’re perfect for strategic planning and long-term project management, typically measured in months rather than days or weeks.

Product burndown charts help leadership forecast major milestones, allocate resources across multiple teams, and make strategic decisions about product roadmap priorities.

How to create a burndown chart in 5 steps

Creating a burndown chart is straightforward and can help teams stay on track and visualize their progress. Whether you’re learning how to create a burndown chart in Excel, Jira, or another tool, these fundamental steps remain the same.

Here’s a detailed guide to making burndown charts effectively.

Step 1: Identify the total amount of work to complete

First, list all the tasks, user stories, or backlog items for the sprint or project. Estimate the actual effort required for each task using story points, hours, or another metric your team uses.

Why story points? Research shows that most teams prefer using story points over hours, as they provide a more accurate measure of work complexity rather than just time spent.

Example: If a sprint has ten user stories with an average of 5 story points each, your total effort would be 50 story points.

Step 2: Set up your chart with time on the x-axis and effort on the y-axis

To build a basic burndown chart, start with a simple line graph. Place time (days or sprints) on the x-axis and total effort (such as story points or hours) on the y-axis. Your ideal burndown line begins at the total effort and slopes steadily to zero by the end of the sprint or project.

In Excel:

1. Enter your sprint days in one column and total remaining work in the next.
2. Select the data and insert a line chart.
3. Add an “ideal burndown” line that starts at your total effort and decreases evenly to zero. This gives you a clear visual of how actual progress compares to the planned pace.

Keep in mind that Excel charts must be updated manually as your team completes tasks.

In Jira:

Jira automatically generates burndown charts from your sprint data. Go to your active sprint board, select Reports, and choose Burndown Chart. Jira’s version updates automatically as team members log work or move issues through the workflow, saving you the manual effort of tracking progress each day.

Step 3: Calculate your ideal burndown rate

Divide your total work by the number of time periods. This number gives you the ideal burndown rate, how much work to complete each day or sprint to finish on time.

Example: 50 story points ÷ 10 days = 5 points per day ideal burn rate

This concept relates to developer velocity—the pace at which teams complete work. While burndown tracks remaining work in a single sprint, velocity measures completed work across multiple sprints to understand team capacity.

Step 4: Plot actual progress daily to track your team’s performance

Each day, update the project timeline with the remaining effort. If you initially estimated 50 story points and completed 10 points by day three, the line should reflect 40 points remaining. Continue plotting this daily, and if you notice a steep drop or plateau, it could signal an issue that requires immediate attention.

For deeper insight into what’s driving progress (or blocking it), pair burndown tracking with workflow analysis to understand where your team actually spends time and where friction occurs in your development process.

Step 5: Review and adjust as needed

As the sprint progresses, compare the ideal burndown line to your progress. If the lines diverge significantly, it may be time to reassign tasks, update estimates, or hold a meeting to identify blockers. The goal is to ensure that the work completed matches the planned trajectory by the end of the time window.

How to read a burndown chart

Understanding what your burndown chart is telling you is critical for making informed decisions. Learning how to read burndown charts effectively helps teams identify problems early and respond appropriately.

Here’s what different patterns mean in both sprint burndown charts and release burndown charts:

Healthy burndown pattern

What it looks like: The actual work line closely follows or slightly outpaces the ideal line, creating a smooth downward slope that reaches zero by the deadline.

What it means: Your team’s estimates were accurate, velocity is consistent, and there are no major blockers: the ideal scenario.

Flat line or plateau

What it looks like: The actual work line becomes horizontal for one or more days, showing no progress.

What it means: Work has stalled. Common causes include blockers (dependencies, technical issues, waiting on approvals), team members out sick or on leave, or scope additions that offset completed work.

Action: Identify and remove blockers immediately. Hold a standup to surface issues.

Steep drop

What it looks like: The actual line drops sharply, indicating much more work your team has completed than the ideal rate.

What it means: Either your initial estimates were too conservative, tasks were easier than expected, or team members are logging work in batches rather than daily. In rare cases, it can signal rushed work that may compromise quality.

Action: Verify work quality. Consider recalibrating estimates for future sprints.

Line trending above the ideal

What it looks like: The actual work line stays consistently above the ideal line.

What it means: You’re behind schedule. This could indicate underestimated complexity, scope creep, insufficient resources, or external dependencies that are causing delays.

Action: Assess whether you can complete the sprint goal. Consider descoping lower-priority items or extending the timeline.

Line trending below the ideal

What it looks like: The actual work line stays consistently below the ideal line.

What it means: You’re ahead of schedule. Estimates may have been too conservative, or the team is performing exceptionally well.

Action: Consider pulling in additional stories from the backlog to maximize sprint value.

Common burndown chart mistakes to avoid

Even experienced teams can misuse burndown charts, reducing their effectiveness or creating misleading signals.

Not updating daily

The problem: Teams update their burndown chart only weekly or sporadically, losing the real-time feedback that makes the tool valuable.

The impact: You miss early warning signs of problems and lose the ability to course-correct during the sprint.

The fix: Make daily updates part of your standup routine. Use project management tools that auto-update as your team completes tasks.

Confusing effort with task count

The problem: Tracking the number of completed tasks rather than story points or effort hours creates an inaccurate picture when tasks vary significantly in complexity. This is a common mistake when teams first learn what burndown charts are and how they work.

The impact: Completing three small tasks looks the same as completing three large tasks, hiding the true pace of work. Your burndown rate appears consistent even when actual effort varies wildly.

The fix: Use consistent effort metrics (story points or hours) that reflect actual work complexity. This is what burndown charts track in Scrum, effort remaining, not task count.

Ignoring scope changes

The problem: When new work is added mid-sprint without adjusting the chart’s starting point, your burndown becomes meaningless. This is why many teams prefer burnup vs burndown charts; burnup charts make scope changes visible.

The impact: The team appears perpetually behind, even when completing planned work efficiently.

The fix: Track scope changes separately or use a burnup chart that shows both completed work and total scope changes. Understanding the differences between burnup and burndown charts helps you choose the correct visualization for projects with fluid requirements.

Treating burndown as a performance scorecard

The problem: Using the chart to evaluate individual developers or to pressure teams to “look good” on it.

The impact: Developers game the system by inflating estimates, rushing work to show progress, or avoiding complex tasks that might slow the burn rate.

The fix: Use burndown charts as a team planning tool, not a performance management tool. Focus on sustainable delivery, not just speed.

Overlooking the quality dimension

The problem: A chart can show perfect progress while the team accumulates technical debt, writes untested code, or creates maintenance challenges.

The impact: Short-term velocity comes at the cost of long-term code quality and system health.

The fix: Combine burndown tracking with code quality metrics, code review practices, and team health indicators.

Can burndown charts measure developer productivity?

No, burndown charts cannot measure actual developer productivity.

Burndown charts help visualize how much work remains in a sprint, but they stop there. They show task completion, not the quality, value, or sustainability of that work. A team may appear “on track” while accumulating technical debt, creating brittle code, or burning out developers.

Actual productivity requires understanding not just how fast work moves through the system, but how effectively teams deliver outcomes. Burndown charts measure throughput; the DX Core 4 measures performance.

Moving from task tracking to the Core 4

The DX Core 4 provides a more complete lens on engineering productivity through four interdependent dimensions: speed, effectiveness, quality, and business impact. Together, they balance output with experience and long-term value.

• Speed shows how quickly teams can deliver software. Metrics such as lead time and deployment frequency reveal whether delivery pipelines support rapid iteration or create friction.
  
• Effectiveness reflects how efficiently developers work and how empowered they feel. The Developer Experience Index (DXI) captures perceptions of flow, autonomy, and clarity: factors burndown charts ignore.
  
• Quality ensures speed doesn’t come at the cost of stability. Measures such as change failure rate or recovery time identify whether teams are sustaining healthy delivery practices.
  
• Business impact connects engineering outcomes to organizational goals, tracking metrics such as R&D allocation and ROI to ensure developer effort translates into measurable value.

By balancing these four dimensions, the Core 4 helps leaders avoid over-indexing on throughput and focus on sustainable performance across people, systems, and outcomes.

The limits of burndown charts on high-performing engineering teams

Software development rarely follows a straight line. Priorities shift, dependencies emerge, and collaborative problem-solving often matters more than how quickly tasks are checked off. Burndown charts, helpful as they are for visualizing progress, don’t capture this reality. They’re designed to show work completed over time, not the friction, rework, or innovation that actually shape outcomes.

Teams performing at a high level tend to look beyond the “burn.” They study why and how work gets done, not just how much. The relationships among delivery speed, developer experience, and business results reveal a far more accurate picture of performance than any single chart or metric can offer.

A more complete view comes from combining sprint-level measures, such as burndown and velocity, with multidimensional indicators, including lead time, the Developer Experience Index (DXI), and change failure rate. Within the DX Core 4 framework, these metrics work together to illuminate where teams are moving quickly, where friction exists, and where targeted improvements can have the most significant impact.

Ultimately, developer productivity isn’t defined by how much work gets burned down: it’s about how effectively teams deliver value over time. Measuring the balance of speed, quality, and sustainability gives leaders a clearer understanding of performance and a stronger foundation for continuous improvement.

When should you use a burndown chart?

Understanding when burndown charts are most effective for visualizing progress helps teams get value from this agile tool. Burndown charts work well when you need a straightforward snapshot of task progress in specific scenarios:

Short-term sprints with fixed scope

Two to four-week sprints where requirements are locked and unlikely to change. The visual clarity of a sprint burndown chart helps teams stay aligned on daily progress.

Predictable, well-understood work

Tasks that have been done before with reliable estimates. Think maintenance sprints, bug-fix cycles (track with a defect burndown chart), or the implementation of well-scoped features.

Team coordination and transparency

When multiple stakeholders need a simple, at-a-glance view of sprint progress. Burndown charts in Scrum excel at creating shared understanding without requiring deep technical knowledge. They’re one of the key Scrum artifacts (along with the Sprint Backlog, Product Backlog, and Increment) that provide transparency and opportunities for inspection and adaptation.

Identifying blockers early

Daily tracking can surface problems within 24-48 hours, allowing teams to respond while there’s still time to adjust. This is what makes the sprint burndown chart always reflect current reality; it updates daily as work progresses.

Scrum-focused environments

Teams deeply invested in Scrum methodology, where burndown charts are a standard artifact of sprint ceremonies and sprint metrics are regularly reviewed.

When not to use a burndown chart

However, burndown charts in agile have apparent limitations. Understanding what burndown charts track —and what they don’t —helps you know when to use alternatives. When quality, innovation, or research are priorities, tracking only remaining work creates an incomplete picture.

Consider alternatives when:

Requirements are fluid

Projects where the scope naturally evolves based on learning, user feedback, or market changes. The constant baseline shifts make burndown charts more frustrating than helpful. Consider burnup vs burndown charts in this scenario; burnup charts handle scope changes more gracefully.

Measuring long-term outcomes

Quarterly goals, annual roadmaps, or strategic initiatives where day-to-day task completion isn’t meaningful. Use release burndown charts or project burndown charts instead, or consider alternatives entirely.

Quality is the priority

Research projects, architectural improvements, or technical debt reduction, where “done” is subjective and rushing creates more problems than it solves. A burndown chart project management approach won’t capture technical quality.

Complex dependencies exist

Work that depends on external teams, third-party vendors, or unpredictable blockers. The burn chart can’t capture waiting time or coordination complexity. You might see “Jira down” delays or external blockers that the chart doesn’t reflect.

Evaluating developer productivity

Burndown charts measure task throughput, not the effectiveness, quality, or business impact of software development. They miss crucial signals about developer experience and team health. For comprehensive measurement, explore software development metrics that track what really drives engineering success, or learn about the Core 4 for a multi-dimensional view of developer productivity.

Burndown chart tools and software for 2026

Most modern project management platforms include built-in burndown charts that update automatically as work progresses. Below are the leading tools engineering and product teams use today, each offering different levels of automation, integration, and flexibility for agile reporting.

Platforms for complex engineering environments

Jira Software

Best for large agile teams

Jira remains the standard for agile project tracking, with sprint and release burndown charts that update in real time as issues move through the workflow. Teams can view burndowns by story points, hours, or issue count via Reports → Burndown Chart, and customize by sprint or release. Integrates tightly with Confluence and Bitbucket.

Azure DevOps,

Best for Microsoft-centric organizations

Offers built-in burndown charts within sprint dashboards and iteration views, with real-time updates tied to source control and CI/CD pipelines. Seamless integration with Visual Studio and GitHub Enterprise.

Platforms for cross-functional teams

Asana

Best for hybrid project tracking

Supports burndown charts through integrations and dashboards, allowing non-engineering teams to monitor sprint progress alongside broader project plans.

Monday.com

Best for visual portfolio tracking

Provides configurable burndown widgets inside project dashboards. Ideal for teams seeking highly visual progress tracking without deep agile complexity.

Trello

Best for lightweight agile teams

Delivers burndown capability via Power-Ups like Blue Cat Reports. Suited for smaller teams or those transitioning from Kanban to agile.

Specialized and enterprise-scale options

ONES Project

Best for R&D and hybrid workflows

Combines agile and waterfall planning with detailed iteration and burndown reporting for engineering organizations managing multiple delivery models.

Targetprocess

Best for scaled agile (SAFe) environments

Supports program-level burndown charts and portfolio tracking across teams and releases.

Spreadsheet-based approaches

Excel and Google Sheets

Best for manual, single-team tracking

Still widely used for basic burndown visualization. Create a line chart with days on the x-axis and remaining effort on the y-axis, plotting both ideal and actual lines. Templates exist, but they require manual updates and lack automation.

Bottom line: Modern tools automate burndown tracking and integrate with engineering systems, eliminating the manual overhead of spreadsheets. For most teams, platforms like Jira, Azure DevOps, or Monday.com provide the best balance of automation, flexibility, and visibility into sprint progress.

Alternatives to burndown charts

Burndown charts help visualize progress but offer only a narrow view of performance. To better understand productivity, predictability, and delivery health, teams often pair burndowns with other agile metrics and frameworks.

Burnup charts: add visibility into scope changes

A burnup chart tracks work completed over time, with a second line showing the total scope. This makes scope creep and shifting priorities immediately visible, something a burndown chart can obscure.

• Burndown: shows remaining work decreasing, but hides scope changes.
• Burnup: shows completed work increasing and scope adjustments clearly.

Use burndown for fixed-scope sprints and burnup for projects with evolving requirements.

Developer intelligence and experience metrics

Modern teams are moving beyond activity tracking to understand why delivery speed varies. Platforms like DX measure the factors that shape developer productivity and satisfaction, workflow friction, tooling usability, and team sentiment.

• The Core 4 benchmarks engineering experience across four dimensions: speed, effectiveness, quality, and impact.
• DevSat surveys capture real-time feedback from developers.
• Executive reporting links experience data to business outcomes.

Together, these tools help leaders see beyond throughput to identify where workflow, collaboration, or satisfaction