Effort points burndown

About this report

As the name of the report indicates, the Effort Points Burndown displays the effort point burndown for a specific sprint for stories in a Dev Complete or Test Complete state. Effort points represent the person-days required to do something--such as deliver a story to an Accepted state.

A burndown chart represents work remaining versus time; the outstanding work is on the vertical axis and time is on the horizontal axis. The chart is especially useful for Scrum Masters, team leaders and members, and product owners for predicting when all work will be completed; it provides a high-level understanding of whether the work for a sprint is on track. It may be beneficial to review the report with stakeholders during the sprint retrospective and daily standup meetings. This report is generated by selecting a specific sprint within a specific PI.

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1. Select the Reports icon from the left Navigation menu.
2. Start typing the report's name in the Search box. 
3. Once found, select the report.

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Prerequisites

1. PI must exist in the system and be tied to a program. 
2. Features must be created and tied to the PI. 
3. Stories, with point values, must be created and tied to features. 
4. Stories must be assigned to sprints. 
5. Tasks must be created and assigned to stories. 
6. Teams must be created and tied to a program.

How are report values calculated? 

1. The horizontal axis displays the range of the sprint, from start date to finish date; this information is defined in the Sprint List/New Sprint panel. 
2. The vertical axis displays the range of effort points; effort points are assigned via the Sprint List/New Sprint panel. 
3. The starting point of all line segments = Sum of all effort points for stories in the sprint at the start date.
4. As stories are accepted and effort points are lowered, the line segments trend downward, showing remaining effort points for each day of the sprint.
5. The ending point of all line segments = Sum of all effort points for stories in the sprint remaining at the end date.

How to interpret this report

As stories are accepted, the lines trend downward. The black line shows the effort points remaining for stories in a QA/Test Complete state, and the blue line shows the same of Dev Complete. The green line shows the ideal burn rate for accepting stories.

Use the results of the graphs to make corrections in the upcoming sprint. For example, you may need to adjust the amount of effort points in a particular sprint, or add more resources to increase velocity.