Overview:

The project burndown rate is an effective way of communicating progress.

Main Description:

The project burndown report is a primary tool for understanding the status of a project. It shows the trend for how much work is left to do within that project. This is done by adding the estimated effort left for each of the Work Items to be addressed within the project and showing how the estimated effort is changing from iteration to iteration. The project burndown report should be updated at the end of each iteration.

The project burndown rate is usually communicated in graphical form. The project burndown chart consists of two perspectives, with the horizontal axis showing the iterations and the vertical axis indicating the remaining points from the Work Items List. Additionally, the average burndown rate from previous iterations is calculated, and a trend for the remainder of the project forecasted from that historical data.

Project burndown management is a enabling technique that allows direct linkage of iteration goals to Work Items. The Project Manager will use the project burndown information for communicating progress and trends to senior management.

Example:

This is an example of a project burndown report.