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Burndown Chart 20%

Last post 01:45 pm July 6, 2017 by Dimitri Houssin
5 replies
12:52 pm July 4, 2017

Hi,

I read that when we do the Sprint planning we have to put additional items in the Sprint Backlog in case we finish sooner and I would like to know:

Do we have to count those items in our BurnDown Chart ?

Example : In my Sprint Backlog we have 20 hours of work and the additional items count 2h (which are in the 20 hours)

Do we have to start with 20 hours or 18 hours ?

 


03:56 pm July 5, 2017

Your burndown should start with whatever the team forecasts for the upcoming sprint.   There is no concept in Scrum for additional Sprint Backlog items in case the team completes items early.

 

To better identify additional work that is brought into a sprint due to excess capacity, you may want to research burnup charts.


05:13 pm July 5, 2017

The essential thing is that the Development Team must have a view of how much work they believe remains in a Sprint. The purpose of having this view is so that the team can demonstrate and evidence Sprint control. A burnup or burndown chart can help with this, but there is no prescriptive practice. 


12:18 am July 6, 2017

In fact, there should not be more items in the sprint backlog than what the Dev Team agrees as the work to be done in that sprint. If, for any reason, there is capacity for more work items at the end of the sprint, it is down to the Dev Team to work with the Product Owner to decide which items from the product backlog can still be added to that sprint. The final word is given by the Dev Team.

Mind you that adding / excluding work from a running sprint is not a good practice, as not only it jeopardizes the predictability of the team capacity but it also negatively impacts other factors, such as the team confidence in its own work.


05:07 am July 6, 2017

One more scenario to this, what if you fail to complete additional tasks ? You would say that team completed the forecasted backlog and hence the sprint was successful even if additional items are not done. on the contrary if you manage to complete these additional items then why would you add them up to your success :-)


09:30 am July 6, 2017

Hi Guys,

Thanks you very much for your anwsers


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