Planned vs. Actual Burndown Chart

The Planned vs. Actual Burndown app captures a release’s burndown progress. It gives you a chart overview with a table to view the data. Use this app to help you determine if:

• The release is progressing as expected
• The work is logically divided between the iterations
• There should be a reallocation of the user stories to other iterations

Chart Data

• The planned burndown line displays the trend of the planned velocity burndown
• The actual burndown line displays the trend of the actual velocity burndown

The chart illustrates the difference between the planned and actual burndown values for each iteration. The actual burndown line is dashed when the value was predicted by using the planned velocity values instead of the actual velocity values for future iterations.

Table Data

• Iteration Name displays the iterations’ names for the selected release
• Start Date is the iteration’s start date
• End Date is the iteration’s end date
• Plan Estimate is the total plan estimates for the iteration’s user stories, defects, and defect suites
• Actual Velocity is the total plan estimates for the iteration’s accepted user stories, defects, and defect suites
• Planned Velocity is the iteration’s planned velocity (resource) value
• Planned Burndown is the iteration’s planned burndown value at the start of iteration
• Actual Burndown is the iteration’s actual burndown value at the start of iteration

The table displays the burndown related data broken down by iteration. The “Release Plan Estimate” value located above the table is the sum of all plan estimates for the selected release. It is used to help calculate the planned and actual burndown values for the beginning of each iteration by subtracting the appropriate value. The release row shows the burndown values at the end of the last iteration.

Actual burndown values occurring in the past are blue, actual burndown values occurring in the future are light grey, and planned burndown values are dark grey.