What is a burndown chart?

A burndown chart is a line graph that shows remaining work on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis. An ideal-progress line runs diagonally from the total scope at day one to zero at the deadline. The actual-progress line tracks how much work the team has completed so far. When the actual line sits above the ideal line, the team is behind schedule; when it sits below, the team is ahead.

Burndown charts are most commonly used in Scrum sprints, where the scope is fixed at the start of an iteration and the team works to burn through it. They can also be applied to release-level planning, milestone countdowns, or any time-boxed body of work.

When to use a burndown chart

Burndown charts shine when scope is locked. If a sprint backlog contains 40 story points and no new items will be added, the chart gives an immediate visual answer to whether the team will finish on time. Daily standups often reference it to spot trouble early: a flat line for two consecutive days signals a blocker that needs escalation.

They are less useful in continuous-flow environments where new work arrives constantly. In kanban workflows, a throughput trend or cumulative flow diagram is usually more informative because scope is not fixed. If your team adds and removes items from the current cycle, the burndown line will jump erratically and lose its predictive value.

For release planning across multiple sprints, teams sometimes use a "burn-up" chart instead. A burn-up plots completed work going upward and total scope as a separate line, making scope creep visible. The underlying idea is the same: compare actual progress against a target, then adjust.

How Flux relates to burndown charts

Flux does not generate burndown charts natively. It is built around kanban principles where work flows continuously rather than being time-boxed into sprints. However, Flux's event-sourced activity log captures every card state change with timestamps, which means you can export completion data and plot your own burndown or burn-up in a spreadsheet or analytics tool.

For teams that prefer flow-based metrics, Flux's board columns and done-column tracking give you the raw inputs for throughput analysis, which serves the same forecasting purpose as a burndown without requiring fixed iterations.

Related terms

See also: Velocity, Sprint, Cycle time.