Communicating

An important aspect of release planning is communicating progress. Although any highly visible way of communicating progress can be used, most teams use some form of burndown and/or burnup chart as their principal information radiator of release status. Let’s look at how to communicate release status on both fixed-scope and fixed-date releases.

Communicating Progress on a Fixed-Scope Release

On a fixed-scope release we have an idea of the total scope of work we wish to achieve. The goal is to communicate how we are progressing toward completing that work.

Fixed-Scope-Release Burndown Chart

A burndown chart for a fixed-scope release shows the total amount of unfinished work that remains each sprint to achieve the current release goal. In this type of chart, the vertical axis numbers are in the same units we use to size our product backlog items (typically story points or ideal days). The horizontal axis represents sprints (see Figure 18.11).