A burndown chart is a chart often used in scrum agile development to track work completed against time allowed. The x-axis is the time frame and the y-axis is the amount of work left being labeled in story points, man hours, etc. The chart begins with the greatest amount of remaining work, which decreases during the project and slowly burns to nothing. The chart provides project team members, managers, and business owners with a common and easily understood view of the work progress thus far.
Burn down charts can have one or many elements depending on how detailed it needs to be. A very basic chart would only show the work done against time remaining until project ends, while more detailed ones can have elements like velocity, actual work done, and some labels as to who is doing which task. The velocity is the ideal line that represents how the work should progress. Usually it is just represented as an even, straight line starting from the maximum amount of work to zero work on the deadline and shows a uniform distribution of work done. But if it needs to be more specific and point out work complexities then the project manager can make an ideal velocity that is not straight. 9 out of 10 times, the velocity is not achieved, with the actual work done being shown to be usually above the velocity line, signifying less work finished. Although sometimes it can be below the velocity line which indicates that the team is ahead of schedule and there is slack time.
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