What is being measured on the burn down charts?

[DashboardNovice]

http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/07/21/burn-down-charts/

Columns are burned down planned vs. actual. For example on Day 1, Burned down plan is 12 and Burned down actual is 8.

What do the 12 and 8 represent? 12 and 8 hours, activities completed???

 

[NARAYANK991]

Hi ,

See this :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_down_chart

Narayan

 

[DashboardNovice]

Hi ,

See this :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_down_chart

Narayan

Thank you for the website. I read this. But I'm still unclear about what the numbers represent as far as planned vs. actual. I guess it could be number of activities, things delivered or something else?

 

[DashboardNovice]

Another problem I just realized. Step #2 says "Just select the Balance Planned and Balance Actual series and create a line chart. Use the first column (days) in the above table for x-axis labels."

I have a file uploaded. First I selected the Day column, held Ctrl then selected Planned and Actual. On the resulting graph, I noticed:

1. The Day column plotted as a data series. This wasn't supposed to occur.
2. The last point for the Actual series is 140. The day below that on the X axis should be 13, but instead the x axis has 14. Why am I off by one?

 

[DashboardNovice]

In the finished file, the column called "Daily Completed" is basically the same as the Actual column under Burned Down, with the exception being the presence of the #N/A.

What is the purpose of plotting the "Daily Completed" column when you can just plot the Burned Down Actual column?

 

[NARAYANK991]

Hi ,

The numbers are the tasks or activities planned and executed every day.

With reference to the workbook which has been used to illustrate the blog post , the project itself consists of 250 tasks or activities to be completed in 20 days. The daily planned vs. executed is plotted using columns , and the cumulative burning down till 0 is being plotted by the lines.

I do not know what the blog post says , but what I did was :

1. Select the entire data range B5:F25 , and click on Insert , Column , 2D Column. A chart is created with 5 series.

2. Right click on the chart , click on Select Data , click on Remove. This will remove the first series which should actually be the X-axis.

3. Click to edit the Horizontal category ( X-axis ) axis , and select the data range B5:B25.

4. Click on the tallest bars , which are to do with the cumulative burn-down , and click on Change Chart Type , and select Line.

Narayan

 

[DashboardNovice]

Another problem I just realized. Step #2 says "Just select the Balance Planned and Balance Actual series and create a line chart. Use the first column (days) in the above table for x-axis labels."

I have a file uploaded. First I selected the Day column, held Ctrl then selected Planned and Actual. On the resulting graph, I noticed:

1. The Day column plotted as a data series. This wasn't supposed to occur.
2. The last point for the Actual series is 140. The day below that on the X axis should be 13, but instead the x axis has 14. Why am I off by one?

I found out the answer shortly after posting my question. Selecting the Day column first will cause Excel to see the values under the Day column as a data series. We don't want this. Instead do the following:

1. Select Planned and Actual and graph those as a Line graph like Chandoo says to do.
2. Then right click one of the lines, Select Data.
3. Under Horizontal Axis labels, click Edit.
4. Under Axis Label Range, select the values in the Day column, but don't include the field header (the word Day).
5. The X axis values will automatically update for the other data series.

 

[DashboardNovice]

Hi ,

The numbers are the tasks or activities planned and executed every day.

With reference to the workbook which has been used to illustrate the blog post , the project itself consists of 250 tasks or activities to be completed in 20 days. The daily planned vs. executed is plotted using columns , and the cumulative burning down till 0 is being plotted by the lines.

I do not know what the blog post says , but what I did was :

1. Select the entire data range B5:F25 , and click on Insert , Column , 2D Column. A chart is created with 5 series.

2. Right click on the chart , click on Select Data , click on Remove. This will remove the first series which should actually be the X-axis.

3. Click to edit the Horizontal category ( X-axis ) axis , and select the data range B5:B25.

4. Click on the tallest bars , which are to do with the cumulative burn-down , and click on Change Chart Type , and select Line.

Narayan

Thank you.