Single View – Multiple Sprint Burndowns with MS Project Agile

The Sprint Burndown and Burnup charts can be created for the current Sprint in an Agile project, as we have seen before. Some of you may now wonder: is it possible to show multiple Sprint Burndown or Burnup charts in a single view? This is because you are running multiple Sprints in your project and you want to visualize all the burndowns in a single view or report. The short answer is yes! With MS Project 2019 Agile you can. A single view of multiple burndown charts is also useful in certain scenarios.

In this article, I’ll explore how to create a number of Sprint burndowns in a single view. For example, if a project is having three Sprints, we can see all these burndown charts together.

I’ll strongly recommend that you read the previous article of working with multiple Sprints, before proceeding with this one. You also need to know how to build the Sprint Burndown chart, for which you can refer to this step-by-step article. 

The content of this course has been taken from two new courses. These are in-depth courses to master Agile and Hybrid-Agile with a hands-on software tool. 

• MASTERING MS PROJECT AGILE
• CERTIFIED HYBRID-AGILE MASTER

We will follow a step-by-step approach to build this Multiple Sprint Burndowns in a single view:

• Current Scenario
• Default Burndown Chart
• Applying the Filters and Groups
• Customizing the Multiple Sprint Burndowns
• Interpretation and Conclusion

Current Scenario 

In our project, we have the following scenario:

• We have three Sprints planned: Sprint 1, Sprint 2 and Sprint 3
• Sprint 1 is fully complete. Sprint 2 is underway and we are mid-Sprint for this one. Sprint 3 is yet to get started.
• A number of feature items are unplanned and we may take them in some future Sprints.

The project is shown below with the Gantt Chart view. 

As you can see in the above figure, we have three Sprints (with the respective percentage complete) and for the feature items, the feature custom flag is enabled.

Default Burndown Chart

Now, we are going to create the burndown chart. For this purpose, I’ll go to the Reports tab > View Reports group > New Report and create a blank report. I’ve given the name for this report: Single View – Multiple Sprints Burndowns. 

Now, I’ll insert a Line Chart into the report for which I’ll go to the Report tools > Design tab > Insert group > Chart command and insert such a chart. 

As shown above, when you insert the Line Chart, automatically it takes two fields:

• Remaining Cumulative Work
• Remaining Cumulative Actual Work

Considering the filter, grouping and outline level:

• Filtering is by Active Tasks
• There is no grouping applied.
• Outline level is at the Project Summary level.

Applying Filters and Grouping 

Next, I’ll change the view of the above chart and apply the in-built group: Sprint. With this the view will change as shown below. 

As shown in the above figure:

• The chart area has been expanded. 
• The grouping is now by Sprints. The outline level has changed to Level 1.
• There are different lines for the fields of Remaining Cumulative Work and Remaining Cumulative Actual Work.
• There are lines for “No Sprint”, “Sprint 1”, “Sprint 2”, and “Sprint 3”.

Customizing Multiple Sprint Burndowns

We have to customize this burndown chart showing multiple Sprints because there won’t be any data for “No Sprints” and “Sprint 3”. As I apply the filters and enter the timeline needed, we will have the following view. 

In the above view:

• We have information for two Sprints: Sprint 1 and Sprint 2
• The timeline has been edited to consider the time till the end of Sprint 2, which is Friday October 7th, 2022.

Next, I’ll add the data labels for the lines and with it, the following view will appear. 

Let’s interpret the above figure:

• For Sprint the Remaining Cumulative Actual Work line is slightly orange. 
• For Sprint 1, we have two lines, for which the Remaining Cumulative Actual Work line is visible. This is because the Remaining Cumulative Work line is just behind.
• For Sprint 2, we are mid-Sprint. There are two lines for Sprint 2: The Remaining Cumulative Work is in blue color coding, whereas the Remaining Cumulative Actual Work is in green color coding. 

As you can effectively, we now have a single view of two Sprint Burndown Charts, i.e., the Burndown Charts for both Sprint 1 and Sprint 2.

Another View – Multiple Sprint Burndowns

There is another way you can also visualize the charts. For this purpose, I’ll change the Line Chart to a Stacked Line Chart. With this change, we will have the following representation.  

Now we can see 4 burndown lines for both Sprint 1 and Sprint 2 representing the Remaining Cumulative Work and Remaining Cumulative Actual Work. 

Conclusion

As noted in the beginning of this article, there are some scenarios where you might want to have a look at multiple Burndown Charts in a single view. 

There can be many reasons for it. For example, you want to know how the work had progressed in the previous Sprints and how it’s progressing in the Current Sprint. It’s also possible that some of your stakeholders may want to have such a visualization. 

I believe with this article you realize that such a chart is possible to be created, customized and presented.

References

[1] NEW Online Course: Mastering MS Project 2019 Agile (Scrum and Kanban), by Satya Narayan Dash 

[2] NEW Certification Course: Certified Hybrid-Agile Master with MS Project, by Satya Narayan Dash