Agile practices, to the uninitiated and underinformed, can sometimes appear as ad hoc software development and project management methodologies. The truth is far different.
One of the 12 principles of agile software states, “The best architectures, requirements, and design emerge from self-organizing teams,” but most organizations that apply agile practices, including scrum and Kanban, enforce some significant process rigors and rituals. For example, many organizations implement agile planning practices including story point estimation, architecture standards, and release management disciplines to improve the business impact, quality, and reliability of application releases.
Most teams elect to use an agile tool such as Jira Software or Azure DevOps to manage the backlogs, sprints, and collaboration between agile teams. The primary purpose of these tools is to centrally manage the requirements, sprint status, workflow, and collaboration across agile team members and multiple agile teams. However, the more rigor organizations put into using these tools, the more these tools can aid leaders and teams identify issues, report to stakeholders on status, and improve their execution.
One of the most common out-of-the-box reports is the burndown report. Since agile practices enable product owners to reprioritize the backlog based on customer feedback, traditional reports like Gantt charts fail to capture the fluid nature of agile execution. Fundamental to the burndown chart is that it accounts for completed work, new work added to the scope, and other scope changes. The burndown chart can provide a quick picture of how teams are marching toward their goals.