Visualizing metrics

The key to software projects is early feedback and creating predictability. This means we can see problems long before they appear and create predictability that will give the team a sustainable pace.

One way of creating predictability is by using the sprint concept from Scrum. Instead of having one long waterfall of specification, implementation, test, and release, you define a three week long time box where you take the highest prioritized features from the backlog and finalize those. This is called a sprint, and each sprint is a set of features from the backlog that are most prioritized by the product owner.

The following graph displays a Sprint burndown chart from a project I once ran as the Scrum Master:

On the Y axis is the amount of work left to do in the sprint, and on the X axis are the number of days until the sprint is finished. On day 7, there was a sprint refinement meeting where the decision was made to bring in another story from the backlog into the sprint...