Understanding the Scrum Burndown Chart Process by Jeff Suther­land

As a fighter pilot fly­ing over North Viet­nam, Jeff Suther­land didn’t think that his mis­sions would one day lead him to be a co-founder of Scrum. And yet, that is exactly what he is today. Part of the inspi­ra­tion for the Scrum Burn­down Chart, a vital Scrum com­po­nent, came from his days as an avi­a­tor. Dur­ing a par­tic­u­lar trip, Jeff Suther­land was ordered on a recon­nais­sance flight, where he was needed to gather information. For the dura­tion of the trip, he had to use eva­sive maneuvers to avoid incom­ing attacks from below. He realized that there was just a small win­dow avail­able to get the infor­ma­tion he needed; a photo. Later, this directly trans­lated to the Scrum Burn­down Chart, where every­thing must be per­fect for a moment in order to move the agile prod­uct devel­op­ment process along. The Scrum Burn­down Chart is intended to keep an eye on all the simul­ta­ne­ous Agile devel­op­ment meth­ods going on within a Scrum team. Like a fighter plane land­ing, there is no room for error, and the chart is intended to mon­i­tor such issues.

Video Producer: OpenView Labs