How do I track milestone progress with Milestone Burndown?

Milestone Burndown helps you visualize progress toward milestone completion by showing completed versus remaining work over time. This report combines story point tracking with issue completion metrics to give you a complete picture of milestone progress and deadline feasibility.

Finding your Milestone Burndown report

Navigate to the Reports section in Zenhub and select "Milestone Burndown" from the available reporting options. The report requires you to select a specific milestone from the milestone dropdown at the top of the page, as each report focuses on a single milestone's progress.

Your milestone selection determines the scope of data displayed. Choose from:

• Active milestones: Currently in progress with open issues and approaching due dates
• Recently closed milestones: Recently completed milestones for retrospective analysis
• Overdue milestones: Past due date milestones that need attention or scope adjustment

Once you select a milestone, the report loads and displays comprehensive progress information.

Reading the burndown chart

The main chart shows your milestone progress over time with three key visual elements:

Ideal line: A diagonal line showing the perfect rate of work completion needed to finish milestone work by the due date. This represents steady, consistent progress from start to completion.

Remaining line: Shows actual remaining work over time based on your team's real progress. When this line tracks below the ideal line, you're ahead of schedule. When above, you're behind schedule.

Weekends indicator: Gray shaded areas marking weekend periods, helping you understand progress patterns and account for non-working days in your timeline.

The chart automatically updates as issues move through Work Tracker pipelines, giving you real-time milestone progress visibility.

Understanding the progress metrics

Your Milestone Burndown displays several key metrics at the top of the report:

Completion percentages: You'll see progress percentages for both story points and issue counts (like "78%" for story points and "80%" for issues). These dual metrics help you understand whether complexity-weighted work aligns with simple task completion.

Story points tracking: Shows completed story points versus total milestone commitment, reflecting the complexity-weighted completion rate of actual development effort.

Issues and pull requests tracking: Displays completed issues and pull requests versus total milestone scope, helping you track discrete deliverables.

Remaining and completed work breakdown: Scroll to the bottom of the report to see the detailed breakdown showing both the count and story points of remaining work versus completed work. Use this information to assess whether remaining tasks can realistically be completed by the milestone due date.

Interpreting what the data tells you

Use the burndown visualization to identify milestone risks and opportunities early enough to take action:

On-track indicators: When your remaining work line closely follows or stays below the ideal line, your milestone is progressing well. Consistent tracking suggests accurate initial scope and timeline estimates.

Behind schedule patterns: When the remaining work line tracks significantly above the ideal line, your milestone faces completion risks indicating overcommitment, unexpected complexity, or capacity constraints.

Ahead of schedule opportunities: When your remaining work line tracks well below the ideal line, you're progressing faster than planned. This creates opportunities for additional scope or technical debt reduction.

Progress velocity changes: Look for slope changes in your remaining work line. Steepening slopes indicate accelerating progress, while flattening slopes suggest slowing velocity requiring intervention.

Using burndown data for milestone decisions

Use the specific data points in your Milestone Burndown report to make informed decisions about your milestone progress.

When you're behind schedule: If your remaining work line is tracking well above the ideal line, examine the individual issues listed at the bottom of the report. Look for issues that can be moved to future milestones or broken into smaller tasks.

When completion percentages differ significantly: If your story point completion percentage is much lower than your issue completion percentage (or vice versa), this suggests estimation issues. The remaining issues breakdown will show you which specific items are driving this difference.

Using the progress percentages: The completion percentages (like 78% for story points, 80% for issues in the example) give you concrete data points for stakeholder updates and help you assess whether you're on track for the milestone deadline.

Customizing your burndown tracking

Configure your Milestone Burndown settings to align with your team's workflow:

Pipeline completion definition: Configure which Work Tracker pipelines count as "completed" for burndown calculations. This ensures the burndown reflects your team's definition of done rather than GitHub's default closed status.

Cross-repository tracking: Milestones spanning multiple repositories automatically aggregate progress across all included repositories, providing unified tracking for complex projects involving multiple codebases.

Estimation handling: The burndown works with both estimated and non-estimated issues. Non-estimated issues receive average story point values based on other milestone work, ensuring all issues contribute appropriately to progress calculations.

Using milestone data for team improvement

Leverage Milestone Burndown data during retrospectives and team discussions:

Velocity pattern analysis: Compare initial milestone commitment with actual completion rates to identify patterns in estimation accuracy. Consistent overcommitment or undercommitment patterns suggest the need for estimation calibration.

Progress consistency evaluation: Analyze whether progress occurred steadily throughout the milestone or concentrated in specific periods. Irregular progress patterns might indicate workflow bottlenecks or capacity planning issues.

Scope change impact: Review any mid-milestone scope additions or removals and their impact on the burndown trajectory. This analysis helps improve future milestone planning and stakeholder expectation management.

Best practices for milestone tracking

Regular monitoring cadence: Review Milestone Burndown reports during daily standups or weekly milestone check-ins. Regular monitoring enables early intervention when milestones track off-course.

Stakeholder communication: Use Milestone Burndown visualizations to communicate milestone progress to stakeholders. The visual progress representation supports data-driven conversations about timeline and scope adjustments.

Historical comparison: Compare current milestone burndown patterns with similar past milestones to identify improvements in estimation accuracy, velocity consistency, or scope management effectiveness.

Integration with sprint planning: For teams using both sprints and milestones, align sprint planning decisions with milestone burndown data to ensure sprint work contributes appropriately to milestone progress.

FAQ

Q: What's the difference between Milestone Burndown and Sprint Burndown?
A: Milestone Burndown tracks progress toward milestone completion deadlines spanning multiple sprints, while Sprint Burndown focuses on single sprint timeframes. Milestones are longer-term commitments with more scope flexibility.

Q: How does Milestone Burndown handle issues without story point estimates?
A: Non-estimated issues automatically receive average story point values based on other estimated milestone work, ensuring all issues contribute to progress tracking.

Q: Can I use Milestone Burndown for cross-repository projects?
A: Yes, milestones spanning multiple repositories automatically aggregate progress across all repositories, providing unified tracking for complex projects.

Q: Why might story point and issue completion percentages differ significantly?
A: Large differences typically indicate estimation accuracy issues or work distribution patterns. Review the remaining work breakdown to identify specific causes.

Q: How do I handle milestone scope changes after starting?
A: Adding or removing issues automatically updates burndown calculations. Significant changes might require timeline or resource adjustments to maintain feasibility.

Q: Should I adjust milestone deadlines when behind schedule?
A: Consider remaining work complexity, team capacity, milestone importance, and stakeholder expectations. Sometimes scope reduction is more appropriate than timeline extension.