burndown: The burndown package

In dankelley/burndown: Burndown charts and analysis

Description

This package creates burndown charts, used in project planning.

Details

Burndown charts are used in project planning to monitor task completion with respect to a deadline.

The format is simple. The x axis represents time, ranging from the onset of the project to the deadline for completion. The y axis represents the remaining effort that is require to accomplish the work. As the work is carried out, the chart provides a running summary of progress towards the deadline.

If work is proceeding smoothly according to schedule, the chart takes the form of a triangle, with the remaining effort falling from its initial value to zero at the deadline. For guidance, a gray line is drawn to indicate this ideal situation. If work is being accomplished faster than expected, the data will lie below this gray line. However, if the project is falling behind schedule, the data line will lie above the ideal line. Thus, a glance at the chart indicates whether the deadline can be met.

In most cases, the work is divided into sub-tasks, and the remaining effort in each task is shown with a different colour in the chart. This is helpful in identifying tasks that may need more attention.

The example dataset in this package is the burndown chart for the package itself. See burn to learn more about the format. Burndown datasets are normally read with read.burndown, summarized with summary.burndown (which may be abbreviated summary), and plotted with plot.burndown (which may be abbreviated plot()).

PS. if you want Gantt charts, use the R package gantt.chart in the package plotrix.

Author(s)

Dan Kelley [e-mail]

References

Burndown charts are discussed at the following site: http://alistair.cockburn.us/crystal/articles/evabc/earnedvalueandburncharts.htm.

dankelley/burndown documentation built on May 14, 2019, 4:08 p.m.