EECS 494 – Game Design and Implementation – Burndown Chart Instructions

As described in the video, Intro to Agile Scrum in Under 10 Minutes, a burndown chart is a fantastic tool for tracking progress on a project.

Initial Setup

  1. Copy the example chart to make your own

    Choose Make a Copy... from the File menu at the top of the page. Save this in your own Google Docs folder.

  2. Name your chart properly

    Your chart should be named based on the semester, the project number, and your uniqnames. An example name is eecs-494-w17-p1_uniqname_uniqnamf.

    Make sure you follow the same naming convention when following the submission guidelines for Canvas.

  3. Set the start date of your sprint in cell K3.

    The sprint extends for two weeks from this date, which is perfect for the class. Mondays and Wednesdays are highlighted in red as class days.

  4. Enter the names of your team members C222:C225 and their initials D222:D225.

    The system can handle up to 7 team members, but the most you'll ever use in this class is 1, 2, or 4 depending on the project.

  5. Categorize and list all the features you can think of C5:C105

    Important: DO NOT CUT and paste any cells when you're doing this. Copy and paste are fine, but cutting and pasting will move around cell references and will break the chart.

  6. Estimate the number of hours you think each features will take F5:F105

    Remember to estimate only in terms of 0.5, 1, 2, 4, and 8 hours. Anything that you're estimating which will take over 8 hours to complete should be broken down into smaller tasks.

  7. Rank the features 1-5 B5:B105

    Rank 1 is for the most important features, while Rank 5 is for the least important.

  8. Assign features to people by entering their initials D5:D105

    The E column is used to note when someone has been assisted by another person on the task. This does not enter into the graph calculations and is mostly so that you can mark when someone might need assistance on a particular task.

  9. IMPORTANT: Share your document with Mitchell Keith Bloch, bazald@umich.edu, Austin Yarger, ayarger@umich.edu, and Kurt Waldowski, kwaldo@umich.edu by choosing Share... from the File menu at the top of the page.

    You should probably give us write access.

Using the Burndown Chart

Each time you work on a feature, record the number of hours remaining in the column for the current date K5:Y105. If you look at row 3, you can see that the font of the cell is darker for dates that have already passed. You should really only be changing data in the cells below the green-shaded cell for today's date.

Bug Fixes

In addition to tracking expected tasks, we also have given you an area in which to track bugs that need to be fixed and the time you spend working on them. If you encounter a bug that will take over 0.5 hours to fix, enter a description of the bug in one of the cells C107:C207. Assign the bug a severity B107:B207, and assign it to one of your team members D107:D207. Be sure to also add an estimation of the hours required to complete the task F107:F207. As you work on the bug, track time remaining as you would for any burndown task. Also please keep track of the status AA107:AA207. The statuses are:

Using the Daily Scrum

Each team member is required to answer three questions on the Daily Scrum worksheet every day:

  1. What did you accomplish today? (Done: ...)
  2. What are you working on next? (Next: ...)
  3. What do you need help with? (Help: ...)

You are responsible for filling these in yourself, and you need to do it every day. This is both an important way for your teammates to stay apprised of what each other is doing and a critical record of your daily progress toward finishing the project. If you didn't do anything today, you aren't going to be able to work on the project tomorrow, or you don't need help on anything, it's still very important to fill this out so that everyone else on your team knows what to expect.