Burnup chart in Agile:

A burn up chart is a graph that shows project progress over time. There are two main lines shown on the chart: one for the total project work planned, and the other for tracking the work completed to date.

By comparing the work your team has accomplished so far with the total amount of work planned, you can understand how efficiently they’re working and better estimate how long it will take to complete the work remaining.

Several burn up charts can be superimposed on top of one another. This is typically done for multi stage projects, such as release versions or development sprints in a software project. The scope lines are cumulatively stacked, whilst the completed line is either combined for all releases, or only for the next release and previously completed releases on any given day. The advantage of this layout is that it is clear when work is being shifted from one sprint to the next, as opposed to being added to the total project scope.

View and understand the burnup chart in Jira

Reference Link:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/view-and-understand-the-burnup-chart/

Burndown chart in Agile:

A project burndown chart (also known as a project burn rate chart) is a graph that shows how many project tasks are left to finish during a selected time period. Teams use it to keep track of progress and to visualize forecasting. The x-axis of the chart shows the amount of time (in days, weeks, or months) and the y-axis shows the number of tasks (or labor, in estimated hours).

It’s called “burndown” because it’s expected that your tasks will decrease as the project goes on, creating a literal downward line on the chart as your team “burns” through project activities. This is, of course, under ideal circumstances with limited disruptions or backlog, which is why this graph line is called the ideal line.

View and understand the burndown chart in Jira

Reference Link :-

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/view-and-understand-the-burndown-chart/

Difference between burnup chart and burndown chart

Both Burndown Chart and Burnup Chart on the x-axis present time, from the very first hour of the sprint to the very last. The difference comes with the y-axis. On both charts, the y-axis represents the number of User Story Points (the most common and I’m going to use that in this post), a number of tasks, a sum of business value (if qualified) or any other value the team measures.

1. Simplicity vs information

Burn down charts are simple. A single line racing towards zero as the project is completed. Anyone can understand this chart, and it does not need an explanation. However it can hide important information, for example the effects of scope change.

Scope change is when work is added to or removed from a project. We are all familiar with scope change, the client suddenly demands extra features, or work is removed from a project to meet a deadline. A burndown chart does not show this information as clearly as a burn up chart.

A burn up tracks completed work and total work with two separate lines, unlike a burn down chart which combines them into a single line. The total work line communicates important information - is the project not yet complete because work is slow to be done, or too much new work is being added. This information can be crucial in diagnosing and rectifying problems with a project.

2. Presenting project progress on a regular basis

If you are presenting project progress to the same audience on a regular basis, for example weekly customer progress meetings, you are probably better off with a burn up. It will allow you to easily show them you are making progress, even if they have been adding more work, or testing has revealed problems that are adding work to the project.

3. Convincing customers to stabilize project scope

Scope creep is the enemy of every software project. In the face of scope creep burn down charts start to look like little progress is being made. However a burn up clearly makes the scope creep problem visible to the customer. This may even help you to convince them to stop requesting changes and allow the project to complete.

4. Fixed scope projects

There are certain limited circumstances in which a project may have a well defined fixed scope. If a project is guaranteed to have fixed scope, the burn up chart communicates no more information than a burndown chart, so the simplicity of the burn down chart is preferable.