BURNDOWN CHARTS IN NOTION: MASTERING SCRUM WITH CHARTBASE
September 15, 2023
Here you can find out how we organize our development sprints with the Notion workspace tool and how we can integrate burndown charts with the Notion ChartBase add-on.
Implement Scrum and burndown charts with Notion
We’ve been using Notion for our sprint planning for some time now. After working with Jira, Atlassian, and Confluence for about 10 years, 2023 was the right time to switch to a more flexible tool. We use Notion for documentation, task and project management, ticketing, and organizing sprints within Scrum projects. Everything is centralized in one tool. This has many advantages; we are particularly impressed by the great flexibility and the ability to easily share content with others.
However, there is currently one drawback when it comes to working in sprints: out of the box, there is no way to embed dynamic charts in Notion—so we now use the ChartBase tool for that. This works very well for us; there is still a small amount of manual effort involved, but it takes only a few minutes to create a burndown chart and is quickly put together with a few clicks.
Do you need help using Notion in a Scrum context? We’d be happy to advise you! Just send us an e-mail!
How exactly does it work?
Step 1:
First, a ticket must be created in a Notion database for all tasks or user stories. Additionally, a database is needed for the sprints, which will be linked to the tickets. For the tickets, in addition to the status and the story points or effort, a field is needed where a completion date is automatically set as soon as the ticket’s status reaches a certain value, such as “Done.” A rollup is then created for this field in each sprint, listing all days with completed tickets. We proceed in exactly the same way for the story points. A rollup is also created for this, listing all "contributions" to the total result. Finally, we need a field that automatically calculates the total number of all tickets in this sprint
Step 2:
In the next step, an intermediate table must be created from which the chart (burndown chart) is generated. An intermediate table is useful so that the Notion frontend in the sprint views is not overloaded with data requests. This ensures that the display of the sprints remains responsive. One intermediate table is required per sprint, containing one row per sprint day. For each row/day, rollups are used to calculate the values for completed tickets or story points per day, as well as the total number of tickets (which is identical for each day).
Step 3:
In the final step, the actual burndown charts are created and integrated into Notion. This can be done with a paid account on the [chartbase.so]() service. ChartBase must be granted access to the database containing the intermediate tables. For each sprint, a line chart is required that references three data series: date, completed tickets, and total number of tickets. The chart configuration can be adjusted to create a burndown chart. This can then be embedded in Notion using a code snippet. And there you have it—the Notion burndown chart!
Do you need help using Notion in a Scrum context? We’d be happy to advise you! Just send us an e-mail!
What are burndown charts?
Burndown charts are graphical representations used in agile project management methods such as Scrum to track the progress of a project or sprint. They show the work remaining (often measured in tasks, story points, or hours) compared to the time remaining, allowing teams to easily see whether they are on track to meet their goals within the specified timeframe.
Mastering Scrum with devsuit
As an agency specializing in custom software development, our project managers and developers are well-versed in all aspects of Scrum, Kanban, and agile development.
Interested? You can find more information about our [services](
René Krause
[email protected]
