Burndown Graph Protocol

Introduction

OSE needs a reliable way to track individual module burndown and the burndown of the entire GVCS.

Let's start first with individual module burndown.

A Development Spreadsheet, such as the 3D Printer- [1] - can be parsed for its last column, which is the level of completion. This parsing can occur daily, and a burndown graph displaying percentage of completion as a function of time can be generated. If the script runs automatically, the burndown would get updated automatically. This graph could be embedded in the wiki. An automated script for doing this should be written so that a burndown graph for any module can be displayed.

The idea is to use cloud editable docs, such as Google Spreadsheets - so that item completion and filling in the completion level leads to an automatic updating of the burndown graph. A template script for doing this is needed so this script can be applied to any spreadsheet.

The idea is that work product is documented in the Development Spreadsheet in a cloud editable fashion, and this process can scale to a worldwide contributor pool.

There are various ways to create burndown graphs in different development processes, but we are looking for a way that simply uses cloud spreadsheets, and generates burndown graphs from them.

Note that the generation of burndown graphs provides status reporting as part of our Roadmap#Open Source Product Development Method - Roadmap