Velocity
Story points completed per sprint. Healthy use: forecast input for planning. Unhealthy use: target/KPI/comp metric. Once velocity becomes a target, it stops being a useful forecast (Goodhart's Law).
Burndown
Y-axis: remaining work; X-axis: days in sprint. Ideal line: straight diagonal from full to zero. Real line: usually flat for the first few days then nose-dives. The shape itself tells you about team dynamics — sustained flat = stuck; stairstep down = work shipping in batches; steep last day = gaming/last-minute pushes.
CFD
Stacked area chart over time, one band per workflow state. Widening bands = bottleneck. Smooth parallel bands = healthy flow. The most useful chart for diagnosing a Kanban team or a Scrum team that's consistently missing forecasts.
↳ the three lies metrics tell