# Get data-driven forecasts for your Linear projects with the Forecasting chart ### Jan 26, 2026 The **forecasting chart for Linear** shows the progress toward a milestone, such as the completion of a customer project or a new product release. You'll see how much work is done vs remaining, and get data-driven forecasts based on your team's past velocity. It works even if you don't use any specific methodology, such as Scrum or Kanban, and regardless of whether you have time estimates in place or not. ### How does the Forecasting chart work? If you want to know how long it will take to finish all the remaining work in the backlog, the traditional approach is to break it down into stories and provide an estimate for each story. However, this is time-consuming and unreliable as estimating future work is hard. A data-driven approach looks at your historical data and makes a prediction based on that. Here’s a chart that shows how much work a team has completed per week during the last 10 weeks: The [Forecasting chart](/content/tour/charts/forecasting-chart/index.html) looks at the weekly history of the team’s throughput and creates three scenarios based on the distribution of the work completed per week: - Optimistic: **80th** percentile - Most likely: **50th** percentile - Pessimistic: **20th** percentile The **optimistic** scenario expects that your team completes more work than in 80% of the past weeks. In the **most likely** scenario, your team completes the equal amount as what is the median week. In the **pessimistic** scenario, the team completes only as much as 20% of the past weeks. The percentiles are configurable so it’s up to you to decide what you consider optimistic or pessimistic considering your current situation. What is important is that the forecast is now based on actual data instead of pure guesswork. ### What do the numbers in this chart tell me? The chart consists of two lines, a yellow line representing the total work scope and a white line representing the work done. The middle point of the chart is the current day. Left to it is history, and to the right is the forecasted future, represented as the dotted lines. The lines may extend beyond the borders of the chart, both on the left and right. As time progresses, the white line approaches the yellow line helping you to gauge when the remaining work might be completed. The numbers can represent estimates, if available, or simply issue counts. The overlays on the top show the amount of **work remaining**, the **estimated team velocity**, and the **estimated completion date.** The **work remaining** is the difference between the work done and the total scope of work. The **estimated velocity** shows how much work you are expected to complete per week. The **estimated completion date** is when the two lines are expected to meet (if ever). ### Will this work if my tasks aren’t all the same size? Your Linear issues don’t need to be uniformly sized for this approach to work. If you compare 100 past Linear issues with a sample of 100 issues from your current backlog, their average size will be roughly the same. This holds true whether you measure size using estimates or simply by issue count. What matters more than individual issue size is the consistency of your historical throughput. The more stable your throughput, the more reliable your projections become. ### What is the difference between full velocity and filtered velocity? Since the work scope can be limited to any subset of tasks, the estimated velocity may need to be adjusted accordingly. You can control this behavior in the chart settings by choosing either **Full velocity** or **Filtered velocity**: ### What does the growth of the work scope mean? While you can expect to complete work in the future, it is quite likely that the amount of work to be completed increases as well. The expected growth in the work scope can be taken into account in the forecast. The forecast for the work scope is based on the same principles as the forecast of the work completed i.e. percentiles. When **Assume no new work added** is selected, the forecast for the **total work** is flat: With this setting, the chart provides an answer to the question “how long does it take to complete the current backlog of work?”. When **50th percentile** is selected, the chart assumes that there will be new work added to the scope at the same pace as in a median week in the past. It is possible that total work grows faster than the work done. For example, at the beginning of a project, new tasks may be added faster than they are completed. That is perfectly fine, even expected. In such a situation, an infinity symbol, instead of a date, is shown on the right overlay. As your project progresses, less new work is introduced, and the amount of remaining work starts diminishing. As soon as the lines are forecasted to meet, the right overlay switches to display the date again. Learn more about the Forecasting chart at the [Tour page](/content/tour/charts/forecasting-chart/index.html).