I don't understand the Release Planning Backlog

[scott fawcett]

I'm trying to help a team get a better view for how well they are performing against a customer committed date.  I'm thinking they can use the Release Burndown chart to monitor progress and make real-time decisions based on the data.  Let's say they have Features defined that are broken down into Stories.  The stories make up the Backlog (the Product Backlog).  I can create Releases (in Timeboxes) with start and end dates.   Each Feature and Story has a Release field where I can set the Release.

Questions:
1. What is the Release Backlog (Release Planning page)?  Is it simply a list of all the Features with an empty Release field?
2. I'm assuming the Release Burndown chart only uses the User Stories associated with the chosen release, since they have a Estimate field (and Features do not...at least not one that you could chart progress against?  If true, this implies that all the Features for a specific release need to be broken down into User Stories and estimated, otherwise the Release Burndown chart won't have all the information required to show the true content (size) of the release.

[Cali McClung]

Hi Scott,
1. Yes.  And if you drag a feature from the release backlog to one of the Release columns, it sets the Release field value accordingly.
2. Yes you are correct here too.  The Release/Iteration Burndown Chart works off of story points (Plan Estimate) not based on Feature sizes.

True, if not all the features for the release are broken down to stories and estimates, the chart will be missing that scope.  The best practice is to do mid-range planning (Release/PI/Quarterly planning) where the teams breakdown the feature into stories, identify risks and dependencies and commit to a plan for the timebox.