Businesses need to be flexible. Businesses need to provide digital services quickly and adapt to changing customer needs. However, it is not possible to adapt to changes in consumer needs by using bureaucratic and monolithic methods of change. To achieve this agility, technologists favor Scrum and Kanban.
You are likely to be familiar with phrases such as “Scrum” and “Kanban” if you are used to working in an Agile manufacturing environment. Scrum boards and boards for Kanban are similar, and they can be used as visual representations of progress to track specific tasks. Both boards can be used to help your developers create and release better products faster.
This article will provide details about Scrum and Kanban and their key differences.
What is Kanban?
Kanban is a visual approach to project management. It helps manage projects and reduce inefficiencies. The Kanban board (digital or physical) is the core of Kanban. It divides the stages of work into columns. Once the task is completed, it is recorded on cards.
Kanban has many benefits. Kanban visually illustrates the tasks to be completed and places where they are being piled up. This increases transparency in projects. This visual aid makes it easy to allocate resources where they are needed, which can reduce inefficiencies. According to a survey done in 2021, Kanban’s top benefits included better visibility and faster delivery.
Kanban incorporates both Lean and Agile principles. Kanban is easy to integrate with other methodologies. It is often used in combination with Scrum, a hybrid known as Scrumban. Scrumban is much more popular among Agile users than Kanban.
What is Scrum?
Scrum is an Agile methodology that helps manage complex projects and adapt to them. Scrum is built around sprints, which are short development cycles that last between 1 and 4 weeks. Scrum is self-organized and small, with nine members in most cases. It also consists of one Scrum leader and one product owner. The rest of the group is referred to as “the development team.”
Scrum, like many Agile structures, uses an iterative approach to completing projects. Teams work in stages and do not deliver a task one by one. This allows teams to adapt to shifting priorities and changing needs.
Scrum is built on three foundations.
- Adaptation: Scrum is able to adapt to change. Scrum can easily adapt to changes in tactical direction.
- Transparency: Transparency ensures that everyone on the team is fully informed about the situation and the reasons.
- The members of the Inspection team and their colleagues regularly inspect projects. This encourages improvement.
Scrum includes five core values: courage, focus, commitment, respect, and transparency. These values emphasize the importance of honest and truthful communication and a sense of ownership for all members.
Scrum vs Kanban: Key Differences
Ideologies
Scrum is a framework that allows people to solve complex adaptive problems creatively and efficiently, creating high quality products. This approach is based on three fundamental principles:
- Transparency: All parties affected by the result must be informed of the most important aspects of the process.
- Inspection: Participants must inspect the artifacts regularly and work towards the end.
- Adaptation: If an aspect of the work or progress is not satisfactory, adjustments should be made as soon as possible.
Kanban is a method to increase flow and encourage improvements by visualizing work in progress and monitoring it. It is built on four principles.
- Start with what you’re doing right now.
- We agree that we will seek evolutionary change.
- Respect your current responsibilities, roles and job title at first.
- Encourage leadership at all levels.
Practices
Scrum is a set of five activities that are time-based and allow for feedback. These include:
- Sprint Planning: This session lasts eight hours and involves the team deciding what they will bring to their next sprint (from their backlog of product ideas) and how they will do that.
- Sprint: Sprint is a time period in which the team achieves the goals set out in the sprint planning meeting.
- Daily Scrum: A daily scrum is a 15-minute timebox, also known as a daily stand up. It’s where the team meets every day during the sprint in order to review progress and identify obstacles.
- Sprint Review: The Sprint Review is a timebox-based event that ends at the end of each sprint. The team displays the product/change to the public, and asks for feedback about the items that should be added to the backlog.
- Sprint Retrospective: This is a three-hour timebox meeting that occurs after reviewing the sprint results and before the next sprint’s planning. The team reviews their work and identifies areas for improvement during future sprints.
Kanban is a combination of six methods.
- Visualize the flow of work. Use software or cards to visualize the actions on the swim lanes.
- Work in Progress (WIP) can be reduced. Your team should instruct their members to complete the task at hand before moving on to other tasks. Only if they are able to do the task can the team take on additional work.
- Control flow. Pay attention to the flow in the swimming lanes. Any bottlenecks should be addressed.
- Create a Process Policy. Draw the process rules and guidelines visually to guide the flow of the process.
- Make feedback loops. Throughout the work process, make sure to have regular reviews with customers and your team members in order for them to provide feedback.
- Experimentation can improve collaboration. You can work together to find and implement improvements that include fail-safe tests.
Roles
Three major functions are described by Scrum:
- Product Owner: Product Owner is the only responsible for managing the Product Backlog.
- Scrum Master: Scrum Master is a servant leader responsible for helping the team understand Scrum principles, rules and principles.
- Team for Development: A self-organizing group of 3-9 professionals responsible for the delivery and collection of goods.
Kanban does not have any defined roles. However, there are advocates for two roles in Kanban.
- Service Delivery Manager (SDM): This is the person responsible for ensuring that work flows smoothly and facilitating continuous improvement and change.
- Service Request Manager (SRM): This is the person responsible for managing and prioritizing work items and improving corporate governance through the use of this process.
Metrics
The most important measure in Scrum of productivity is velocity. This refers to the team’s ability to improve their deliverables according to the sprint planning estimates. To determine how much effort is required, the scrum team uses velocity.
Kanban uses two primary metrics:
* The cycle time measures the time that an activity spends on the procedure (i.e., How long a card stays within the WIP swimming lanes.
* Throughput refers to the amount of work done in a given time period (e.g. The number of cards distributed during each time period on a Kanban board.
Kanban and Scrum: Which one should I choose?
Both Scrum and Kanban have their strengths. But, it is not a good idea to pit Kanban against Scrum. It is possible to use both to gain the greatest benefits.
Kanban is proven to improve visibility, increase productivity, and create an environment for continuous improvement. Kanban can be used in conjunction with existing practices, such as Scrum. Kanban is a great way to start if you don’t plan to overhaul your entire workflow but still want to reap the benefits of agile processes.
Scrum is associated with higher productivity, faster delivery, lower costs, and better quality. Scrum is a popular method for managing complex projects and projects that may undergo frequent changes.
If you work in a field where there are frequent changes, Scrum can be a great option. Your project might also need to adapt to the feedback. This is often true for sectors that are subject to frequent technological updates or those who develop new products.
What is Scrumban exactly?
Imagine Scrumban as a combination of the two words “Scrum” and “Kanban”. It is exactly that Kanban can be seen as a replacement for Scrum. The best way to think of Scrumban is to see it as a mix that includes Kanban and Scrum.
Scrumban can be the best option for teams that find Scrum too rigid and Kanban too flexible. These are the key features of Scrumban. Scrumban uses the Scrum backlog to help organize, assign work and set priorities. Kanban boards are used by Scrumban to visualize the work progress.
Scrumban is used by some teams to adhere to sprint requirements. Others use Kanban rules to manage the work volume at any given moment. Scrumban allows for this flexibility, and many teams view it as a way of achieving what they consider the “best” from Scrum and Kanban.
Final Thoughts
So that was all about Scrum, Kanban, and their key differences. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses. Kanban and Scrum are popular in project management. They are great for teams with specific priorities and needs. You can get started with any of these project management methods today.
