{"id":876,"date":"2021-05-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niftypm.com\/blog\/scrumban-101-what-is-scrumban-a-beginners-guide-7c2f93800a49\/"},"modified":"2023-01-14T12:03:54","modified_gmt":"2023-01-14T17:03:54","slug":"what-is-scrumban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niftypm.com\/blog\/what-is-scrumban\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrumban 101: What is Scrumban\u200a\u2014\u200aA beginners guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scrumban is the combination of the Agile methodologies of Scrum and Kanban. Since project managers are always looking for ways to do things more efficiently, they created this hybrid system that allows managers to facilitate stakeholder and production needs through a more visual approach. <\/span><\/p>\n

Scrumban was created to meet the needs of teams who wanted to minimize the batching of work and adopt a pull-based system. It\u2019s a highly versatile\u00a0<\/span>project management system<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for development and maintenance projects.<\/span><\/p>\n

To better understand Scrumban, let\u2019s dive into the two methodologies from which it derives.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Scrumban\"<\/p>\n

What is Scrum?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Scrum project management<\/span><\/a>\u00a0was originally designed to help teams move quickly and respond to emerging requirements. It\u2019s particularly helpful in frequently changing environments as it allows teams to iterate in fixed-length development cycles called sprints, usually lasting around two weeks or 14 days.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scrum<\/span><\/a>\u00a0teams are designed to be minor, cross-functional, and self-organizing. This helps them split work into increments and prioritize tasks based on the effort needed to complete them. On a Scrum team, a product owner usually selects the work to be done on each sprint, and then the team meets it during that allotted time.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is Kanban?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Kanban project management is a visual process flow that has its roots in manufacturing. All work items are visualized on cards on a board that represents process stages. These boards manage the collective work of the team. They also prevent overburdened teams by limiting the amount of work they can do at any given time th<\/span>rough WIP (work in progress) limits.<\/p>\n

\"Kanban
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Source: Nifty Kanban View – try for free!<\/a><\/p>\n

Kanban teams practice a continuous flow approach focused on planning, working, reviewing, and measuring the results. The main measurement is lead time, the average time from when work is requested to when it is finished.<\/p>\n

How are Scrum and Kanban similar?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Team structure:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Both Scrum and Kanban focus heavily on self-managed teams. Developers can direct their work using the business objectives as guidelines for what to achieve. Both approaches promote autonomy and respect for people, allowing them to do their best work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Work packages:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Scrum and Kanban prioritize well-defined user stories to be accomplished and delivered separately. In Scrum, teams define workloads based on task complexity and sprint time. Kanban limits the number of items a team works on at any time to prevent overload. They have a \u2018rabbit and hare\u2019 approach to workloads: Scrum measures team productivity based on the time needed to complete tasks, while Kanban has a more slow and more steady process based on continuous WIP and story limits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Board structure:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Kanban boards are split into columns and swimlanes. Each column represents a workflow stage, and swimlanes differentiate different activities. A typical Kanban board would have three sections to show the state of a team\u2019s tasks: To Do, In Progress, and Done.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scrum boards<\/span><\/a>\u00a0also contain horizontal and vertical swimlanes that track task progress and committed stories during a sprint. A standard Scrum board would have several more columns: Stories, To Do, In Progress, Testing, and Done. Team members can move their tasks as necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n

What exactly is Scrumban, then?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Scrumban combines the structure of Scrum with the flow-based processes of Kanban. This allows teams to adapt and change to stakeholder and production requirements without overloading themselves. Scrumban can also be used as a pathway from Scrum to Kanban and incorporate Kanban\u2019s concept of continuous improvement without altogether leaving the Scrum framework.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scrumban implements the following concepts from Scrum & Kanban:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"exampleSource: Nifty Milestone View – try for free!<\/a><\/p>\n

Scrum:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n