Scrumban: Combining the Best of Scrum and Kanban

Organizations interested in lean development and project management look beyond Agile and Kanban options to find methodologies that better align with their teams’ goals. Existing Scrum teams want something more, and Kanban alone does not suffice. Here’s where Scrumban, the newest system around, comes into action. Its ability to organize and streamline processes drastically reduces time and resource waste. Learn how Scrumban helps bridge the gap and reinforce the weak points currently inherent in project strategies.

To benefit from a new system, it helps to start with a clear Scrumban definition. To put it simply, it is a methodology for project management that uses characteristics of both Scrum and Kanban. It is used either for transitioning from one to the other or as a complete replacement.

The primary goal of Scrum focuses on speed and agility when it comes to whole-team project management. It uses sprintboard setups with set time limits, priority task lists, and self-directed workflows. Frequent meetings and check-ups are common. Kanban tends toward a continuous flow of work organized with task cards on a visual layout. Team members know at a glance exactly who is doing what and when.

Scrumban — the combination of the two Agile systems — includes regular planning and team feedback, flexible sprint lengths, distinct priority setting options, and a ‘Ready’ queue to help organize the entire thing. Each functionality, such as the ability of a team member to pull a task card, is defined by project-specific limits. Scrumban roles are well-defined, and expectations are managed more efficiently.

When making a decision between Scrum vs Kanban vs Scrumban, it helps to understand the development flow first. This ensures that everyone in the project team and management has a clear picture of how the workflow will occur, what to expect, and what steps are necessary to make it all possible.

The Scrumban board looks and functions no differently from the traditional Kanban version. They both harken back to the days when companies made vast wall charts with copious sticky notes everywhere. Today, of course, retail software systems and proprietary, in-house setups exist that make access and use much simpler and more accessible. The concept has stayed the same, however.

A Scrumban board has organized categories displayed in neat columns with multiple cards representing tasks. These cards are moved by either the Scrum masters or team leads or team members themselves as the tasks enter different stages of development.

General board categories include:

Companies and individual project teams can create their own categories based on specific needs. These define a regular workflow common in Kanban and Scrum board use.

We’ll unfold the Scrumban board in more detail later in the article.

The unique combination of Scrum with Kanban shines during the limit-setting process in the new management system. Instead of focusing on time or task numbers in each sprint, choose the total number of cards usable in any interval. In other words, the board will no longer include 10 cards today and 20 tomorrow. Instead, the workflow limits are managed based on team abilities and expectations. This prevents undue strain and stops workers from feeling either frustrated with progress or overwhelmed with responsibilities.

Rather than assigning specific tasks to individuals and creating unique priority lists for them alone, Scrumban systems create hierarchies of importance based on the whole project. Which stage of development and deployment must happen before the others? The daily meetings will then include frank discussions about who does what to fulfill the scheduling needs.

These quick, stand-up meetings act much like the regular feedback loops in Scrum. All team members gather to share what tasks they currently handle and what to do next. Although the Scrumban board does this, communication remains an essential part of the entire process. This allows for more efficient and specific prioritization, so no members are left with inefficient or frustrating downtime.

Having mastered the basics, now it’s time to talk about the Scrumban board in more detail.

As mentioned, the foundation of this workflow methodology mimics a Kanban board. Scrum systems focus on tasks divided into well-defined, time-based sprints. The team has X number of tasks to do before the sprint’s deadline. Kanban boards track workflow based on the position of each one within start-to-finish categories. They limit the number of tasks in each section. The team’s goal is to progress through the allowed task cards quickly and minimize wasted time between completion to keep the board dynamic and the project moving forward.

A Scrumban board limits total tasks on the entire board in most cases — as opposed to Kanban's section-wide limitation — to align with team’s productivity and avoid overhaul. Another distinction is that instead of limiting team members to certain sections or categories, they have increased freedom to tackle exactly what needs to get done in a more logical progression without direct oversight or instruction.

The fewest possible categories on these boards include backlog, works in progress, and completed. These are usually subdivided based on the specific needs of the project. Common options in the works in progress section, for example, include design, manufacturing, testing, and deployment. Backlog tasks may get organized into multiple columns based on either natural dependencies or deadline time limits. This creates a more natural flow for the backlog. There may also be columns for review before completion which, likewise, may have many possible structural options depending on who has to sign off.

Besides a customized board design with team or project-specific categories and subcategories, each one also needs clear identification of who is doing or is responsible for what. Just like with a Kanban board, workers get icons, images, or color codes that identify them at a glance. Everyone involved with the project needs to know who to approach or contact with task-specific questions or suggestions.

No matter what a company’s needs are when it comes to project workflow management, this Scrum-Kanban combination offers real advantages. From a developer’s perspective, it can simply feel better. While simplistic and not quantifiable, this is the type of thing that improves job satisfaction and thus ramps up enthusiasm to get tasks done quickly and with exceptional quality. A large part of this is the more member-focused decision-making process.

Improved Flexibility — It provides benefits of both systems but very few of the constraints of either. This results in more flexibility for teams to structure their efforts in ways that make sense to them. Also, the system includes more innate agility in case of changing requirements or priorities. No project moves forward with zero issues or hiccups. These range from serious changes in Сlient expectations to an employee falling ill and staying out of work for a few days. The team can shift focus with high levels of agility during daily meetings.

Workflow Visibility — The Scrumban board gives every person a visual representation of the entire project and to-do lists. This makes it much easier to figure out what to do next, track progress, and discover bottlenecks or potential delays before they interrupt project completion. There are no questions about what needs to be done next, what is overdue, or who is currently working on each task. While these general advantages are not unique to this framework, the innate visibility still helps to eliminate potential problems that may occur with time-based or categorically limited options.

Increased Collaboration — With the whole-team approach to both board setup and daily meetings, this framework encourages people to communicate and work together for the greater good. It eliminates confusion and allows them to identify dependencies in ways that are much more manageable and efficient. This also offers benefits on a social level. Companies may find that a team that has friendlier connections can work better together.

Better Time Management — No organization wants to waste time when clients or stakeholders expect results. This project system combines iteration and incremental approaches with more self-directed actions such as team members pulling their own cards for next task efforts. No enforced time limits interrupt creative mental flow. The story of the project just keeps rolling along. This continuity also helps negate repetition especially when it comes to meetings. A reduction in wasted time leads to improvements in ultimate profitability.

No system works perfectly for every team. This combination framework may not provide all the aforementioned benefits to a specific organization’s projects, it all depends on its operation practices and peculiarities. However, the three biggest aspects that businesses may find disadvantageous are:

Scrumban favors self-direction and a certain level of independence. Some workers thrive with greater autonomy and work more productively when deciding their own best path forward. Others do not. This is a delicate balance that requires decision makers to truly understand the work styles and personalities of the people responsible for the actual work of development.

The newness of this framework may also detract from its enthusiastic adoption. It is difficult to find a Scrumban cheat sheet to follow. It takes an experienced team, such as the one at SENLA, or highly agile in-house management to implement the best processes for them. The Scrum and Kanban worlds are full of examples and turnkey solutions teams can adopt seamlessly.

Finally, for the organizations where micromanagement is high, scrumban can cause a significant disruption. Since it implies that everyone has the same opportunity for influence and input, an individual agency forms a strong foundation for the entire methodology. If this is something that seriously contradicts your business practice right now, make a thorough evaluation to determine whether a change will really pay off.

Many organizations struggle to decide on a traditional Scrum vs Kanban dilemma as these are the two most commonly used project management frameworks today. Agile development provides many benefits for in-house and outsourced teams. However, each method has detractors and limitations that may not work with specific groups.

Scrumban approaches provide additional benefits. Not only do they work well for standard, time-sensitive projects, they also suit long-term or ongoing maintenance situations. Additional flexibility beyond the stringent limits of a Scrum system may suit specific work styles. This combination strategy allows teams to determine the specifics that work best for them and the stakeholders. Employees feel more supported and more an integral part of the entire process, which leads to improved productivity, enthusiasm, and job satisfaction. So, if you need more flexibility in workflow organization and reduced micromanagement with more autonomy for developers — Scrumban may be your choice.

Nothing helps organizations understand a new concept or methodology better than seeing it in action.

While examples give companies a good idea about the possibilities inherent in this workflow structure, recognize that unique solutions work better in the end. A general Scrumban guide only goes so far when it comes to creating the best possible solution for an organization.

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