SCRUMBAN
Scrumban is an interesting concept that is halfway between Scrum and Kanban. Let’s discuss about it deeper.
Today, in software development methodologies, SCRUM and Kanban are the famous types of Agile methodologies. Along with the controversies of limitations that come with both these frameworks and the inability of pure timeboxed iterations like Scrum to bring value to well-regulated pull systems like Kanban, the first explanation of the function of Scrumban was released to the world of project management in 2008.
Scrumban is more than simple a mixture of Scrum and Kanban.
What really Scrumban is?
Scrumban combines Scrum and Kanban with lean principles. Scrumban can be utilized in product development as well as product maintenance. It can also be utilized for hardware, networks, operations, and non-IT functions.
Scrumban blends Scrum’s framework with Kanban’s flow-based methodology and visualization. It combines the agility of Scrum with the simplicity of Kanban while needing no role changes and being simple to implement.
So,
Scrumban is all about continuous improvement.
Scrumban is visual.
Scrumban is not rigid when it comes to teams and roles.
Scrumban is adaptable.
Scrumban emphasizes task prioritization.
Scrumban planning is on-demand.
Why Scrumaban is needed?
Indeed Scrum is a great but rigid methodology, where cross-functional teams are working in sprints, which are timeboxed iterations that last 2 weeks. So each sprint is organized around a specific goal, and you can’t add any additional tasks after it’s started. When it comes to Kanban, have to accept that, it is more attractive. The reason is, Kanban places a greater emphasis on visualization, and rather than working in sprints, teams strive for continuous flow. A Kanban board is a visual tool in which the team writes tasks on cards and organizes them into columns such as to-do, in progress, and done. Other than that, it lets teams keep track of progress and limit work in progress (WIP) so that members aren’t working on several jobs at the same time, which is the greatest advantage of using Kanban.
Scrumban enhances the capabilities of Scrum. So it was created to assist teams in transitioning from Scrum to Kanban, relying on the assumption on having visualization capability in Scrum, will be a great adventure in software project management. Hence, many teams discovered that the midpoint was an excellent place to stay.
A Kanban team can meet during the daily standup meeting, which is a Scrum practice, and vice versa a Scrum team can limit the size of their activities per column (queue), which is a Kanban practice.
Scrumban provides views and capabilities that let the organization more effectively examine and manage these work processes. It emphasizes the importance of assessing real-world experience in order to:
- make better decisions about current activities
- consider prior outcomes
- compare to common benchmarks as a sign of relative health
- provide data on which to estimate future outcomes
- influence individual behavior
The advantages of Scrumban are :
- It saves time because there’s no sprint planning every couple of weeks.
- Larger projects are also ideal for it as Scrumban can be distributed in various buckets of time and prioritized in shorter iterations to better manage them.
- Can find easily the bottlenecks in workflow and resolve them before they become a problem.
- All team members can see where they and the project are in terms of workflow, because of the transparency of Kanban boards
- No need for a scrum master or product owner. there’s only one planning meeting. Scrumban method rules are straightforward, so the learning curve is relatively flat. So can easily adopt.
- Helps to reduce stress in a project, as tasks are not assigned by a project manager or scrum master, and there’s no daily reporting to a project manager.
When to use it?
Scrumban is an excellent choice for teams who want the structure of Scrum but also want the flexibility of a flow-based method, or for teams that want to switch from Scrum to Kanban. Many teams utilize Scrumban to bridge the gap between a less mature Agile approach and a more mature Agile methodology.
Scrumban for software is especially valuable for products, which are within the maintenance phase where only a tiny number of new features are developed or refactored.
Scrumban continues to work from the initial setup. It’s a never-ending framework for teams and organizations to get to an agile state, which may be plain Scrum, plain Kanban, lean, or plain Scrumban for them.
Does it have cons too?
Though it is an extended version and more powerful, it also has some limitations and disadvantages.
- As Scrumban is still new, there are no best practices to guide them. Hence it allows teams to invent their own ways which may be either beneficial or not.
- As teams are free to choose what task they work on, it is difficult to track the effort and contributions of each on the Scrumban board.
What is the best out of Scrum, Kanban, and Scrumban?
Scrumban follows the Scrum backlog methodology for planning, prioritizing, and allocating work. However, it employs Kanban boards to aid in the visualization of scheduled work so that teams can quickly assess task progress and identify bottlenecks. While some Scrumban teams continue to employ sprints, others are out of this Scrum necessity.
Scrumban is essential because it provides a simple yet effective management framework capable of transforming these mindsets and fixing the “problems and issues” that Scrum reveals. Its basic principles and practices are ubiquitous and easy to implement across the entire organization (not just IT), fostering deeper understanding and alignment across all business departments.
There is no straightforward answer to recommend you choose either Scrum, Kanban, or Scrumban as your project management tool. Because it is up to you and up to your team and project! All these three major frameworks have both pros and cons.
💡 But as a hint, Scrumban may be the best option if you have a project that includes product and support elements (for example, offering new software and a maintenance package). It allows you to combine the benefits of both separate frameworks.
