ScrumBan: Bringing The Best Of The Two Together For Efficient Product Development

Have you ever faced a situation where you wished to combine two different tools to suit your needs?

When it comes to project management, agile and its frameworks like Scrum and Kanban are pretty popular. Even though both are useful in their ways, they do have their drawbacks. Often, you wish you could combine some of the practices of both methods to increase your efficiency. 

And yes, that is what a Scrumban is. A hybrid of both Scrum and Kanban methodologies. 

This article will learn all about Scrumban, how different it is from Scrum and Kanban, and when to use it.

What is Scrumban?

In simple terms Scrumban = Scrum + Kanban. It is a hybrid of Scrum and Kanban, where the team works in sprints and uses a modified Kanban board to visualize the entire project.

Scrumban was initially a concept used to help Scrum teams transition to Kanban and Lean. Corey Ladas published Scrumban: Essays on Kanban Systems for Lean Software Development in 2009, where he introduced the term and concept. In his book, he addressed Scrum’s drawbacks and suggested integrating Kanban principles to overcome them. 

As many Scrum teams started to implement Kanban, over time, it developed into a separate hybrid framework that included the best practices of both Scrum and Kanban. As a result, Scrumban is now officially considered as a part of agile methodology. 

What are Scrumban characteristics?

Scrumban combines the structure and iteration from Scrum with the visualization and continuous workflow from Kanban. Let us understand first understand its structure.

Scrumban board

Like Kanban, it has a Scrumban board with three primary columns: 

• Backlogs – This column contains planned tasks that are prioritized and pulled into WIP as and when the members complete WIP tasks.
• Work in Progress (WIP) – These are tasks in progress. The WIP limit controls the number of work items in progress. Typically, the WIP limit for the team is the same as the team size. That means, at any given time, one team member may work on only one activity. You can have other columns to visualize the subtasks.
• Done – The completed tasks go into the “Done” column to track the project’s progress.

You don’t have to restrict the columns to these three columns. You can add other columns like testing and reviews if your project demands it.

Roles

There are no specific roles like scrum masters or product owners. But the teams do have a project manager. In Scrumban, the team members enjoy equal positions and rights when it comes to making decisions.

Working

Now that you have a better understanding of its structure, let us see more of its characteristics:

• Scrumban teams are self-organized, where the members assign the tasks themselves. As soon as they complete an activity, they choose and pull another from the backlogs into WIP.
• The teams work in iterations that usually lasts for two weeks. After every iteration, there is an iteration review. Also, there is an iteration retrospective before beginning a new cycle.
• While the Backlogs contain the planned tasks, a To-Do section contains other unplanned tasks. 
• When the number of backlog tasks reduces to a specific limit, the planning trigger goes off. After this, the development teams schedules on-demand planning meetings to plan the next iteration and To-Do lessons.
• The team calculates the Lead or cycle time of a task. The lead or cycle time is the time taken to complete a task since its creation.
• Even though a daily meeting is not a requirement, some development teams implement it to discuss the problems and issues faced by their fellow team members.
• Scrumban emphasizes setting priorities for various tasks. This prioritization helps you to work on the important ones first.
• Scrumban allows long-term planning for goals called bucket-size planning. There are four buckets the Current bucket, 3-month bucket, 6-month bucket, and 1-year bucket, where you can assign the goals into respective buckets.

How is Scrumban different from Scrum?

Let’s first recap what Scrum is.

Scrum is a method where a team has specific roles of a Scrum Master, a Product Owner, and other developers. The project is divided into sprints that last for 1 to 6 weeks. During the sprints, the whole team works on the tasks dedicated for the sprint and nothing else. In addition, the team has daily standup meetings in the morning to plan the day’s tasks.

Let’s see how Scrumban is different from Scrum:

• Scrumban doesn’t require a scrum master or product owner to assign tasks. Instead, the team members choose and complete tasks on their own. 
• The team works in 2-week iterations (like sprints). And the work cycles can be shorter for planning and longer for release. 
• You need not have daily meetings. But there will be on-demand planning sessions whenever WIP tasks reduce.
• The task size should align within the sprints for Scrum. But Scrumban offers more flexibility in this matter.
• Scrumban is more suitable for startups with fast-paced projects and continuous product manufacturing.

Why is Scrumban preferred more over Kanban?

Here is a quick recap of Kanban.

Kanban is a visual tool to keep track of a project and its various tasks. It is a board with three primary vertical columns titled To Do, Doing, and Done, denoting the yet-to-start, in-progress, and completed work items. Then, depending on the project’s requirements, you can add other columns, like, under review, idea, and approved. A kanban board can be digital (software and apps) or analog (whiteboard with sticky notes for moving the tasks).

Now let’s understand why Scrumban is preferred more over Kanban.

• Even though the Kanban board helps visualize each task’s stages, the stages are limited to To-Do, Doing, and Done. But with Scrumban, you can have multiple columns within the Work In Progress column to track each step of the task cycle.
• Kanban tends to stick with a continuous workflow with a stable production plan. Hence it becomes a little difficult for fast-paced projects. Also, Kanban is more suitable for smaller projects.
• Meetings and prioritization of tasks are not compulsory in Kanban, leading to a dip in the team’s productivity. But, on the other hand, meetings help the team members collaborate and help each other solve problems. And without prioritization of tasks, you might end up not completing the important ones.  

What are the benefits of Scrumban?

Now that you have a clear picture of Scrumban and how different it is from Scrum and Kanban let’s see some of the benefits of implementing this methodology.

Flexible and adaptable

Scrumban is quite flexible as you can adjust the iteration (sprint) size depending on the task, and it is easier to change the boundaries during unforeseen circumstances. Also, you don’t need to set up estimations during project initiation. Instead, you can set them dynamically as and when your project progresses.

Minimizes waste 

Thanks to the visual workflow, it is easier to remove bottlenecks. In addition, the method utilizes inter-process buffers and flow diagrams that help you remove any features that do not add value to your customers.

Team members perform better.

There is less stress on the team members as they have the freedom to choose the tasks. As Scrumban focuses on continuous improvement, every team member gets to voice their ideas and opinions and helps to solve issues as and when they arrive. Thanks to the transparency, there is much more clarity regarding the project processes and allocated resources. 

Saves Time

Here, you don’t waste time in daily meetings. Instead, you have meetings and on-demand planning that saves your time to focus on completing the tasks. In addition, as the teams can make decisions and take up activities depending on the priority, it speeds up decision-making. Also, it is easier to implement any urgent changes like customer requests.

Perfect for large-scale projects

You can set goals and plans for a longer duration with bucket-size planning. You can break long-term projects into several iterations, tasks, and subtasks. You can even set priorities for these tasks and distribute them throughout the buckets.

When should Scrumban be used?

Even though Scrumban looks very beneficial thanks to combining the best of two methods, it is not always applicable for all teams. Here are some of the circumstances where it is more valuable than individual Scrum or Kanban approach:

• Implement this method for ongoing projects and maintaining completed projects as there are no definitive deadlines.
• If your team is not suitable for Scrum, try introducing Scrumban instead of Kanban. As both have similar practices, it will be easier to learn and implement.
• In teams where most of the members are skilled professionals, they would prefer to have a more role in prioritizing and making decisions. Also, they would want to choose their tasks according to their interests and skills.
• When you are looking for process improvement.

Wrapping up

Unlike Scrum, Scrumban is less rigid and more flexible, making it easier to respond to any changes. And unlike Kanban, it is well structured and helps teams to control and estimate the outcomes. But the best part – It is easy to adapt!