Kanban Misconception: You Either Use Scrum or You Use Kanban
Jenny Stuart
Construx VP of Consulting
Scrum is the most widely used Agile approach in the industry and for good reason. The Scrum Guide provides a core set of roles, events, artifacts, and principles. The Scrum framework is a great starting point for many teams and organizations. Even when organizations use Scrum widely, Kanban often has a place for:
- Very small teams
- Teams with highly dynamic and emergent work like product support teams
- Highly solo work where no collaboration is needed to create a work product
- As a program or portfolio management solution to manage the work for many Scrum teams
Organizations that want more flexibility in their approach or a more evolutionary approach to change than Scrum provides still may want to use aspects of Scrum in their adoption. Some Kanban teams will start with structured two-week retrospectives if spontaneous improvement ideas aren’t arising.
You either use Scrum, or you use Kanban is a false dichotomy. Instead, ask the question: where might Kanban be useful to my project or organization.