Kanban Vs. Scrum — The Difference In Methodologies
An Agile methodology is something that we look forward to when developing software or web applications. Here, this set of principles and ideals can be broken down into Kanban and Scrum frameworks, which in basics follow the same guidelines: to complete tasks. While the principles of the two frameworks are largely the same, the working methodology differs. We shall first look at both to define what is what.
What Are Kanban and Scrum?
Let us begin with the scrum method first. This is an agile process that helps to deliver business value in the shortest time. It repeatedly inspects working software and focuses more on teamwork and iterative progression of software development. Every two to four weeks, the sprint of development is analysed and goals are checked to investigate the project standing. After every sprint, the team delivers some valuable work enabling them to understand how much work they can take.
In Kanban, this is a visual system of managing work taking into account process and the actual work happening in that process. Here the main objective is to identify bottlenecks of the project and mitigate them. The goal of Kanban is to improve workflow, making it smooth and building it up to optimal speed.
Scrum Is A Structured Approach
The scrum moves fast, with sprints lasting from two to four weeks. With defined deadlines, or objectives, for each sprint is either set during a sprint meeting or provided by a scrum master. Here, velocity is the key metric — the number of scrum goals/objectives met in a sprint. This decides how much work can the scrum team take in the future as well. For example, if the development team can complete 20 goals per sprint, then they might not agree to a sprint backlog containing 30 goals.
Changes during a sprint are generally uncommon. However, sometimes the scrum teams might get feedback and learn what they are doing is not as valuable for the client as agreed. In this case, the scope of the shipping should change so that it reflects the importance of the value which the team is working on. However, during sprint retrospective, scrum teams should analyse the changes and limit future ones as they put other bigger objectives at risk.
Kanban Is Flexible and Shows Improvement
In a Kanban workflow, the continuous structure of work keeps the teams prepared for any changes at any time. Objectives are called cards and they move across Kanban board from one column to the next one, till they reach the end. Here, updates or objectives are released whenever they are ready. Not bound by time or due dates as the Kanban methodology does not prescribe a fixed time. On the other hand, if a task is completed earlier than scheduled, the team can deliver it right away without any wait. This is how Kanban becomes a little different from a scrum.
For the Kanban process, lead time and cycle time are the key metrics. They deal with the average time needed for the team to move the task from start to finish. An improving cycle time indicates the success of the working teams. To reduce bottlenecks, Work in Progress (WIP) limits may also be set up. This limits the number of cars that can be present in each column of the Kanban board. Teams cannot pick more cards than the assigned limit, letting them focus only on the tasks that are available at a given time.
Unlike Scrum Kanban is more open to changes. New work items, or objectives, can get added to backlog along with existing cards and these existing cards can get removed from priority altogether. Also, changes in team capacity can even allow changes in the WIP limit to adjust for the time taken till completion.
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Such workflow frameworks and methodologies are important for software companies. Fortunately, the work methodology can work for other industries as well. InvoZone is one company that utilizes a similar workflow method to reach its goals and identify high priority tasks. This enables them to be productive and deliver excellence which they promise, something that all organizations require.
