Scrumban: What You Need to Know?

Just as the name implies, Scrumban is nothing but a combination of Scrum and Kanban. It is one of the renowned agile development methodologies in vogue as it appears to meet the needs of teams that focus on minimizing batching of work with its pull-based system. With the use of Scrumban, team members get the flexibility they so long for, and this helps them to adapt most beautifully to the constant production needs with no hassles.

Scrumban is a very versatile approach to workflow management.

Development teams such as software teams find it convenient and efficient to use the switch to Scrumban as shifting to Kanban directly may be too bad, and as such, Scrumban offers the flexibility such teams are looking for.
So how did Scrumban come into being? Well, as it has been mentioned earlier that Scrumban is a hybrid of Scrum and Kanban. You still don’t get that fully? Let’s wet our appetites with what Scrum and Kanban are all about again.

Scrum
Scrum is a versatile framework designed mainly to maximize the ability of the teams to deliver projects quicker and responding appropriately to emerging requirements. Yes, it is also built to adapt to the technological advancement of this century and of course, the market conditions.
Scrum uses sprints, which are fixed-length development cycles that usually last for one to four weeks. The teams are always small, self-organizing, and cross-functional. This is how it works: The teams split the work into small units, sort it by priority, and relative effort. Therefore, what the work owners do is that they select al the tasks to be done in a sprint at a go, and the team goes on to complete the work.

Kanban
Kanban has its roots in manufacturing, but it is visual workflow management represented by cards on aboard. Each lane on this board represents process steps and is used to manage the general work of the team.
Unlike the Scrum approach, Kanban uses a continuous flow approach, which includes planning, working, reviewing, and measuring the results of their work. One fantastic thing about Kanban is that it tries as much as possible to minimize chaos and promote a focus on a few items in the process.

Scrumban
As you may have guessed now that the qualities of those two approaches are what Scrumban comprises of. To be specific, Scrumban combines the structure of Scrum and the flow-based methods of Kanban. The following are elements of Scrum found in the Scrumban approach. Let’s take a look:
• Planning at regular intervals coupled with reviews and retrospectives.
• Decision on the size of work to pull in the sprint at a go while considering factors such as complexity of the task and its duration.
• Provision of valuable information on which project to work on next based priority.
• Useful level of analysis before starting development.
Long story short, Scrumban is a great solution you can always entrust your teams to as its flexibility is out of this world. If you are looking forward to moving from a less mature Agile practice to a more mature one, trust me, Scrumban is your best bet.

What’s next?
To learn the Kanban 101 at team-level, enroll in the IBQMI® Approved Kanban Professional.
If you want to apply Kanban to any environment at an advanced coach level, you should enroll in the Certified Kanban Coach®.

The IBQMI® Certified Scrumban Practitoner® mission: the relationship between purpose and performance! Enroll in Certified Scrumban Practitoner®