Choosing the Right Project Management System For You: Kanban or Scrum

We’re always looking for the most efficient ways of working. 

Teams strive to create lean processes that allow them to be agile and thereby more efficient. But what do lean and agile workflows look like in practice?  

Lean workflows aim to increase output and efficiency by eliminating waste and resources. Agile is an umbrella term that describes a team’s iterative approach to work. An agile team is one that’s always seeking out how they could improve their processes to make them as lean as possible. 

If you’re looking to become more agile and build leaner processes, look no further than these two project management styles: Kanban and Scrum. They utilize lean and agile working practices to skyrocket your efficiency and productivity. 

Here, we’re looking at how to use them, how they’re different, and their unique benefits. 

What is Kanban?

The earliest iteration of Kanban started over 50 years ago. Toyota began optimizing its engineering practices with the goal to maximize efficiency and cut waste. 

Teams would pass a card, or “kanban,” to communicate inventory levels and team capacity to meet the company’s manufacturing demand. When a supply was empty, the team passed a card to the manufacturer. The card read the exact amount of inventory needed based on customer demand to ensure there would be no excess. 

While this process has changed since the mid-1900s, its goal of aligning resources with demand remains a cornerstone of efficiency. 

Now let's turn our attention to software teams. Kanban planning aims to align work-in-progress (WIP) tasks with the team’s capacity. That is to say, teams won’t get assigned more work than they can accomplish. Similar to how Toyota only requested enough materials to meet current demand, workers using Kanban planning only have the number of WIP tasks that time realistically allows. 

These tasks are organized into a Kanban board to create a visual representation of a project’s status. The board’s categories represent the steps of a process. Individual contributors move the tasks through the board as they complete each step. 

The result? A lean process with boosted efficiency and transparency. The process creates realistic expectations for each team member. They have a clear picture of what task to focus on right now and what work is coming down the pipeline, thereby making it easier to spot process bottlenecks and fix them. 

There are four main principles of Kanban:

• Visualization of the work. By nature, Kanban is a visual process. You lay out all the tasks for a given project so all stakeholders can see its entire scope. It’s easy to see which tasks rely on the completion of others and where each team member’s responsibilities lie. 
• Limit work in progress (WIP). Kanban work helps you avoid multitasking. Working on too many things at once slows progress, so focusing on one task at a time is best. Limiting the number of tasks in the “in progress” stage helps the team focus on the work one by one. 
• Maintain the flow. Pay close attention to how tasks move through the Kanban stages. You can spot bottlenecks and potential setbacks quickly, so you can adjust and keep going. 
• Aim for continuous improvement. Kanban helps you find places where you can improve the process. You’re always thinking about how the process could run better for long-term productivity. 

How to use Kanban

Kanban boards map the steps of a project using “cards” on a visual board. A basic Kanban board has three categories: to-do, in progress, and done. You can add as many columns for steps as necessary for your project. 

The first thing you’ll need is your Kanban board. Next, divide your project into tasks and slot them into the “to-do” category. Assign them to relevant stakeholders and provide deadlines. As stakeholders begin working on a task, they move it into “in progress.” Doing so signals everyone else that work is getting done. Continue moving tasks across the board until they land in “done.” It’s that simple. 

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Think of Kanban as the digitized sticky-notes-on-a-whiteboard method of task management. It aims to lay out workflows so you can identify potential places for setbacks. Teams can work with a high level of efficiency while maintaining a realistic work style. 

What is Scrum?

The idea for Scrum started not with a software company but with a rugby team. As the players trained for their big games, they slowly increased their skill sets. They reflected on wins and losses, then made adjustments accordingly. This kind of continuous improvement through small-batch iterations is at the heart of Scrum today. 

As a team, you make minor iterative adjustments to a workflow as you identify setbacks or bottlenecks. You run in short cycles, or sprints, that lean on predefined Scrum principles. It can be helpful to work through a backlog of tasks. By its nature, Scrum is an agile project management system.

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In short, it’s a lightweight, agile framework that any industry can adopt to help teams find creative solutions to complex problems. 

Scrum has six core principles:

• Process control. This principle has three sub-principles: transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Together they guide how the scrum framework operates. 
• Self-organization. The process encourages team members to take responsibility for their work. The goal is to reduce the need for frequent input from managers. 
• Timeboxing. Scrum confines each sprint to a set amount of time. These are usually one-to-four-week periods of time where teams engage in heads-down work. 
• Value-based prioritization. Focus on the tasks that will most impact the work required. Scrum inspires teams to focus on creating the most business value in the shortest time. 
• Interactive development. Break projects down into smaller parts or sprints. Doing so allows teams to learn from each sprint and apply their takeaways to the next sprint.
• Collaboration. A scrum methodology doesn’t work if teams don’t work together. User Scrum “boards” so every stakeholder has transparency into the project and its status, keeping everyone aligned. 

A successful Scrum approach creates space for fast innovation, an ability to pivot to change, provide faster deliverables, and get then implement feedback quicker. Teams using a Scrum methodology should keep their values in mind: courage, focus, commitment, respect, and openness. When they work in alignment, teams will be able to hit their goals. 

How to use Scrum

The Scrum setup is quite simple. Teams gather to make decisions and changes based on their observations of the current process. For example, say you’re building a new feature for your existing product. Your project has a host of stakeholders with defined roles, but for a scrum process to work, you must name a product owner, scrum master, and individual contributors. Here’s how to break it down:

1. Sprint planning. Before the project kicks off, stakeholders meet to break down the segments of the project, define sprints, and assign responsibilities. Add these work items to the Scrum board.
2. The initial sprint. This time on your calendar allows you to focus on one task or a set of tasks. Your goal is to complete the assigned tasks within the given timeframe. The exact length of the sprint will vary depending on the project but don’t make it too long. 
3. Daily Scrum or stand-ups. Here is when project stakeholders meet to discuss setbacks or hurdles. It’s a rapid-fire brainstorming session for teams to pool their knowledge and help each other solve problems. 
4. Sprint review. After the Scrum meeting, everyone is back to work. The scrum team examines progress and setbacks and proposes solutions to avoid those problems in future sprints. 
5. Retrospective. The Scrum team takes a step back to examine the sprint. They examined how stakeholders worked together, what tools were helpful, and how the team responded to the sprint. 

By the end of a sprint, the team should have a deliverable ready to move on to the next step. 

Kanban vs. Scrum: What’s the difference?

It’s common for people to use Kanban and Scrum interchangeably. While they have some similarities, they take different approaches to iterating on workflows. Familiarize yourself with both to choose the right one for your team and projects. 

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Both Scrum and Kanban take an iterative approach for increased transparency. They aim to be as efficient as possible, relying on teamwork for a continuous flow of high-quality deliverables. 

Here are the big differences between Scrum and Kanban:

• Kanban focuses on visualizing tasks and processes on a Kanban “board." The Scrum methodology structures workflows to provide deliverables as fast as possible. 
• Scrum uses short sprints to deliver parts of more extensive projects over several weeks. Kanban delivers tasks continuously until the project wraps up.
• Changes to Kanban can happen anytime, whereas changes to Scrum happen between sprints. 

Which should you choose: Kanban or Scrum?

Now, for the big question: do you choose Kanban or Scrum?

Some people take parts of both methods and combine them to create a hybrid model called Scrumban. It adopts the Scrum process with the visualization tools of Kanban. Scrumban is an agile approach that uses the WIP limits of Kanban with sprints of Scrum.  This combined method removes some of the rigidity of both Kanban and Scrum, allowing teams to be more flexible in creating a workflow that’s perfect for their projects.  

Kanban increases visibility into a process to create continuous improvement and productivity. It's flexible enough to work for different kinds of teams. At the same time, it works well with systems already in place, like Scrum. Try Kanban if you want to boost efficiency without overhauling your existing framework.

Pros of Kanban:

• Team-wide clarity into the process and tasks required to meet a goal
• All stakeholders remain aligned on project progress 
• Teams are more efficient with clear expectations and the ability to spot bottlenecks 
• More focused work to avoid waste and save time 
• Avoid burnout for your team with sustainable and realistic workflows 

Cons of Kanban:

• No structure for predicting deadlines, so it works best with another tool or system
• Kanban boards can become chaotic if teams don’t monitor “in progress” tasks
• Teams must be ready to make frequent updates to the board to keep the process running smoothly

On the flip side, Scrum has proven to help teams skyrocket productivity. Software and product development teams, in particular, benefit from using this process. Scrum often equals faster delivery, lower costs, and consistent, high-quality work. 

Pros of Scrum:

• Like Kanban, there’s increased transparency in workflows 
• Ample space for creativity and adaptation to maintain constant improvement 
• Timeboxes tasks so that teams can give accurate timelines for deliverables
• Entire teams work closely to solve problems and bottlenecks, creating space for innovation
• Scrum has built-in time for a sprint retrospective to review the process as a whole

Cons of Scrum:

• It often requires a lot of training, and everyone on the team must be familiar with the method 
• It’s challenging for cross-functional teams, usually working best for teams of 10 at most
• Scrum tends to be challenging to incorporate into existing project management structures 

Increase efficiency and build healthy workflows with Sunsama

As you decide whether Kanban or Scrum, or a combination of both, is right for you, it’s important to have a tool that can do both. That’s where Sunsama makes a difference. 

Sunsama utilizes Kanban planning to create a unified daily view of everything on your plate. It's a visual board that breaks down all your work for the day. Sunsama even helps limit WIP by alerting you if you’ve scheduled more than 5 hours of deep work, ensuring you create a realistic daily to-do list. 

Likewise, Scrum teams can lean on Sunsama to prepare for sprint planning and sprint retrospective. Simply create tasks within Sunsama as a result of sprint planning then check them off upon completion. If you don’t finish every task, they automatically roll over to the next day. 

You want to deliver high-quality work and consistently improve your processes. Sunsama captures and displays your tasks in one place, so you can focus on continuous improvement instead of wondering what to do next. 

If you want to implement structure to your workday and plan effectively, sign up for a free trial of Sunsama. It will help you build healthy daily routines and plan your weeks for long-term success.