The age-old question. Let's dive in!
Choosing a workflow framework shouldn’t feel like choosing a religion; let’s ground the debate in first principles and practical signals
What Is Kanban, Really?
Kanban is not “Scrum without Sprints,” nor is it a Trello board with swim‑lanes. It is a pull‑based, flow‑optimizing method rooted in four core principles and six generalized practices.
Four Core Principles
- Start with what you do now – map reality before changing it.
- Agree to pursue incremental, evolutionary change – small, safe steps; no big‑bang reorg.
- Respect current roles and responsibilities – avoid needless trauma; let improvements speak for themselves.
- Encourage acts of leadership at every level – continuous improvement belongs to everyone.
Six General Practices
| Practice | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Visualize the workflow | Make invisible work visible, expose bottlenecks |
| Limit Work in Progress (WIP) | Prevent over‑commitment; enable smooth flow |
| Manage flow | Measure lead/cycle time; optimize stability |
| Make policies explicit | Remove ambiguity; foster autonomy |
| Implement feedback loops | Enable learning via stand‑ups, replenishment, reviews |
| Improve collaboratively, evolve experimentally | Use data + scientific thinking to iterate |
Kanban’s Key Metrics & Tools
- Lead time vs Cycle time; know how long customers really wait.
- Throughput; count work items completed per time unit.
- WIP; your operational thermostat.
- Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD); spot bottlenecks at a glance.
- Flow Efficiency; time spent working ÷ total lead time.
Pro tip: Aim for stability before speed; a predictable system can always be accelerated later.
Day‑in‑the‑Life of a Kanban Team
| Time | Activity | Why It Matters |
| 09:00 | Daily Flow Review; scan board, unblock stuck items | Keeps flow smooth; replaces sprint commitment ceremony |
| 10:00‑12:00 | Focus time on highest‑priority tickets | Pull after finishing, not on a clock |
| 13:30 | Replenishment Meeting (when ready threshold hit) | Stakeholders replenish the ‘Ready’ column based on capacity |
| 15:30 | Metrics glance; update CFD | Continuous sensing; feeds improvement |
| End of day | Kaizen huddle if anomalies found | Micro‑retros drive evolutionary change |
No Sprint Planning, no hard time-boxes; the rhythm flexes around flow signals. However, notice the team is still "meeting" (collaborating and having working sessions).
Kanban vs Scrum: The Decision Tree
Use this quick diagnostic to choose—or blend—your approach.
Q1: Is your work feature‑centric with clear increments that benefit from timeboxed focus?
- Yes → go to Q2
- No → Kanban likely fits; proceed to implement flow board
Q2: Do stakeholders demand a steady cadence of commitments and reviews?
- Yes → Scrum offers disciplined Sprint boundaries; consider Scrum or Scrumban
- No → go to Q3
Q3: Is the team’s work highly interrupt‑driven (support, ops, ad‑hoc requests)?
- Yes → Kanban or a Kanban‑heavy Scrumban variant
- No → go to Q4
Q4: Does the organization already run multiple Scrum teams with synchronized review events?
- Yes → Scrum may scale more cleanly; keep Sprints
No → Kanban gives quick wins without altering org charts
Hybrid Path: If you answered “it depends” more than twice, experiment with Scrumban; keep Scrum’s roles and cadences but apply Kanban’s flow policies inside the Sprint.
Common Myths Busted
| Myth | Reality |
| “Kanban has no planning.” | It plans continuously via backlog replenishment & service classes. |
| “Scrum teams can’t use Kanban boards.” | Visualization and WIP limits super‑charge Scrum flow. |
| “Kanban is easier, so start there.” | Kanban’s discipline sits in policies & data; slack on those and chaos returns. |
Getting Started: A 30‑Day Kanban Experiment
- Map your workflow; use stickies or Miro; include queues, blockers.
- Set initial WIP limits; make them visible.
- Add explicit policies; ‘Definition of Done,’ pull rules.
- Track two metrics; start with flow efficiency and lead time.
- Hold weekly kaizen reviews; adjust one variable at a time.
Within a month you’ll have baseline data that removes guesswork from your next improvement.
Next Step: Kanban Immersion Workshop
Ready to turn theory into muscle memory? Join our Kanban Immersion class and spend two days:
- Building a real CFD from your work items,
- Stress‑testing WIP limits with simulations,
- Designing service classes that align with customer urgency.
I sum it up with this...if you know a lot about what you are doing (meaning, we do 100's of these things a day, we don't need to collaborate much, etc...), Kanban works well. If we don't know alot about what we are doing, tons of uncertainty, and requires cross-functional skills to deliver something, Scrum is great. Even if you have a high degree of unplanned work, you can still do Scrum with the left-over % of time to do projects that have timelines.