Scrum and Kanban stronger together

What is your reaction to reading this post’s headline? Do you feel a sense of
affirmation because you believe that Scrum and Kanban are compatible? Or
do you feel irritated because you fall firmly in either the Scrum or Kanban
camp and believe one approach outperforms the other?

I believe that exploring how Scrum and Kanban can complement each other is
long overdue. I base this opinion on my experience as a former Accredited
Kanban Trainer and Coaching Professional and my current role as a
Professional Scrum Trainer and Scrum.org team member. My take is that
because Kanban and Scrum practitioners have broken into separate camps,
software teams are missing out on practices that would improve their
effectiveness.

I’m not alone. Daniel Vacanti makes the same argument. Daniel was on the
team that developed the Kanban method, and he was the first manager to
apply Kanban within the context of a real-life project. Today, he is the CEO
and co-founder of ActionableAgile and author of Actionable Agile Metrics for
Predictability. He wants to see greater collaboration between our two
communities as well.

Many of us whose role it is to promote Scrum and Kanban have improved our
understanding of each approach and recognize that the two have more
similarities than differences. Daniel and I agree that rather than wasting
energy defending our separate camps, there’s greater value to gain from
working together on our shared goal of helping organizations deliver
outstanding value to their customers.
Why this is the time to foster a new Scrum-Kanban Relationship
Scrum recently celebrated its 21st birthday, which in many cultures is the age
of adulthood. It’s a significant milestone that is often an occasion for reflection.
Scrum has achieved a lot over the past two decades. Ninety percent of teams
that use Agile use Scrum with a total of 12-15 million practitioners. What will
sustain Scrum’s relevance in the decades to come is our commitment to the
Scrum values, which were recently added to the Scrum Guide. One of these
values is openness. When we are aware of other effective Agile practices that
are complementary to Scrum, we should embrace them. It’s time to recognize
the strengths inherent in the practices of Kanban and to explore how our two
approaches can connect to produce better outcomes.

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From Daniel’s perspective, he is experiencing a renewed spirit of inclusion
and collaboration born from a movement within the Kanban community to
return to its roots. “For many reasons, the Kanban community has strayed
from its founding principles of inclusion, learning, and collaboration,” he
explains. “During the process of exploring how we need to regroup, the
Kanban community is looking at what makes other communities successful.
This has led to a realization that we have much more in common with other
groups than we had previously acknowledged.”

Making the Case

Daniel and I are going to explore how together our two approaches can
achieve better results. To kick off that exploration, we’re going to start with a
blog post series that will cover the basics of Scrum and Kanban and tackle
how the various practices can enhance each approach.

We invite you to contribute your thoughts and suggestions. If there are points
you would like us to cover or questions you’d like us to answer, let us
know in the comments, and we’ll make sure to address them.