What Is Scrumban? Definition and Implementation

What is Scrumban?

Scrumban is a popular agile development approach, combining two product management tools – scrum and kanban.

By integrating these two tools, teams can benefit from the essential aspects of both models. Such as the efficiency of scrum and the visual organization of kanban. 

Moreover, scrumban proves to be a more flexible model than other productivity tools. This is because it is a combination of two tools and can be adjustable according to a team’s individual needs. 

Teams using the scrumban approach usually undertake strategic tasks and improve their processes simultaneously. 

Sprints serve as milestones or deadlines in the developmental process.

During sprint meetings, team members focus only on the agreed tasks. There is a daily check-up on what tasks get accomplished during the day. 

Between two sprints, there’s another meeting held to discuss which tasks to continue with. 

On the other hand, kanban is more of a visual organization tool to clarify team members’ tasks and accomplishments. 

There is a kanban board created on which there are specific column labels. For example, “assigned,” “in progress,” “under review,” “accomplished,” and so on. 

As teams work on a particular project, they can shift the labels from one to another as per their progress. It improves efficiency, gives easy access, and updates on the progress of the project within no time. 

How does Scrumban work?

As mentioned before, scrumban is a hybrid of two techniques. Thus, the implementation of scrumban involves a combined set of steps from both methods. The steps are as follows: 

• Making of scrumban board: This board is similar to the Kanban board with the necessary columns with labels such as “assigned,” “in-progress,” “completed,” etc.

• Setting time limits for work-in-progress: This step is a derivative of the scrum technique where each sprint is time-bound. As a result, the team develops a realistic time limit for each goal to avoid frustration.

• Listing team’s priority tasks: This step demonstrates the difference between Scrum, kanban, and scrumban. In scrum, the tasks get assigned to specific individuals for each sprint. In scrumban, however, the focus is to collectively decide the priority tasks of the team and decide who completes them.

• Planning poker: This strategy is used in scrum to estimate the effort and time required to complete any task. Since sprint has a time limit, only a specific goal can get accomplished, which is very rigid. However, in Scrumban, there is no time limit, and the work is continuous. Thus, the focus is on prioritizing essential tasks.

• Setting up daily meetings: Although the number of meetings in Scrumban is lesser than those in scrum, shorter meetings are held to discuss plans and challenges. These meetings always enhance team cohesiveness, bonding, and problem-solving abilities. 

How is Scrumban different from scrum?

Scrum is a simple, agile framework that you can put up quickly. Here are three primary characteristics that might get used to describe it:

• Iterations (sprints) and their events.
• Scrum master, product owner, and development team are the three prominent roles.
• Functional requests in the backlog.

The scrumban combines the principles of “scrum” and “kanban.” We will profit from scrum’s backlogs, roles, pillars, and kanban’s strong pull flow concept.

Scrumban can be a suitable solution for teams with genuine planning restrictions, like support, infrastructure, and TMA teams.

How to implement scrumban method?

Make a scrumban board

If you’re familiar with kanban, creating a board that looks like a billboard and using it to track the primary workflow is simple. Add columns as needed, but don’t overdo it. Allow each team member to have their column for simple tracking of all ongoing tasks.

Keep track of deadlines

Even if the team marks work in progress, it must be time-bound because the scrum relies on this idea. Kanban can be a continuous workflow tracking system. Still, it must be defined within a specific time to adhere to scrum methodology. As a result, this scenario combines the kanban workflow with scrum time limitations.

Prioritization of projects

To understand why you must remember that each developer or testing located a specific assignment for each sprint in scrum. All work is listed on the scrumban board and prioritized. Based on their workload and experience, the team will distribute.

Get your poker cards handy

Because each sprint must last between 15 and 30 days, each sprint can only complete one project portion. Use poker cards or similar tools to evaluate the tale points for each job. As a result, you can see that this is a continuous approach that is also time-bound.

Meeting agenda

A daily standup, sprint planning, reviewing, and retrospectives are just a few of the meetings that occur in scrum. Everyone can see kanban at all times. As a result, Scumban will only have a couple of short daily meetings. It could be possible to conduct it every day simultaneously to allow the team to discuss what gets done and what needs get prioritized.

What are the roles in Scrumban?

Product owner, scrum master, and the team play roles in scrum.

The product owner is in charge of the product’s vision and priorities and decides which items or user stories are the most important to work on and finish within a sprint. 

Product roadmap tools and product management software can help in this process. 

The scrum master ensures that the scrum process follows the agreed-upon steps, resolves any concerns, and offers leadership in its operation. The product gets developed and implemented by the team.