What Scrumban Really Is
Fundamentally, Scrumban is a management framework that emerges when teams employ Scrum as their chosen way of working and use the Kanban Method as a lens through which to view, understand and continuously improve how they work.
Scrumban is distinct from Scrum in the way it emphasizes certain principles and practices that are substantially different from Scrum's traditional foundation. Among these are:
- recognizing the important role of organizational management (self-organization remains an objective, but within the context of specific boundaries)
- allowing for specialized teams and functions
- applying explicit policies around ways of working
- applying the laws of flow and queuing theory
- deliberate economic prioritization
Scrumban is distinct from the Kanban Method in that it:
- prescribes an underlying software development process framework (Scrum) as its core
- is organized around teams
- recognizes the value of time-boxed iterations when appropriate
- formalizes continuous improvement techniques within specific ceremonies
Perhaps most importantly, the principles and practices embedded within Scrumban are not unique to the software development process. They can be easily applied in many different contexts, providing a common language and shared experience across interrelated business functions. This, in turn, enhances the kind of organizational alignment that is an essential characteristic of success.
A Framework for [R]Evolution
When Corey Ladas introduced the world to Scrumban in his seminal book, Scrumban: Essays on Kanban Systems for Lean Software Development (Modus Cooperandi Press, 2009), he boldly defined it as a transition method for moving software development teams from Scrum to a “more evolved” software development framework. In actual practice, however, Scrumban has itself evolved to become a family of principles and practices that create complementary capabilities unique from both Scrum and the Kanban Method. These capabilities have led to three distinct manifestations:
> As a framework that helps teams and organizations effectively adopt Scrum as a development methodology.As a framework that helps teams and organizations overcome a variety of common challenges scaling Scrum across the Enterprise.
As a framework that helps teams and organizations develop their own set of Scrum-based processes and practices that work best for them -- not to accommodate inadequacies and dysfunctions Scrum exposed, but to resolve them in a manner that was most effective for their unique environment.
I believe these different manifestations have arisen because teams and organizations are acutely aware of all the great things an underlying Scrum methodology brings to the table. These include capabilities like:
* fostering a team-based focus to facilitate the alignment of purpose and vision
* enhancing performance and the adoption of change through cadence and rhythm
* helping to enforce a focus on shorter term planning as compared to more traditional methods
* emphasizing customer participation and the delivery of value from customer’s perspective
* enforcing a focus on smaller sizes of work
* enabling collaboration
* promoting shared ownership and cross functional capabilities
On the other hand, too many of these teams and organizations face challenges in effectively adopting Scrum for which the framework lends little guidance. These include challenges like:
- effectively managing around the variability and unpredictability inherent in the nature of our work (especially, in many contexts, around its arrival)
- deliberately addressing longer term considerations such as architecture
- overcoming psychological barriers to change and implementation
- achieving uniformity in the effectiveness of the Product Owner role and how to scale the function performed by this role across larger enterprises
- relating market risk to Sprint Commitments
- eliminating traditional reliance on deterministic planning
- minimizing reliance on top down/vertical buy-in with affirmations of servant leadership
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2431512&WT.mc_id=Author_Reddy_Scrumban
