Project Management Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for project managers. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I am new to Scrum and Kanban. So far, I understand that the Task Board is something that is originally from Kanban, but I am using an online Scrum tool that also also offers that board.
Is the Task Board with columns like "To-Do", "Doing", and "Done" the only thing in Kanban? Is it actually a part of modern Scrum?
Being new to Agile can be overwhelming with all of the different terminology that you hear getting thrown around. I had difficulty grappling with these two words in particular at first, as well.
I'll try to lay out the major methodological differences, without getting into the philosophy, where I'm not quite so strong.
Scrum:
Kanban:
The most evident differences then are the design of the task board and the use of the sprints. Other philosophical differences accompany either one. Both have been around for a while, but Kanban's background is in lean manufacturing, and is only recently being brought into the Agile Software toolbox.
There is no reason that a Kanban board can't be used within the Scrum methodology to get better tracking of where each task is. This is commonly referred to as Scrumban.
It is important to differentiate between kanban (the artifact) and Kanban (the methodology).
A kanban is actually just a sign-board. In many agile methodologies, a kanban is used to hold kanban cards, which generally contain user stories. In manufacturing, the kanban cards are a signal to pull parts or supplies into the process at the point where a card is encountered.
The Kanban methodology (as used in software development) generally uses a kanban holding kanban cards, but Kanban itself is in fact a full-fledged process framework based around pull-queues.
While most agile frameworks share commonalities, they aren't interchangeable. Scrum and XP teams often use kanban boards as iconic artifacts within their process, but their use is not required practice.
Scrum is an agile framework primarily based on time-boxed iterations, while Kanban is generally based on continuous queue-based flow. Both methodologies have adherents, but pragmatic practitioners often borrow specific practices from other agile methodologies, which is why kanban boards are so often seen in Scrum implementations.
The task board is actually not part of Scrum. Scrum is a framework, primarily with a project management style (time/deadline) focus, which defines three named roles, two backlogs (sprint and product), four meetings, and various time-boxes for each event. Beyond that, the field is open to the team to determine what the best way to get the work done is, as they are self-organizing and self-managing.
The Kanban board comes from Lean Manufacturing concepts (which did inspire the developers of Scrum) and is used to measure, monitor, and improve the flow of work through a process. They also attempt to minimize work in progress by limiting the number of cards which can be in given step of the process as well as how many cards each team member can work on at a given time.
Some teams, using the Scrum framework, use Kanban boards during their sprints as an information radiator to those interested parties who want "the status" of the team - and team members in general. These people can walk by the board (transparency is a big deal in Agile) at any time and get a feel for what is happening. However, the tool itself is not a strict part of Agile (preferring "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools") nor Scrum ("a small baby process") specifically.
Hope that helps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BWbaZs1M_8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_47VWIvOKH8
http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Lean-Software-Development-Results/dp/0321620704
Kanban is a set of three (and just three), simple, rules:
There's a very good book (available for free) by Henrik Kniberg and Mattias Skarin: "Kanban and Scrum - making the most of both" (http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/kanban-scrum-minibook). It explains all differences between Scrum and Kanban in a very clear way.
In Kanban there is no task board. The visualise the workflow principle suggests to so the current state of the work items, which can be user requests, bugs, features or user stories. Moreover, in Kanban you don't visualise a team's work, but the whole organisation. Here is an example:
Additionally, Kanban should visualize the whole process, because this is the place where it can help the most. Don’t get me wrong, it is also fine to have Kanban on the team level, but the real optimization and improvement should happen on the highest possible level.
A more interesting fact, that there is no Kanban board at Toyota. They use a Heijunka board which looks similar to our Kanban boards, but it is used for signalling: knowing that something is wrong or can be improved.
The boards in different Lean/Agile/Kanban approaches look the same, but their purpose is different (Agile: tracking, Lean: signalling, Kanban: improving). Therefore if you look at a certain board, it is good to know which method the owner of the board is using.
Aside from the other answers mentioned in this post, there some more differences between Scrum and Kanban which could give a clearer view of their differences.
Scrum
Kanban
