What is Scrumban ?
5.Scrumban's Prinicples
Start with What You Do Now: This principle emphasizes the importance of beginning the transition to Scrumban from the current state of processes and practices. It encourages teams not to overhaul their existing systems entirely but to build upon them. This approach reduces resistance to change, minimizes disruption, and provides a familiar foundation on which to introduce Scrumban concepts gradually.
Respect the Current Process, Roles, Responsibilities, and Titles: Scrumban acknowledges the value of the existing organizational structure and the roles and processes already in place. This principle stresses the importance of maintaining respect for current roles and responsibilities, ensuring a smooth integration of Scrumban practices. It helps in retaining stability and continuity while new practices are being adopted.
Agree to Pursue Incremental, Evolutionary Change as Opportunities are Discovered: Scrumban advocates for a gradual, evolutionary approach to change, rather than drastic shifts. This principle is about making small, incremental improvements as opportunities arise. It allows teams to adapt and evolve at a manageable pace, integrating learnings and feedback continuously to refine processes and practices.
Encourage Acts of Leadership at All Levels of the Organization: This principle promotes the idea that leadership is not confined to traditional management roles but is a responsibility shared across all levels of the organization. Scrumban encourages individuals to take initiative, lead by example, and contribute to continuous improvement efforts, fostering a culture of shared leadership and collaborative problem-solving.
Together, these principles form the backbone of the Scrumban approach. They ensure that the transition to and implementation of Scrumban is pragmatic, respectful of existing structures, gradual, and inclusive of leadership from all members of the organization. This holistic approach helps in embedding Scrumban deeply into the fabric of the organization, leading to more sustainable and effective change.
6. Scrumban's 6 Practices
Visualize: Visualization is a key practice in Scrumban, involving the use of tools like Scrumban boards to map out the entire workflow. This practice makes the process, progress, and bottlenecks visible to all team members, facilitating a clear understanding of the current state of work. It aids in identifying issues and optimizing the workflow.
Limit WIP (Work In Progress): Limiting WIP is crucial in Scrumban to prevent overloading the team and to maintain a sustainable pace of work. By setting WIP limits for various stages of the workflow, teams can focus better, reduce context-switching, and improve the quality of their output. This practice also helps in identifying process inefficiencies and reducing lead times.
Manage Flow: Managing the flow of work is about ensuring that tasks move smoothly through the workflow without unnecessary delays or bottlenecks. This involves monitoring the work process, adjusting WIP limits as needed, and ensuring that tasks are completed in a timely manner. Effective flow management leads to more predictable delivery timelines and improved productivity.
Make Policies Explicit: This practice involves clearly defining and communicating the policies and rules governing the workflow, task handling, and team interactions. Making policies explicit ensures that everyone understands the process, leading to consistency in how work is handled and reducing misunderstandings or conflicts.
Develop Feedback Mechanisms at the Workflow, Inter-Workflow, and Organizational Levels: Scrumban emphasizes the importance of feedback at multiple levels. This includes feedback within the workflow (like daily stand-ups), between different workflows (coordinating across teams or departments), and at the organizational level (strategic reviews).
These mechanisms help in continuously improving processes and adapting to changing requirements.
Improve Collaboratively Using Model-Driven Experiments: This practice encourages the use of empirical data to drive improvements. Teams are encouraged to experiment with changes to their workflow or processes, observe the results, and learn from them. This collaborative and experimental approach fosters a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.
Together, these practices help in implementing Scrumban effectively. They support a culture of transparency, continuous improvement, and efficient workflow management, all of which are key to the success of projects managed under the Scrumban framework.