What is Scrumban ?
7.Scrumban's Team perspective
The essence of Scrumban lies in its approach to team dynamics and structure, distinctively blending the frameworks Scrum and Kanban. In Scrumban, the team is the fundamental unit, but the framework diverges from Scrum's rigid structure, embracing a more fluid and adaptable composition.
Team Composition and Roles
Scrumban does not mandate fixed roles like Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Developers. Instead, it allows for flexibility in roles and responsibilities, adapting to the team's needs and the nature of the product.
The team in Scrumban is cross-functional, possessing a diverse range of skills necessary to manage and complete work effectively. However, it doesn’t confine members to specific titles or responsibilities.
Team Size and Structure:
Scrumban teams are typically small to ensure agility and effective communication but can vary in size based on the product’s requirements. The key is maintaining a balance that supports collaboration without hindering efficiency.
There are no sub-teams or strict hierarchies within a Scrumban team. The structure is designed to promote unity and collective accountability, with a focus on the overall progress and success of the project.
Team Dynamics
Scrumban teams are self-organizing and empowered to make decisions about their work process. This autonomy supports a more dynamic and responsive approach to product development.
Teams adopt a collaborative approach to prioritize tasks, manage workflow, and address challenges, drawing on the strengths of each member to optimize performance.
Work Management
The Scrumban board is a critical tool for teams, providing a visual representation of work progress, WIP limits, and workflow stages. This visualization aids in managing tasks and identifying bottlenecks.
Planning and execution in Scrumban are demand-driven and iterative, allowing teams to adapt to changing requirements and priorities effectively.
Continuous Improvement
A core principle of Scrumban is the commitment to continuous improvement. Teams regularly inspect their processes and outcomes, adapting their strategies and techniques to enhance efficiency and quality.
Feedback mechanisms and reflective practices, such as reviews and retrospectives, are integral to Scrumban teams, fostering a culture of ongoing learning and development.
In summary, the Scrumban team perspective centers on flexibility, adaptability, and continuous improvement. It eschews rigid roles and structures in favor of a more dynamic and responsive
approach, empowering teams to tailor their practices to best suit the project and organizational context.
This approach enables Scrumban teams to effectively navigate complex work environments, delivering value in a sustainable and efficient manner.
8. Scrumban's adaptability and flexibility
By integrating Kanban and Lean practices and principles, the Scrumban framework creates a more flexible and efficient framework:
Sprint Planning Adaptation: Scrumban modifies the regular, time-boxed sprint planning of Scrum. Planning becomes more fluid and is often triggered by demand or when the team's backlog reaches a certain threshold. This approach aligns with Lean principles of just-in-time production, ensuring that planning is relevant and responsive to current needs.
Daily Stand-Ups: While Scrumban retains the daily stand-up from Scrum, its focus shifts to not just discussing progress but also visualizing workflow and identifying bottlenecks, in line with Kanban’s emphasis on visual management.
Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives: Scrumban adapts these ceremonies to be less about time-boxed deliverables and more about continuous review and improvement of the work process. The retrospectives in Scrumban often focus on evaluating workflow efficiency, aligning with Lean’s emphasis on eliminating waste and optimizing processes.
Kanban Board Integration: Scrumban uses a Kanban board to visualize work. This board continuously displays all tasks in various stages of the workflow, unlike other boards, which reset after each sprint. This ongoing visualization supports Lean's continuous flow principle.
WIP Limits: Scrumban introduces Work In Progress (WIP) limits, a core Kanban principle. This helps manage the team's workload, prevent overcommitment, and improve focus on current tasks, resonating with Lean’s concept of balancing load with capacity.
Flow Management: Instead of working in fixed iterations, Scrumban emphasizes managing and improving the flow of work. This approach is derived from Kanban, focusing on ensuring a steady and continuous workflow, which is a key Lean principle.
Feedback Loops: Scrumban establishes shorter and more continuous feedback loops. This frequent inspection and adaptation of work and processes align with both Kanban's focus on ongoing improvement and Lean's iterative approach.
Pull System: Scrumban incorporates Kanban’s pull system, where tasks are "pulled" into the workflow based on the team’s current capacity. This method ensures that work aligns with the team's ability to deliver, adhering to Lean’s principle of demand-driven production.
Elimination of Overproduction: In line with Lean thinking, Scrumban focuses on minimizing overproduction. By aligning work with actual demand and capacity, it ensures that the team is not overburdened with excess tasks, enhancing overall efficiency.
In summary, Scrumban adapts Scrum ceremonies when the context is asking for that, by incorporating Kanban's visualization, flow management, and WIP limits, and Lean principles of just-in-time planning, continuous improvement, and elimination of waste. This integration results in a more flexible, efficient, and responsive approach to managing complex products.