I think Scrum and Kanban together are even better. Scrum is the most systematic Agile method, which ensures a foreseeable, strategically planned and an iterative product outcome. It meets up greatly with the changing requirements. Also, the roles and responsibilities are precisely defined using Scrum. Whereas, Kanban is less planned than scrum.
Gendel (2014) presents a great example below of using Scrum and Kanban together.
- Individual team level: Using Kanban pull-based work scheduling intra-sprint (Scrum)
- As per Scrum:
- Maintain a product backlog that is prioritized, based on the business value assigned by the PO.
- Conduct regular sprint planning sessions to define the scope of each upcoming sprint.
- Forecast/commit work for a sprint based on established velocity trends.
- As per Kanban (once a sprint is in flight):
- Start pulling work from the very first (“to-do”) queue, based on the difference between the WIP limit and vacancy in downstream queues (pulling the initial few stories should be easy as vacancy would be always equal to WIP).
- Ensure that a team swarms around work (stories) in such way that in downstream queues, WIP limits are neither violated nor does the vacancy become too high.
- Treat an intra-sprint workflow as a “cyclic conveyor belt” that must never become too loose or too tight. Ideally, intra-sprint, throughput must be consistent at each queue (more complex, multiflow Kanban systems with various WIP queue limits are out of the scope of this discussion).
- As per Scrum:
The teams achieve more accuracy in predicting the delivery of the product when they use Scrum and Kanban together. The pace of Scrum supports handling WIP limits at each sprint and Kanbanmanages WIP with definite exactness at queue level.
“Effectively, Kanban helps optimize team swarming and therefore ensures gradual workflow from the beginning of a sprint to its end. Effectively, intra-sprint Kanban workflow management is the second line of defense to ensure the predictability of Scrum delivery.” (Gendel, 2014)
References:
Gendel, G. (2014) Scrum and Kanban at the Enterprise and Team Levels. Available at: https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2014/june/scrum-kanban-enterprise-and-team-level(Accessed: 13 September 2017)
