We are going to discuss Scrum Vs Agile Vs Kanban methodologies today to understand what is the difference between these three popular project management methodologies and how can you apply them to increase the productivity, efficiency and get more work done faster.
Scrum Vs Agile Vs Kanban:
Scrum and Kanban are part of Agile software development. A scrum method is one in which the structure is arranged in an organization, to achieve desired result the team keeps working on it, the team comprises of people with good skills in different functions to gather work. The aim of scrum is to complete small task in a given short period of time.
Whereas Kanban is a tool used to develop systematic and efficient organization. In this, the leaders break the work and check each item at every stage of the progress, they assign the time limit to each stage irrespective of the number of tasks. They try to minimize time to complete each task.
What is Kanban Method and Systems?
Kanban methodology is used for improving the rate of efficiency of the organization. It helps to estimate the time consumed for completing each task written under each stage in a Kanban board.
In this tool, work is being split into small parts so that it can be solved easily. The management tries to film the entire work and try to analyze and organize the work flow so that system will not slow down with more work.
Kanban system does not have a separate time frame which limits the task to be completed in a specific time. Since the cycle time is counted, one need to complete tasks in a short time.
How Kanban works:
In this project there are no specific roles assigned. Any other department involved in this project can work on the board, involved in their respective process.
The aim of Kanban process is to reduce work in progress, which is the major aspect for the company growth. Work in progress will delay the upcoming tasks, it will not allow to focus on one thing particularly.
By limiting this one focus on the review process where the task is checked, in case of failure it will take little amount of time to react and thus saves time and can take up new project immediately.
Objective of Kanban:
As said earlier Kanban is used to complete a task in less time. But how can management evaluate the results before startup?
So Kanban will allow to show big picture in front of the team, how it works and what results will be achieved with their current strategy. All they need to do is to prepare pictorial chart which display the results on screen.
One can analyze the workflow of the process, and the lead time to make it complete in defined time. The team can look at the charts and identify where they lag behind and prepare alternatives to overcome it.
Output of Kanban:
Kanban model allows to focus the cycle time of a workflow. The team can observe at which state the time is being invested more and leading to slow deliver on results.
For an example a client needs an insurance policy. The workflow in making a policy is being observed in Kanban, suppose it took so much time in policy checking and it did not meet the requirements to issue a policy, then one need to revert back to client get things cleared.
So here instead of wasting so much time on policy check, one can evaluate a new change which can deliver fast and can check in for new tasks to deliver results within no time.
What is Scrum Methodology?
Scrum methodology is generally used for developing software. The field in which software needs to be updated time to time to be competitive with other organizations, scrum methodology is used. It consists sprints in which certain task needs to be completed in a specific time. It can also be called as a framework to organize the project in a more effective way.
How Scrum works:
There is no boss to rule the team and organize them. The entire team will play a role and be responsible for any kind of issues they deal themselves with a team. In a process many functions would be responsible to deliver the output to the customer, so cross function would be part of the Scrum project.
Basically, there are two representatives in Scrum, one is master who guides the team the other is Product owner who helps in development of scrum software and support the time to deliver results.
Scrum process:
Scrum model has sprints, it is a time frame in which the entire process is to be completed within the bounded time. It starts with a meeting where they discuss what tasks to complete in the sprint, they assign sprint as per the points mentioned in the meeting. After observing sprint results, they move on to practical implementation of the same.
How is Scrum used for achieving results:
Scrum is used to input the organization ideas and deliver them practically to their customers. When the sprint starts, team just observes every task in being on the list, they add the product backlog in which the team member performing task will write a short note about its function and what things required to build it.
What is Agile Methodology?
Agile methodology is nothing but to develop software using a bunch of methods. The team will manage themselves with cross functional teams. This methodology is most preferred by organizations because it helps to deliver quality results to customer within less span of time and able to deliver incremental products to customer.
How Agile works:
Agile board will help the customer with unique features. The team will be assigned to time box where one need to release the output with the best results. Likewise, several time boxes are created for a particular process and each will consist of different features, all together the last build will comprise all the features built into each time box.
Aim of Agile:
The customer will not be satisfied with theoretical presentation, so Agile will help for a demo which gives a broad picture for customers. Communication with customer at regular intervals of the process will help to deliver better results by taking note of additional requirements of the customer or if needed any changes to be done. It is meant for immediate reflexive for changes.
Advantages of Agile:
One can visualize the entire work process. Cross functional team’s involvement will develop a mutual exchange of knowledge between team members. It is flexible for changes requested by customers. A good planning delivers an effective outcome of a product. The software developers will have scope to implement more ideas and can try them practically which may help in the organization growth.
Kanban Vs Scrum Differences:
Kanban and Scrum use agile methodology. In Scrum, they sketch for time boxes, but in Kanban the total workflow cycle takes into count hence the time will be limited by itself without involving time boxes in systems.
In Scrum a sprint is fixed in which team work for targeted results. In Kanban the team can be flexible. In Scrum, irrespective of teams across, all the functions work together. In Kanban it is not mandatory to have cross functional teams, they can have experts to resolve the solution.
Process Differences:
The entire work is divided into tiny units, so that the sprint that is provided will be done easily. In Kanban it is optional. In Scrum the team can have chart to view things in the big picture whereas there are charts in Kanban. As sprint is fixed in Scrum the work in progress will effect automatically without setting a particular limit in Kanban, the work in progress time is calculated particularly and fixed.
Responsibility differences:
In Scrum it is self organizing, there will be three roles in team i.e Product owner, Scrum master and the team. Where as in Kanban there are no particular roles assigned. It is flexible to add roles if the team needs it. It sets direction to the team and support will be provided by the experts. No one will rule the team, but can choose a representative for better results.
Other differences:
The scrum board can only be revised after each iteration where as in Kanban there is an option to keep adding changes. The Scrum board rests with one particular team, whereas in Kanban many teams can handle it. The principle is to speed up the workflow in Scrum.
In Kanban it is to reduce the cycle time or lead time of workflow processes. Scrum has certain constraints for performing iteration, Kanban does not have certain limitations that may resist to add new changes in process.
Conclusion:
The main objective of these methodologies Scrum Vs Agile Vs Kanban is to keep updating and react immediately to changes. The team will have lots of scope to acquire knowledge while performing this method.
Start from the existing process so that team will be aware of changes and can derive results, the same can then apply to large processes. It needs quality checking in the middle of process for a great experiment and to serve the customer with their requirements. They can also use both methodologies for better results.
Since both comes from agile software development any method will work for the organization improvement.
