Kanban Misconception: You Either Use Scrum or You Use Kanban

Scrum is the most widely used Agile approach in the industry and for good reason. The Scrum Guide provides a core set of roles, events, artifacts, and principles. The Scrum framework is a great starting point for many teams and organizations. Even when organizations use Scrum widely, Kanban often has a place for:

• Very small teams
• Teams with highly dynamic and emergent work like product support teams
• Highly solo work where no collaboration is needed to create a work product
• As a program or portfolio management solution to manage the work for many Scrum teams

Organizations that want more flexibility in their approach or a more evolutionary approach to change than Scrum provides still may want to use aspects of Scrum in their adoption. Some Kanban teams will start with structured two-week retrospectives if spontaneous improvement ideas aren’t arising.

You either use Scrum, or you use Kanban is a false dichotomy. Instead, ask the question: where might Kanban be useful to my project or organization.

More Kanban Misconceptions

• Kanban is Too Complex
• There is No Estimation in Kanban
• Kanban is Only a Board
• Kanban is Just Scrum Without Iterations