Salesforce Scrumban

A combination of scrum-project-management and kanban-project-management methodologies (and when to use which).

Choosing a Framework

Ask yourself these questions:

• Is your team focused on predictability and productivity for large projects?
  • Predicable, project-based: Scrum
  • Interruption-driven, unforeseeable work: Kanban
• How far in advance can your team plan?
  • If your backlog is full of smaller chunks of projects / it’s easier to plan predictably: Scrum
  • Do your priorities change quickly / often? Does work change frequently mid-sprint? Kanban
• Is the new work truly an emergency?
  • Ask these questions when determining if a new work item as truly an emergency:
    1. Can this project cause disruptions that are time-consuming and demoralizing?
    2. Is the needed work business-stopping or can we lose business if it’s not done now?
    3. Do the disruptions prevent the team from finish more valuable work?
    4. Do the interruptions prevent the team from completing the most important thing first?
    5. What’s the root cause of this needed work, and why wasn’t it identified in the planning phase?
  • Most of the time the new work items are results of bad-planning, and not really indicative of interruption-driven work (which would mean that you should consider Kanban).
• How quickly are you required to deliver the new work?

Which one to use?

Use Kanban if it’s necessary to change directions often, minimize disruptions to a plan, and start the urgent work quickly.

Use Scrum if you’re managing a large planned project, your team can commit to a 2-week (or however long your sprints are) chunk of work, and the stakeholder can wait until the end of the sprint for the team to start the work.

Scrumban

• Essentially picking and choosing parts of Scrum and Kanban to fit your team’s needs.
• E.g., Teams enjoy the structure of regular planning & review cadence (Scrum) while using the WIP limits of Kanban to allow them to be flexible to urgent work