Advantages of Kanban Over Scrum

1. Kanban is more Flexible than Scrum

Kanban allows users to make real-time updates, changes, or patches in the project workflow. This makes it more flexible in Scrum which has fixed spring durations for updating the workflow. This advantage of Kanban over Scrum is useful in cases where the project has immediate changes or updates in the workflow.

2. Kanban Delivers Continuously while Scrum Delivers Iteratively

As we know Agile focuses on iterative development of the product. However, the delivery of the increment is different in different Agile methods. In Kanban, the deliverables are shipped as soon as they are developed but in Scrum, they are shipped only at the end of the iteration. Hence, Kanban follows a continuous delivery of project outcomes.

3. Kanban Involves Flexible Roles but Scrum has Fixed Roles

In Kanban, there are no fixed roles or responsibilities defined for the project execution. Thus, tasks can be executed by anyone which saves time. On the other hand, Scrum includes the role of Scrum Master, Product Owners, and Developer team with multiple roles. Hence, we cannot progress ahead in Scrum unless we define the roles and responsibilities.

4. Kanban’s Visual Work Tracking is More Appealing than Scrum

Although the Scrum project has burndown charts and sprint backlogs, they are less accessible for some teams. However, Kanban has a visual board-based approach for task tracking that includes intuitive visual cards with swimlanes and columns. It is more appealing and can be easily accessed by various stakeholders.

5. Kanban Does Not have the Overhead of Sprint Planning like Scrum

The Scrum Principle focuses on the extensive sprint planning in the project. But sometimes, these extensive plans may cause a project delay. Kanban is advantageous in this case as it does not have any overhead of meetings or sessions to plan the sprint.

6. Kanban Predicts More Accurate Lead Time

Lead time is the time between the start of the task and its completion. Since Kanban has a continuous workflow, we can easily predict when a particular task or activity will be completed. But, in Scrum, lead time is always fixed in terms of sprint duration. This is not good in cases where the task needs earlier delivery.

7. Kanban has Reduced Work-In-Limit(WIP) Progress

Agile divides the Project into Smaller subtasks that include multiple tasks and activities to execute the project. The point of concern here is that if we do not limit the number of activities under a subtask, it will lead to an overload of tasks. Scrum has a fixed set of tasks per iteration. But, Kanban allows us to limit the number of tasks at a given time which makes workflow consistent.

8. Kanban Provides Quicker Customer Feedback

Scrum has feedback sessions at the end of the sprint but the continuous workflow of Kanban helps us to quickly deliver the project. Due to this, the project experts get enough time to gain customer insights in the form of real-time feedback. This is important for correctly evaluating and assessing the project.

If you are having trouble with choosing the right tool between Kanban and Scrum, you have landed in the right place. This article lists an in-depth explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of Kanban over Scrum. By the time you finish reading this article, you will be able to decide the right tool for your project management needs.

Agile Methodologies have gained huge popularity among Project Experts as they have made project execution and delivery simple and easy. Among all the Agile Frameworks, Kanban and Scrum are the two most important ones that are being used these days. However, Kanban offers visual workflow and continuous delivery which has more benefits in comparison to the Scrum Methodology.

In this comprehensive guide, we will see what are the key benefits of Kanban over Scrum with practical examples so that we can easily choose the right tool based on our project requirements.