Scrum with Kanban practices versus Kanban practices
Scrum with Kanban knows four practices:
- Defining & visualizing the workflow
- Limiting work in progress (WIP)
- Actively managing items in progress
- Inspecting & adapting your workflow
Kanban on the other hand knows six practices:
- Visualize the workflow
- Limit work in progress
- Manage flow
- Make process policies explicit
- Feedback loops
- Improve collaboratively
The first two are the same, but the last ones seem to differ a bit. Does anybody happen to know why there is a deviation from these Kanban principles?
My first guess would be that Kanban 3 and 4 combined make number 3 of Scrum with Kanban. The Kanban ones seem a bit more self explanatory though.
Kanban number 5 (feedback loops) does include the seven Kanban meetings. Getting rid of those in the context of Scrum makes sense, I suppose. Scrum already has its own events.
The 6 practices that you identify come from David Anderson's Kanban Method. However, the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams is based on the work of Daniel Vacanti, and his Kanban Guide is available online.
Vacanti's Kanban Guide defines three practices:
- Defining and visualizing the workflow
- Actively managing items in a workflow
- Improving the workflow
The Kanban Guide's practice of managing items in a workflow includes both limiting WIP and various methods of managing WIP, such as avoiding pile ups, using the SLE to minimize aging, and unblocking work. It's not entirely clear to me why the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams split these practices into two separate practices.
Bear in mind that PSK offers a strategic approach to Kanban, in other words, it is Kanban applied as a strategy within the context of Scrum. The Kanban practices needed might, therefore, be expressed even more parsimoniously.
Thanks Thomas, I didn't realise that. It put me on the right track to understanding this.