Scrum, Kanban or a Mix of Both? A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

4Among the Agile methods, Scrum and Kanban are widely used in software development and they are considered the two most effective ones influencing the direct results of projects. Despite the importance of knowing their relative strengths and advantages and integrating them to achieve better results than individual use, none of the secondary studies provide extensive knowledge on the topic. In this paper, we performed a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) study to investigate the characteristics of the empirical studies which involve Scrum and Kanban by comparing or integrating them. Our final set includes 38 studies posing primary information on the advantages of each method over another one, the properties including artifacts, roles, and events from Scrum and Kanban in combining them in a hybrid way, and the properties of transitions from one to another such as transition directions (Scrum to Kanban, Kanban to Scrum or Scrum/Kanban to Hybrid), transition years, and transition reasons. The outputs can be interesting for both industry and researchers. For example, nearly all of the transitioning organizations are moving from Scrum to Kanban or to hybrid method. Among the reasons for the transitions, the problems experienced with Scrum are remarkable. In comparison, Kanban stands out clearly in a positive way. Almost all of the teams combining both use flow instead of a sprint.

A bibliometric analysis of Agile software development publications originating from Turkey

“…This implies that organizations in Turkey prefer to use a mix of known and/or currently used methods instead of using them in their raw formats. A similar picture may be seen in the study by Ozkan et al, 63 stating that a considerable number of the transitioning organizations studied are moving to a hybrid Agile method.…”

Systematic Literature Review of Trend and Characteristic Agile Model

“…In practice, Kanban provides great flexibility and can be adapted very well to projects that have different needs and characteristics, for the success of kanban, a deep understanding of kanban principles and practices is required, as well as the participation of all members [13] .…”

Análise do uso de quadro digital Kanban no desenvolvimento do software.

“…O Kanban é mais flexível e adaptável do que o Scrum, sem as chamadas "timeboxes" ou "sprints", papéis, e regras, as equipes Kanban sentem-se mais capazes de lidar com seus processos internos e responder rapidamente com seu gerenciamento de fluxo contínuo, permitindo o replanejamento constante diante da incerteza, mudanças frequentes e respostas mais rápidas (Ozkan, Bal, Erdogan, & Gok, 2022).…”

“…Não exige grandes mudanças no comportamento diário da equipe de desenvolvimento pois propõe poucas cerimônias e se encaixa no processo em andamento (Ozkan, Bal, Erdogan, & Gok, 2022). Já o Scrum, por introduzir diversas cerimônias, sofre adaptações a cada implementação de acordo com os costumes da organização (Raunak & Binkley, 2017).…”

“…Além de proporcionar uma melhor qualidade, cronograma de projeto, gerenciamento de riscos e recursos, confiabilidade, resultados de tempo de execução, desempenho, visibilidade, rastreabilidade, trabalho em equipe, satisfação dos membros individuais da equipe, feedback regular mais rápido e contatos mais próximos com os usuários, o Kanban também não impõe prazo para a conclusão de conjunto de tarefas em janelas de tempo como no Scrum e, portanto, resulta em melhor qualidade e menos estresse conforme relatado por diversos estudos que o compararam qualitativamente e quantitativamente com o Scrum(Ozkan, Bal, Erdogan, & Gok, 2022).…”