Scrum vs Kanban Cheat Sheet - the mistakes!

Scrum pointed out SIX issues with the Scrum vs Kanban Cheat Sheet. Five of them are excellent. One of them...

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Scrum got in touch. He had a few things to say about the “Scrum vs Kanban Cheat Sheet”.

Scrum suggested six changes: five... I implemented immediately; one… I have a problem with.

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96. Scrum vs Kanban Cheat Sheet - the mistakes!
# #DevelopmentThatPays

This is the “Scrum vs Kanban Cheat Sheet” Issue 1.5 of the “Scrum vs Kanban Cheat Sheet” to be precise. It’s been downloaded 3,085 times. And it's been through a bunch of iterations. I thought I'd got most of the kinks out it. Then, three days ago, I received a message. A message containing a whole list of corrections. When I saw who it came from, I sat up and took notice. It came... from Scrum! The message contained six points in all. Shall we take a look One - Sprint Planning --- ‘Sprint Planning is part of each Sprint: "A new Sprint starts immediately after the conclusion of the previous Sprint."’* I confess I was never clear on this; I’d assumed that the Sprint started after Sprint Planning. On this one, I stand corrected. Two - Lead Developer ----- ‘There is no Lead Developer role or title in the Scrum framework.’ True. (Although, there’s no Lead Developer role - or any role at all - in Kanban.) But I do take the point. The “Lead Developer” role appears on the Cheat Sheet in a few places. In most - if not all - cases, swapping “Lead Developer” for “Development Team” would make more sense. Three - "Facilitate", not "run" ----- ‘Neither it nor any other event is "run by the Scrum Master" as he is not a manager/boss though he may facilitate the event.’ Scrum’s right: there’s a world of difference between “is run by” and “may be facilitated by”. Four - Continuous Delivery -------- ‘Continuous delivery is permitted and often encouraged.’ This is a good catch. My first Scrum team wouldn’t have dreamed of releasing more than once a week - such was the pain of releasing at this "major broadcaster". But in more recent times, I’ve been in Scrum teams that were comfortable with multiple releases per sprint. And even with continuous delivery. Five - More than a Demo ------ ‘There is a Sprint Review which is much more than a Demo.’ I went straight to The Scrum Guide to check it out. Turns out, the term “Sprint Demo” isn’t in the Scrum Guide. Never was. And what appears under “Sprint Review” is more that a demo. Much more. Far more! And finally ---- Five down. One to go: ‘WIP limits do not "ensure that items move across the board in the shortest possible time." It can affect cycle time due to increased focus and decreased context switching.’ Ah. Now. Here’s where I have to disagree with Scrum. Focus and context switching are certainly factors. (We’ve gone into detail about context switching before here on Development That Pays.) But they’re second order factors. Let me see if I can show you. Three cups. WIP limit of three. Move each in turn. After three moves, all three have moved... a little. Let’s run that again, this time with a WIP limit of one. This time, one cup moves a long way - all the way across the board. Ready for release. We have a winner. Context Switching was not a major factor. Bottlenecks ---- I should mention that Scrum went on to say this about WIP limits: ‘One of the biggest benefits is identifying bottlenecks in the pipeline’ And on that point, Scrum and I are in complete agreement. New Improved Scrum vs Kanban Cheat Sheet ----- My thanks to Scrum for making this episode possible, and for helping me to improve the “Scrum vs Kanban Cheat Sheet” If you’re yet to grab your copy, what are you waiting for ! It’s better than ever!

[Developmentthatpays]

Things to watch out for: cups!
Things to listen out for: a professional voice actor!
Enjoy the video...

[wandacoustas]

How delightful, to see Agile in motion (reflection; adjustment; welcome of changing requirements; continuous attention), so that you not only present 'criticism' as informative, but then use this knowledge to produce a most informative & humorous video as a result! Co-operation & simplicity in motion...

[ScrubsIsee]

Thanks for the continuous improvement on the cheatsheet. By today (2017-10-23) the cheatsheet itself is up to date, but the thumb on the download-page still shows "lead developer". Maybe you could correct that also ...

[johnhealey]

You are so informative and really humble. Great content. Thank you for being awesome!

[VoluntaryVirtuescom]

Every time you switch projects it takes longer to produce because you have to reground yourself with where you left off and try to recollect things that would have been fresh on your mind when not switching. Multi-tasking and constant task switching add to this recollect time period. I truly believe single-tasking and a strong focus not switching leads to shorter development times like Scrum is eluding towards.

[Joshuaposada]

Yours videos are so easy to follow. Thank you!

[erikaashley]

Interesting look and good on Scrum for helping you out!

[MichaelStrong]

Context switching is a proven cost. Granted, the gravity varies by context. On average it has been around 30% from the data I've seen.

[elizabethmacleod]

I have never heard of this before.... so I learned something new! :) Pretty cool!

[MikeJonesTechno]

I disagree with you Gary and agree with Scrum. WIP limits do not "ensure that items move across the board in the shortest possible time"; although shorter times may be an indirect outcome.

Your examples with cups are very confusing, I have no idea what you are trying to demonstrate by 'second order factors'!

With WIP limit 3 you moved 3 cups across to fill one column, with a context switch before cup 2 and before cup 3.
With WIP limit 1 you moved 1 cup across three columns with no context switches.

So which column had the WIP limit, the second column? or do you assume all columns have the same WIP limit?
Why did first example have two columns but second example have three columns?
Why were there 3 cups in the second example when WIP limit was 1 (should only be one cup in the first column)?
I'm clearly missing something.

I started writing a long reply but thought I better get a better understanding from you first. I couldn't find your previous context switching video handy.

[jkalefox]

Who is "Scrum" you are referring to? ScrumAlliance, Scrum.org, ... ?
Many of your counter examples are anecdotal (worth considering but only only consider one dimension).

[jamesallen]

So as of 2017-08-23, what are the latest version numbers of all your cheat sheets?