Scrum vs. Kanban: It’s like Football vs. Soccer
Thursday, 15 July, 2010 | Radu Davidescu 
A few days ago a dude asked me to explain all the buzz that goes around with Scrum and Kanban, and mostly Scrum vs. Kanban. As my dude didn’t know much about Agile methodologies I tried a different approach.
You know dude, it’s like American football vs. European soccer.
Interesting, he replied, can you say more?
Of course, you know, actually they all say that they are playing football but when they refer to the other sport they call it either American football or European soccer. Both Scrum and Kanban are Agile-based methodologies, but it’s not the same thing. People believe that one derives from the other, but as American football it’s more like rugby and not soccer. And with Kanban it’s a kind of simplified and adapted Lean methodology rather than Scrum.
In American football, like in Scrum, time is heavily segregated into small time-boxes, giving the team a chance to re-organize and retrospect the previous sprint, as well as making strategic decisions for the next one (and of course making room for commercials which brings in a lot of money). In soccer, like in Kanban, time is more fluent, and only bottlenecks cause the game to stop. Sometimes, a small amount of time is added to to compensate the stops. A practice well spread among corporate Kanban practitioners.
In terms of commitment there is also an interesting parallel. Just watch an American football team in attack. The team briefly decides about the scheme and makes a small commitment (usually to advance 10 yards with the ball). The time starts and they face the unknown (the other team's defense). There are few intense moments when the team, synchronized, tries to play out their scheme. Everybody from the team participates at the same time: blockers protect the quarterback, running backs and wide receivers run around into positions as nobody from the defense team knows where the quarterback will pass. The team can succeed or fail with the attack. In the end there is always a collective succes or failure. Either way, the team regroups to learn from experience and to decide on the next attack. That’s Scrum dude, a well done Scrum.
On the other hand, in soccer, teams look to understand the unknown (the other team's defense) while they are playing. The main goal is to score, so keeping the ball in possession and good passes to each other are the key aspects of the game. Even though it looks like the whole team is participating in the attack phase there are passive players that wait for their moment. Passing the ball as fast and accurate as possible and actively looking to score sounds a lot like Kanban.
In my opinion, Scrum and American football require a lot more commitment and discipline than soccer and Kanban. That doesn’t mean that soccer or Kanban are disorganized, but they are a bit loose. Practiced well, by skilled and disciplined players, it gives a great show as you can see in the Champions League or World Cup. In fact, when played well both sports (or methodologies) bring satisfaction. But practicing it is another thing.
Gather about 20 sporty guys on a beach and try to put them to play soccer and/or American football. Quickly, you’ll see the difference. It comes more natural and simple to play soccer than American football. It requires less skill and less discipline, rules are a bit more simple and no extra equipment is required. Even more, if you further strip rules like no off-sides, or even no conners, the game is still fun and still makes sense. Also in Agile methodologies Kanban can look more natural and easy to adopt than Scrum, which can be more difficult. Software development teams can see Kanban as a more natural and easy approach. In the end it’s just a matter of perception as both Kanban and Scrum require both skill and discipline for a professional level.
By the end of the conversation my dude flees, so I decided to put this up as a blog post. Hope you enjoyed it! Comments are welcome!
Radu is the author of the blog The Backup.
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