What's a Twitter blog?  Well I just made that up.  As those of you who follow me on Twitter (@alshalloway) know, I sometimes do about 10-15 tweets in response to someone.  Some of us have been having a "twittervation" and I was about to send off about 10 or so tweets when i thought I could just put them here and direct folks on twitter to them - and then everyone would have access to it.

The Context

I had said Scrum requires new roles, new practices, new structures and that this abandonment of old methods is not always respectful to the team. While I didn't say it this time, it also tends to inject some fear in the change to Agile.  It was countered that Scrum should not be imposed on anyone and that that may be the source of the challenge.

The Twitter blog

I think when a team decides to do Scrum it’s not a problem to have the changed roles, practices, structures, etc. 

However, I still believe Scrum teams would do much better within the context of Lean-thinking.

Things like including/respecting management, having explicit workflow, managing work-in-progress, use the scientific method to drive continuous improvement.

... doing Acceptance Test-Driven-Development

Scrum & Kanban take two different approaches to improvement.

Scrum starts with a  model, that if you use it, will work, but requires change up front (roles, practices, structure, ...)

If impediments to using this framework appear (they will) and are removed, you will get significant improvement. No doubt.

Kanban starts with a  model that doesn’t require change up front.

Kanban has you first observe where you are, then make incremental improvements.

Both methods require a commitment to improve.

Scrum has the advantage that it forces you to demonstrate this early.

Kanban has the advantage that the bar to use it is less imposing.

The real challenge comes in when an organization wants to go Agile.

Then, what do you tell the teams?  Do Scrum? Do Kanban?  I think either mandate would be bad.

I believe teams should be given the choice of Scrum or Kanban within the context they find themselves in.

Of course, to pull this off, one needs to let go of Scrum as an enterprise model.

Kanban can be an enterprise model since you can add cross-functional teams and iterations to it if you want.

They you'll be doing the equivalent of Scrum, only better.

One must embrace an holistic approach. I think Lean provides this.

I think understanding that Scrum is consistent with Lean-thinking helps Scrum teams fit within it at enterprise level.

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Here are some other blogs you might find of interest:

• The Real Differences between Kanban and Scrum
• Why Scrum Works and How This Tells Us When It Won’t
• Big Change Up Front (BCUF)

We developed our Lean-Agile Project Management course to teach the concepts of both Scrum and Kanban so people could figure out what works best for them in an enterprise transition to Agile.