How do you measure and improve scheduling efficiency and effectiveness with scrum vs kanban vs lean?

1 Scrum scheduling

Scrum is an agile framework that organizes work into fixed-length iterations, known as sprints, typically lasting one to four weeks. The team plans the scope and goals of each sprint based on the product backlog, a prioritized list of features and requirements. During the sprint, the team strives to create potentially shippable increments of the product. Daily stand-up meetings, sprint reviews, and sprint retrospectives are conducted to monitor progress, inspect results, and respond to feedback.

Scrum scheduling requires estimating the effort and complexity of each backlog item using story points or hours. The team then calculates its velocity—the average amount of work completed per sprint—to forecast how many sprints are needed for product delivery. Additionally, the team tracks the sprint burndown chart to show how much work remains in the current sprint.

To measure and improve scheduling efficiency and effectiveness with scrum, you should refine your backlog regularly; involve the whole team in planning and estimation; review velocity and burndown charts regularly; inspect outcomes and processes in reviews and retrospectives; and implement improvements in the next sprint.

2 Kanban scheduling

Kanban is an agile framework that focuses on visualizing and optimizing the flow of work, rather than following fixed iterations. To do this, a team uses a kanban board which displays the stages of the workflow and the status of each work item. The team pulls work from the backlog to the board, and moves it across the stages until it is done, while also limiting the number of work items in each stage - known as the work in progress (WIP) limit - to avoid bottlenecks and waste. Rather than estimating the effort or complexity of each work item, or calculating velocity or forecasting delivery dates, kanban scheduling relies on measuring lead time and cycle time; lead time being the time from when a work item is requested to when it is delivered, and cycle time being from when a work item is started to when it is finished. Additionally, tracking a cumulative flow diagram provides insight into how work items are distributed across stages over time. To measure and improve scheduling efficiency with kanban, you should define your workflow stages clearly, set realistic WIP limits for each stage, monitor lead and cycle times regularly, analyze your cumulative flow diagram for trends or anomalies, and implement continuous improvement practices such as kaizen or the theory of constraints.

3 Lean scheduling

Lean is a philosophy and set of principles that seek to maximize customer value and minimize waste in any process or system. It is not a specific agile framework, but rather a mindset and culture that can be applied to any framework, such as scrum or kanban. Lean scheduling focuses on quickly and frequently delivering value to the customer while eliminating activities or resources that do not contribute to value creation. It is not tied to a particular process or method, but instead adapts to the specific context and needs of each project and customer. Lean scheduling also uses various techniques and indicators, such as value stream mapping, just-in-time production, pull systems, kaizen events, and key performance indicators, to measure and improve performance. To measure and improve your scheduling efficiency with lean, you should understand your customer's needs and expectations, map your value stream, implement JIT production and pull systems techniques, conduct kaizen events, and define/track relevant KPIs.

4 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?