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Kanban vs scrum board — which should my team use?

A kanban board tracks continuous flow — work enters whenever capacity frees and the goal is limiting work in progress. A scrum board resets every sprint: the team commits a fixed scope for a fixed period and measures velocity. Choose kanban for interrupt-driven work, scrum for planned product development.

The real difference is cadence, not columns

Both boards show columns of cards. The difference is that a scrum board's contents are chosen at sprint planning and judged at sprint end — did we ship what we committed? — while a kanban board never resets. Cards flow in continuously and the team optimises cycle time instead of sprint completion.

When kanban fits

Support queues, operations, agencies with rolling client requests, solo builders: anywhere incoming work is unpredictable enough that committing two weeks of scope would be fiction. The discipline that replaces the sprint is the WIP limit — cap In Progress so that finishing beats starting.

When scrum fits

Product development with a groomable backlog. The fixed sprint creates a drumbeat for planning, review and retrospective, and velocity gives forecasting. The cost is ceremony — planning, review and retro every cycle — which pays off precisely when the work is plannable and stakeholders need dates.

The pragmatic small-team answer

Run scrum's skeleton on a kanban view. Flocci Projects gives one board — Backlog, Todo, In Progress, Review, Done — that serves both: plan sprints with points and velocity when work is plannable, and let urgent cards flow through the same columns when it is not. No second tool, and no religious war about which one you are doing.

Try it on a free Flocci Projects board

Related questions

Can I do sprints on a kanban board?

Yes — 'scrumban' is exactly that: sprint planning and velocity layered on a flow-based board. Flocci Projects supports it natively because sprints and the Kanban view operate on the same issues rather than separate objects.

Do I need WIP limits if I run sprints?

They still help. A sprint says what the team does this fortnight; a WIP limit says how many things one person juggles today. Even an informal 'maximum two In Progress each' noticeably improves cycle time.

Which is better for a solo developer?

Kanban flow with a light sprint wrapper. The board keeps focus honest, and a weekly 'sprint' gives you a review rhythm and a reason to say no, without the ceremony overhead of full scrum.

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