Glossary
What is Scrumban? When the mixture makes sense
Scrumban combines sprints and roles from Scrum with flow and WIP limits from Kanban. What to keep, what to drop, and who it suits.
Scrumban is not a method of its own but a common mixture: the rhythm and roles of Scrum with the flow and WIP limit of Kanban. It suits teams whose work is partly plannable and partly reactive.
What is usually kept
From Scrum: a maintained backlog, the retrospective and usually a fixed planning slot. From Kanban: the per-column cap and pulling instead of assigning. What often goes is the fixed sprint commitment — planning happens, but not as a promise to the item.
Who it suits
Teams with mixed intake: product work and interruptions on the same board. A pure Scrum team will have every second sprint overturned there; a pure Kanban team loses the predictability the surrounding organisation expects.
The trap
Scrumban gets used as a licence to do both things halfway: sprints without commitment, WIP limits without enforcement. What is left is a board with vocabulary. The mixture only holds when the team decides deliberately what applies.
FAQ
Is there a standard for it?
No. Scrumban describes observed practice rather than a rulebook — the team defines what applies and should write it down.
Does Scrumban need story points?
Not necessarily. Many teams stop estimating entirely and steer by cycle time instead of velocity.