Agile Vs Kanban: What is Difference between Agile and Kanban?

Details: Last Updated: 22 February 2021

In this tutorial for Agile and Kanban difference, we will discuss key difference between Agile vs Kanban. But before discussing Kanban vs Agile, let us first look at them individually. First, we will learn:

What's is Agile?

Agile methodology is a practice which promotes continuous iteration of development and testing throughout SDLC life-cycle. Agile is alternative to a waterfall or traditional sequential development. It is ideal process for those who want to work with continuous feedback.

It is a process in which requirement evolve and change. The primary object of each iteration is to comes with a working product.

In an Agile approach, the leadership will encourage teamwork and direct communication. Here, stakeholders and developers should work simultaneously to align the product to match up their customer requirement and organization goals.

What is Kanban?

Kanban process is nothing but a Board, which is called "Kanban Board." This board plays a vital role in displaying the task workflow. It helps to optimize the flow of task between different teams. It is a method for defining, managing and improving services for delivering knowledge work.

In this method, work items are printed visually. It allows team members to see the state of every piece of work at every development stage. Moreover, a team member gets overview who's doing what and can identify and eliminate problem areas in the process.

Kanban methodology allows reprioritizing work as per the need of stakeholders. As work moves from one state to another, some extra work also added until the flow is steady. The team collaborates with each other to improve the flow of work throughout the project. Kanban in Agile process is never restricted to set process and defined sprint backlog. So, it offers flexibility for developers.

Next, we will learn Agile Kanban key differences.

KEY DIFFERENCE

Agile is a beneficial method for projects where the final goal is not set while Kanban is beneficial for Reducing waste and removing activities that never add value to the team.
Agile process focuses on constant communication whereas Kanban process have shorter sprint lengths forced to break up items to fit within sprint boundaries.
Agile process allows Iterative Development whereas Kanban process does not allow Iterative Development.
Agile does not provide support for visually checking the work in progress while Kanban does allow visually checking the work in progress.
The goal of Agile approach is continuous Integration, development and testing whereas the goal of Kanban approach is to improve the team's process.
Agile process depends on Story Boards while Kanban process depends on Kanban Boards.

Agile Principles

The goal is set to satisfy the customer by offering continuous improvement delivery of software.
It always welcomes changes even during later stages.
Deliver working system from 15 days to one month, with a purpose to limit the timescale.
Business stakeholders and development team will work daily until the project is over.
Working software is elementary in Agile Process
Agile software development approach promotes sustainable development.
Give complete attention to technical expertise

Kanban Principles

Kanban process visualizes the workflow which is easy to understand.
Encourage acts of leadership at all levels
It helps to measure and improve Collaboration
Respect the current process, roles & responsibilities
Helps team to make process easy and explicit

What is the difference between Agile and Kanban?

Below is the main difference between Kanban and Agile:

Parameter	Agile	Kanban
Application	Agile is a beneficial method for projects where the final goal is not set. As the project progresses, the development can adapt as per the requirements of the product owner.	Reducing waste and removing activities that never add value to the team.
Advantage	Breaking the entire project into smaller segments helps the team to focus on high-quality development, testing, and collaboration. Conducting testing after every iteration helps the team to find and resolve bug quickly.	Shorter cycle times can deliver features faster.
Focus	Agile process focuses on constant communication.	Shorter sprint lengths force to breaks up items to fit within sprint boundaries.
Involvement of QA	QA had nothing to do at the beginning of a sprint but is overworked at the end.	QA has involved in every phase and regularly test system under development.
Iterative Development	Agile process allows Iterative Development.	Kanban process does not allow Iterative Development.
Dependency	Process depends on Story Boards.	Process depends on Kanban Boards.
Visual checking	Not providing support for visually checking the work in progress.	Visually check the work in progress.
Goal	The goal of Agile approach is continuous Integration, development and testing.	The goal of the Kanban approach is to improve the team's process
Planning	Sprint planning can consume the scrum teams time for an entire day.	Need very less organization set-up changes to get started
Advantage	With shorter planning cycles, it's easy to accommodate changes at any time during the project management.	Rapid feedback loops may result in more motivated, empowered and actively performing team members.

Conclusion:

Kanban process is nothing but a Board, which is called "Kanban Board."
Agile methodology is a practice which promotes continuous iteration of development and testing throughout SDLC life-cycle.
Kanban process visualizes the workflow which is easy to learn and understand.
The goal of the Agile method is to satisfy the customer by offering continuous delivery of software.
In Kanban method, shorter cycle times can deliver features faster.
In the agile method, breaking the entire project into smaller segments helps the scrum team to focus on high-quality development, testing, and collaboration.
Kanban scrum needs very less organization set-up changes to get started.
In Agile methodologies, Sprint planning can consume the team for an entire day.