Kanban vs. Scrum boards: Key differences

Scrum and Kanban have become cornerstones of agile project management, helping teams across industries streamline their workflows. As organizations seek the best of both worlds, many have adopted Scrumban—a hybrid approach that blends Scrum's structure with Kanban's flexibility.

At the heart of both methodologies are their visual boards. While Scrum and Kanban boards may appear similar at first glance—both use columns, cards, and status markers—they're designed for fundamentally different workflows and team needs.

This guide clarifies the distinctions between Scrum and Kanban boards, explains when to use each one, and provides comparison tables and practical examples to help you select the right approach for your team.

Scrum board vs. Kanban board: 15 differences

Both Scrum and Kanban keep teams focused and prevent bottlenecks, but they support different working styles. Scrum works best for pre-planned, fixed-time cycles, while Kanban supports ongoing, fast-moving work.

Below are 15 differences that highlight how each approach works and when each one makes the most sense.

1. Purpose and goal

Scrum boards support short, time-boxed sprints usually lasting one to four weeks, where teams track only what they will complete during that period. The board helps everyone stay focused on finishing that specific set of work by the end of the sprint. For example, a product team plans a two-week sprint to build a new login feature and uses the Scrum board to track every task needed to deliver it.

Kanban boards support continuous delivery. Work can be added at any time, and the team focuses on keeping tasks moving steadily through the workflow. For example, a marketing team uses a Kanban board to track campaign and content progress, pulling in new work whenever they have capacity.

2. Work visualization

A Scrum board shows the set of work selected for the sprint and usually uses a simple sequence such as “To do,” “In progress,” and “Done.” While teams may add an occasional column, such as “Ready for review,” Scrum boards typically stick to a tight, easy-to-scan visualization.

A Kanban board, on the other hand, typically visualizes every stage of the workflow from start to finish. It often includes more detailed columns, such as Design, Development, Review, QA, or Ready to Deploy, so teams can see where work is accumulating and how it moves through the entire process.

3. Workflow structure and flexibility

Scrum workflows remain fixed during a sprint. Once the team begins, the workflow structure (board columns) and the set of committed tasks are designed to stay stable until the sprint ends.

Kanban workflows are more flexible. Teams can adjust stages, add or remove columns, update work-in-progress limits, or refine policies whenever they learn something new about how work flows.

4. Planning approach

Scrum teams plan in scheduled cycles. At the start of each sprint, the team decides what they can complete in the next one to four weeks and tracks only the work tied to that goal. At the end, they review what they delivered and hold a retrospective to identify improvements for the next cycle.

Kanban teams plan as they go. New work is added whenever the team has capacity, rather than waiting until a sprint begins.

5. Work-in-progress (WIP) limits

Scrum limits WIP by controlling how much work enters the sprint. Once the sprint begins, the team does not take on extra tasks.

Kanban uses explicit WIP limits on columns. For example, the team might limit items in “Review” to three. These limits highlight where bottlenecks occur and reduce multitasking that could derail projects.

6. Task ownership

Scrum teams often “swarm” around sprint goals. Multiple people may pitch in on the same task to ensure the sprint finishes on time.

Kanban boards typically show a clear owner for each card, making it easy to see who is responsible at each stage. For example, an outsourced designer might own drafting a new landing page until it moves into the Review stage.

7. Measuring progress

Scrum uses metrics that help teams understand how much work they can finish in a sprint:

8. Meeting rhythms

Scrum includes a regular set of meetings: daily standups, sprint planning, sprint review, and sprint retrospective. These meetings create structure and predictability for the team and the project.

Kanban teams meet only as needed, often with shorter check-ins focused on the flow of work. For example, the team might have a quick daily look at the board to see if anything is blocked.

9. Board resets vs. continuous updates

Scrum boards reset at the end of each sprint. Completed items are cleared so the next sprint starts fresh. Work that wasn’t finished is usually moved back to the product backlog or reconsidered for the next sprint, so the team doesn’t carry unfinished work forward.

Kanban boards never reset. The board stays live at all times, showing every item currently flowing through the system. If an item is stuck, the team discusses why and addresses the bottleneck rather than clearing the board.

10. Forecasting

Scrum forecasting uses velocity trends over multiple sprints to estimate how many deliverables the team can complete in future cycles.

Kanban forecasting uses throughput and cycle-time data, which often stabilize faster because work flows continuously.

11. Handling unplanned work

Scrum teams try to avoid mid-sprint board changes because unexpected work can disrupt the goal commitments they made at sprint planning.

Kanban boards are designed for flexibility. They can more easily take on unplanned work by adjusting WIP limits or re-prioritizing cards on the board, since the approach is not time-boxed. If an urgent customer issue comes in, for instance, the team can pull it into the workflow immediately.

12. Team roles

Scrum is self-organizing during a sprint to meet completion deadlines. It defines three specific roles: product owner, Scrum master, and the software development team. Each has clear responsibilities that support the sprint structure. Ownership of the Scrum board is shared since it’s a collaboration tool used by the entire Scrum team to manage sprint progress.

Kanban has no required roles. Teams decide how they want to organize responsibilities. For example, a design team might assign a board owner to monitor flow.

13. Quality and continuous improvement

Scrum takes a structured, interval-based approach to improvement. Teams hold retrospectives at the end of each sprint—typically every 2-4 weeks—to reflect on what worked, what didn't, and what to adjust. For example, if a team realizes their two-week review cycle is too long, they'll document this insight and implement the change in the next sprint. Improvements happen in planned cycles.

Kanban enables continuous, real-time improvement. Teams use flow metrics (like cycle time and throughput), WIP limits, and ongoing bottleneck analysis to identify and address issues as they emerge. Instead of waiting for a scheduled retrospective, teams can adjust their process during daily standups or weekly reviews whenever they spot a problem. Improvements happen continuously.

The key difference: Scrum batches improvements into sprint intervals, while Kanban allows for immediate, ongoing adjustments to the workflow.

14. Tools

Scrum team members benefit from tools that support sprint planning, sprint backlog refinement, estimation, and coordination of day-to-day sprint work.

Kanban teams benefit from tools that show real-time capacity, highlight bottlenecks, and allow easy reshuffling of work as priorities change.

15. Best-fit use cases

Scrum is best for stable, predictable work items that can be delivered in precise increments, such as building new product features or redesigning a user interface.

Teams with fast-changing work where priorities shift frequently, such as support teams, operations, editorial workflows, marketing pipelines, or cross-functional request queues, often use Kanban. Because it visualizes the end-to-end workflow, it helps teams spot handoff delays, reduce hidden work, and prevent silos by making responsibilities clear across cross-functional teams.

Kanban vs. Scrum: Comparison table

Scrum and Kanban both emerged from the Agile movement, which focuses on flexibility, transparency, and rapid feedback. Kanban’s roots also reach back to Toyota, where visual boards and flow techniques were first used to manage just-in-time production more efficiently. Here’s a quick comparison of how Scrum and Kanban apply agile principles in different ways.

Scrum tools vs. Kanban tools

While Scrum and Kanban share Agile roots and can often use the same platforms, they rely on different capabilities.

Scrum tools focus on:

Kanban tools focus on:

Most teams don’t need separate tools. In fact, some platforms like Airtable’s own offer templates for sprint planning and getting started with a Kanban board. A single work management platform with views for sprints, boards, calendars, and flow metrics usually supports both approaches.

Scrum vs. Kanban: Similarities

Even though Scrum and Kanban support different ways of working, they share several core ideas that help teams align, as JetBlue’s experience shows. Whether teams work in sprints or continuous flow, both methods rely on visibility into task status and constant communication. Here are a few of the similarities they share.

Agile vs. Scrum vs. Kanban​

It’s common to confuse Agile, Scrum, and Kanban because, due to their origin, they share common terminology. But they function at different levels. Agile is the philosophy, with principles that 95% of professionals say remain critical to their operations, according to Forrester. Scrum and Kanban are two popular ways teams put those principles into practice.

Once you understand how they relate, you can choose the best approach for your team.

How Agile differs from Scrum and Kanban

Agile is a philosophy defined by the Agile Manifesto. It emphasizes flexibility, close collaboration, responding quickly to change, and delivering value in small, frequent increments. The Agile approach doesn’t prescribe specific roles, tools, or processes; it simply outlines how teams should think and behave.

Scrum and Kanban put agile principles into action during a project or workflow. Scrum adds structure through sprints and roles; Kanban adds flexibility through continuous flow and visualizing work. They both support Agile values, but Agile itself is the umbrella mindset above them.

How does Scrum fit inside Agile?

The Scrum framework predates the formal Agile Manifesto and helped shape many of its ideas. It’s a structured agile framework for teams that deliver work in small, predictable increments. Scrum works exceptionally well when teams have a stable planning horizon (they can plan a sprint’s worth of work and expect priorities to hold steady for one to four weeks without interruption). Scrum defines clear roles, ceremonies, and boundaries that help teams work together, monitor progress, and make improvements over time.

How does Kanban fit inside Agile?

Kanban aligns with Agile by focusing on continuous flow, fast feedback, and ongoing improvement. Instead of planning work in fixed cycles, Kanban teams visualize the entire workflow and limit work in progress to keep tasks moving smoothly. This makes Kanban a strong fit for environments where priorities change frequently, or work arrives unpredictably, such as support, DevOps, or editorial pipelines.

Kanban is Agile when teams use it to shorten workflows and adapt quickly to new information.

Can teams combine Scrum and Kanban?

Yes. Many teams blend elements of both Scrum and Kanban into a hybrid approach called Scrumban. These agile teams often like the structure of Scrum review points and planning while leveraging Kanban adaptability, such as visualizing flow and flexible work additions. Scholarly research in the American Journal of Interdisciplinary Innovations and Research notes that “Scrumban provides a well-balanced approach that is flexible for both short-and long-term projects that are hamstrung by the limitations of both methodologies.”

How to choose between a Scrum and a Kanban board

Choosing between Scrum and Kanban usually comes down to how predictable your work is and how much structure your team needs. Teams that define lifecycles, commit to a set amount of work, and benefit from a regular rhythm of sprint planning and review often use Scrum. If your work arrives steadily and your prioritization stays stable for one to four weeks at a time, a Scrum board gives you focus and reliable forecasting.

Kanban is a better fit when work is continuous or unpredictable. Teams that handle frequent requests, shifting priorities, or multi-stage workflows often prefer Kanban because it adapts in real time without waiting for a new sprint. If you need flexibility or want to optimize flow rather than commit to fixed increments, Kanban offers the freedom to evolve your process as you go.

Board fit scorecard

Use this scorecard to decide whether Scrum, Kanban, or a hybrid approach is the best fit for your team.
Score each category separately on a scale of 1–5 based on your team’s needs:

You don’t total the scores. Instead, look across the categories to see a pattern.

Build your own Kanban or Scrum board in Airtable

Knowing you want to work in an agile way is only the beginning. The next step is choosing whether Scrum, Kanban, or a blended approach fits your team—and selecting a platform that can support you as your process evolves.

Airtable brings sprints, workflows, tasks, and reporting into one flexible system so teams can adjust quickly and deliver with confidence. See for yourself by booking a demo today.