Kanban or Scrum for Continuous Deployment? A Side-by-side Comparison

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Veronica Arreche
Director of Operations & Head of Talent
A woman next to a Kanban board

Over the years, software teams have had to learn how to evolve with their changing industry, not only with emerging architectures, technologies, and frameworks but with newer approaches to development altogether, like Continuous Deployment.

In this agile movement that we find ourselves in, the ultimate goal is to minimize the time between the moment we take on a task and the time we release it into the production environment. Continuous Deployment allows teams to release each feature when ready as opposed to grouping them together for a final release, creating a more efficient development process.

However, for teams that use Scrum – like Scalable Path – continuous deployment throws some fundamental Scrum concepts (like sprints and retrospectives) into question. It also puts into question whether there are other – more suitable – project management frameworks to use in this context.

In this article, we’ll look at whether Continuous Deployment impacts the Scrum process and consider how an alternative project management tool like Kanban may offer solutions to Scrum’s shortcomings.

Table Of Contents

Why do Companies Embrace Continuous Deployment (CD)

Continuous Deployment is becoming a popular development approach. Today, it represents an important competitive advantage for companies and there are three key reasons why it is a valuable practice to adopt:

  1. It allows you to focus on your product.
  2. It integrates teams and processes in a unified pipeline.
  3. It improves productivity by automating and reducing repetitive tasks.

The differences between Continous Deployment vs Delivery and Integration

Let’s refresh ourselves on the functions of Continuous Deployment. From the outside looking in, CD might appear to be a simple process, however, the capabilities that need to be in place in order to maintain and develop it are nothing but simple. It requires organization, quality, planning, and an excellent technical and cultural foundation in the entire organization. Let’s define some concepts and dive into the important questions that come with them.

Originally published on Feb 3, 2020Last updated on Jan 4, 2024

Key Takeaways

What is agile continuous deployment?

Continuous Deployment is an agile approach that enables teams to release each feature when ready instead of grouping them together for a final release, creating a more efficient development process.

How does the Kanban framework ensure continuous product delivery?

The Kanban framework is designed to ensure continuous product delivery by providing teams with a visual and flexible approach to managing and improving their workflow. Using the Kanban board and Just-in-Time (JIT) delivery of work items, it allows teams to prioritize unforeseen events that need to be resolved and released immediately during the development process.

What is continuous deployment in Scrum?

In the Scrum framework, Continuous Deployment is typically integrated into the continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipeline, which is a set of automated processes that manage the software development lifecycle, from code changes to deployment. Continuous Deployment involves automating the deployment of the software to the production environment, typically after running automated tests to ensure the changes are working correctly.