Scrum / Kanban / Dual-track · Sergey Sukharevsky

The choice of process depends on the nature of the flow: the predictability of tasks, the cost of switching, the frequency of feedback and the amount of unplanned work. Scrum, Kanban, and Dual-track are not maturity levels, but different ways to limit chaos; it’s time, quality, and performance that is measured, not ceremony.

What is Scrum, Kanban and Dual-track?

Scrum: iterations and rigor

Scrum is an iterative development framework with a fixed sprint length, roles (Scrum Master, Product Owner, team) and clearly defined rituals. Suitable if you need to quickly get feedback and it is important to plan the work in stages.

Example of application: Mobile bank team implements new functionality Plans two-week sprints, in retrospect looking for what to improve, on the demo collects feedback.

Kanban: flow and flexibility

Kanban is built around managing a continuous flow of tasks. There are no sprints and mandatory meetings, the limits of WIP (Work In Progress) help not to drown in parallel tasks. Good for support teams, infrastructure tasks, gradual product evolution.

*Example: The DevOps team supports multiple services. The Kanban board helps to see bottlenecks, limits simultaneous tasks, speeds up high-priority ticketing.

Dual-track: Explore and deliver at the same time

Dual-track separates discovery (solution search, hypothesis tests) and delivery (development) into independent, parallel threads. This reduces the time lost between the idea and the launch. Working in dual-track requires mature communication: the discovery part delivers clearly prioritized solutions to delivery.

Example of application: The B2C marketplace team is exploring new payment methods (discovery), while also working to improve search (delivery). The results of the research quickly get into the work plan.

How to start and improve processes

Scrum: Order and Iterative Improvement

Scrum requires a clear follow-up to the process: regular sprint planning, daily, demo, retrospective. If you lose your rhythm, you lose the transparency and meaning of iterations. Be prepared for the fact that Scrum does not like chaos - for force majeure or urgent bugfixes, the mechanism is needed separately.

Example: The Web product team tried to implement Scrum, but the priorities were constantly changing in the middle of the sprint. As a result, the process became nervous, the team did not believe in the “feasibility of the sprint”. There was flexibility after the Kanban transition, but some planning transparency was gone.

Kanban: constant flow and limiting debris

Kanban only works if the team does not take on extra tasks at the same time. If you do not comply with the limits of WIP, the board loses its meaning, by the end of the week all tasks are hanging in the status of “In the works”. It’s important to learn how to take apart the rubble, not to drag everything in one moment. Regular stand-ups and deep analysis of blockers help.

Example: SaaS service support is overloaded – everyone takes new tickets, but the old ones hang out. We introduced a strict limit on WIP, responsibility for cleaning the “old” and a focus on refining bugs. The percentage of closed tickets has increased and the average decision time has decreased.

Dual-track: Critical flow separation

Dual-track errors are most commonly found in the discovery and delivery boundary. If research takes all the time and the results do not reach the realization, there is no point. It is necessary to maintain a balance and transparent exchange of information between flows.

Example: The digital team conducts discovery for a new product, invents scripts and experiments with prototypes, but does not bring solutions to development. After the implementation of synchronization delivery slot is clogged only with validated ideas, the block of remnants of routine “research” is cleaned.

Quality and control: where to not lose in delivery

Scrum: Quality Support with Definition of Done

Scrum involves clear definition of readiness (DoD), test criteria, code review and demo verification. Without DoD, tasks crawl “as will happen”, bugs are often detected at the release stage.

Errors: there is no general concept of “ready”, tests are non-functional, tasks are closed ahead of time. Solution – DoD approval sessions, mandatory demos, retrospectives on defects.

Kanban: priority and freshness of tasks

Quality in Kanban is a matter of prioritization and on-the-fly review. If you only do fast tasks and put off heavy ones, critical bugs and big epics get stuck. It is important to regularly review the queue, split tasks, not lose communication.

Errors: backlog puffs up, tasks lose relevance. Solution – the limit of tasks “waiting”, review the queue every week.

Dual-track: quality at the intersection of discovery and delivery

Here it is important not only to convey validated hypotheses before development, but also to fix the result after release: metrics, feedback, team training. A common mistake is the loss of context: teams lose logic about why and what they implement.

Errors: Hypotheses validate “for the tick”, feedback is not integrated back into discovery. The solution is clear documentation of research, regular meetings between streams and reflection on the results of launches.

Where to apply and what type of errors

When to choose Scrum, Kanban or Dual-track

Scrum – if the product is complex, you need task prediction and quick feedback for the team.
Kanban – If priorities change frequently, there is a lot of support or no goal to plan long-distance sprints, the task stream is varied.
Dual-track – if you need to quickly explore hypotheses and simultaneously build delivery without downtime.

Example: For large-scale product development (e-commerce, financial services), Scrum for the core team and Kanban for support often work. Dual-track is a mandatory approach in product teams with a focus on constant experimentation.

Frequent anti-patterns

Scrum: rigid adherence to the rules without taking into account real problems, “sprints for the sake of sprints”, ignoring retrospective.
Kanban: forgetting WIP limits, backlog turns into a warehouse of unrealizable wants.
Dual-track: Resources go only to discovery, delivery idle or implement unvalidated ideas.

Useful tools and sources

FAQ

What is the difference between Scrum and Kanban in IT projects? Scrum focuses on short iterations and fixed processes, Kanban on flexible task flow and constant WIP control.

**When should I implement a dual-track approach? If new hypotheses constantly appear in the team and you need to quickly validate ideas, select a separate discovery stream.

**Can you combine Scrum and Kanban? Yes, you can take Scrum iterations and visualization + WIP Kanban, getting what is called Scrumban.

What metrics do you need to monitor delivery quality? In Scrum - velocity, defects in sprints, success of releases. In Kanban, the cycle time is task, WIP, SLA. For dual-track, validation speed and delivery are important.

*What happens if the team is unable to do this? Change the process: develop a custom approach, remove unnecessary rituals and add something that really makes delivery easier.

*How do you deal with overload? Limit WIP, work with priorities, and clean your backlog regularly.