Switching from Scrum to Kanban in Large Organizations: What Happens(and What Doesn’t)

Let’s talk about something that’s almost become a rite of passage in modern tech: the big switch from Scrum (sprints, story points, and the ever-present promise of velocity) to Kanban (the land of flow, WIP limits, and the mysterious cycle time). Maybe your org is eyeing the change, or maybe you’re just Scrum-weary and Kanban-curious. Either way, this is your field guide, no buzzwords, no “framework purity” shaming, just a big dose of honest experience from folks who’ve actually lived it.

Why Even Make the Switch?

First things first: Why do teams want to make this change?

Across multiple stories and teams, a few themes come up again and again:

• Unpredictable Priorities: In some organizations, priorities change so often that the idea of “planning the next two weeks” feels like trying to schedule a beach day during hurricane season.

• Estimation Burnout: Teams struggle to estimate work or stay focused within a sprint. Perhaps you begin with a plan, but half the team is lost in context switches, and “velocity” becomes a mystical number that nobody can explain.

• Tired of Scrum Formalities: Not every team is enthusiastic about sprint reviews, burndown charts, or the repetitive cycle of planning, demoing, and retrospecting. When these rituals stop adding value, they begin to feel like pointless hoops.

• Evolving Work: Sometimes, the type of work isn’t exploratory or ambiguous anymore; it’s more operational, routine, or maintenance-focused. Kanban can feel like a better fit for this flavour of work.

That’s usually how it starts. The “Scrum is feeling heavy, maybe Kanban is lighter” itch.

Reality Check

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Switching to Kanban doesn’t magically fix your problems. In fact, if you’re struggling with Scrum, chances are you’re going to bump into new, different struggles with Kanban. A bad process tends to persist, like an annoying pop-up ad that keeps coming back, no matter how many times you click “X.”

One of our FCTOs put it bluntly:

“If you’re in a bad place, switching will not help you fundamentally but can only provide temporary alleviation. Places that are bad at Scrum are usually way worse at Kanban in my experience, as it requires more discipline in enforcing your workflow rules.”

Yup. Kanban can be a bit of a discipline monster. Where Scrum gives you the guardrails of sprints and ceremonies, Kanban expects you to enforce your own WIP limits, maintain your own board hygiene, and keep the priorities clear without the threat of a looming demo. (Gulp.)

What Actually Changes When You Switch?

The day-to-day doesn’t always look as different as you might think.

• Teams still need to talk to each other.

• You still need some way to keep priorities straight (spoiler: a Kanban board alone won’t do it).

• There are still standups, retrospectives, and ways to show progress, just with less ceremony.

Here’s what you really gain:

• No more estimation hamster wheel. Kanban allows you to move away from focusing on everything. This can be a huge relief, especially if story points were a team-wide guessing game.

• Continuous flow. Instead of waiting for the next sprint to start, you… keep moving. This is fantastic if your work comes in sporadically, or if priorities shift so fast that sprint planning feels like a monthly April Fool’s joke.

• More focus, less churn (sometimes). In the best-case scenario, Kanban boards highlight bottlenecks and encourage teams to finish what’s started before jumping to the next shiny object.

But here’s the catch:

If you don’t have strong discipline around your workflow, WIP limits, and priorities, the board quickly becomes a graveyard of forgotten tickets. There’s no built-in “reset” like a new sprint; if you let the board get messy, you’re stuck with that mess until someone rolls up their sleeves.

Alignment Is Harder, Not Easier

In large organizations, alignment becomes the name of the game. With Scrum, the rituals at least force you to check in with each other regularly. When you move to Kanban, it’s easy to drift into “everyone for themselves” territory if you’re not careful.

Some real-world tips that work:

• Sprint Goals, Themes, and OKRs: Just because you’re not doing sprints doesn’t mean you don’t need goals. Having some “north star” for the team, whether it’s a quarterly theme, a shared objective, or just a big post-it that says “let’s not forget what matters,” helps keep the board from going off the rails.

• Layer Kanban Up and Down the Org: The teams that see real magic don’t just switch at the team level. They introduce Kanban thinking upstream (how work gets prioritized and enters the system) and downstream (how it gets delivered and released). Suddenly, everyone is playing the same game, and the flow happens on a larger scale.

One coach described introducing Kanban across the bigger picture as “about as close to magic as you can get in the agile/process space.”

It turns out, seeing the actual flow of work not just inside one team, but across the org, can be a real eye-opener. Sometimes, it even makes people a little emotional, in a “how did we ever work any other way?” kind of way.

The Great Scrum-Kanban “Fakeness” Debate

Let’s get real for a second. Most teams aren’t doing “pure Scrum” or “pure Kanban.” Most are just trying to find something that works and makes sense, borrowing from both.

“I’ve never seen a team go from Actual Scrum to Actual Kanban. I’ve usually seen teams go from Fake Scrum to slightly-less-fake-Kanban.”

This isn’t shade, it’s just the reality of process adoption in big orgs. Don’t feel bad if your process looks more like a Frankenstein monster than something out of an agile textbook. The important thing is not the label, but whether you’re actually delivering value and getting better over time.

What External Stakeholders Notice (or Don’t)

Honestly?

Most external consumers of your team’s work won’t notice much difference. The outputs keep coming, features keep shipping, bugs keep (hopefully) getting squashed. The visible changes are mostly inside the team: less ceremony, more flow, (ideally) less thrash.

But the impact on the team’s experience can be significant. No more dreading sprint planning. No more carrying over half the sprint. More time spent actually moving tickets, less time estimating or arguing about velocity.

Is Kanban the Answer?

Here’s the punchline: Scrum vs. Kanban is rarely the real problem.

The framework is just the packaging. The actual issues are unclear priorities, lack of focus, too much WIP, and not enough communication, which can exist under any framework.

If you’re considering a switch, the best thing you can do is:

• Diagnose your actual pain points. Is it estimation hell? Too much thrash? Poor alignment? Figure out what’s actually making life hard, and fix that regardless of which framework you’re using.

• Don’t stop communicating. Even if you drop ceremonies, keep the conversations going: regular check-ins, goal-setting, and transparent board hygiene are non-negotiable.

• Experiment, but don’t expect miracles. Every team and organization is different. Sometimes you just need to try something new, see what breaks, and keep iterating.

TL;DR: What Actually Works

• Switching frameworks doesn’t solve fundamental problems, but it can give you some breathing room.

• Kanban is less prescriptive, but requires more self-discipline, especially in large organizations.

• Prioritization and alignment are harder without sprints, so set up new habits (goals, themes, OKRs) to keep everyone focused.

• Upstream/downstream Kanban (value stream mapping across the org) is where the real “magic” happens.

• Most people won’t notice from the outside, but your team will definitely feel the difference (for better or worse).

• Don’t obsess over doing it “by the book.” Focus on what actually helps your team deliver value.

Ultimately, agile is a journey, not a destination. Whether you’re running sprints, pulling tickets, or drawing kanban boards on your kitchen fridge, it’s all about flow, focus, and finding what works for your team. So go ahead, experiment, learn, and don’t be afraid to mix things up. Just remember, no process will save you from a lack of communication, messy priorities, or too many work-in-progress tasks.

Good luck out there. And if all else fails, remember: sticky notes never judge you.