The Project Habit You’re Probably Skipping

Choosing the Right Agile Framework for Your Team

Hey, I’m Gabor, and welcome to the Agile Admiral weekly newsletter. Your Essential Resource for Project Management Excellence.

Each week, I tackle reader questions about PMP preparation, how to implement PMP into real-life projects, and a Senior Project Manager career.

For more: Project vs. Change Management | The Chaos Coordinator | PMP Passing Rate | Power of Lessons Learned | Macro vs Micro Goals for PMs | PM without authority is just a punching bag with a calendar |

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What's Inside This Edition:

• Scrum or Kanban? Choosing the Right Agile Framework for Your Team

• The Project Habit You’re Probably Skipping

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All about PMP in 8 weeks:

Newsletter: PMP-Daily // PMP Espresso on Thursday-May 29 // PMP Operating System

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Choosing the Right Agile Framework for Your Team

Scrum or Kanban?

by Bashar Nammari

For junior Project Managers, the question of “Scrum or Kanban?” can feel like standing at a fork in the road without a map. Each framework offers a distinct path, and selecting the right one can have a significant impact on team performance, delivery speed, and stakeholder satisfaction.

But here’s the truth:

You don’t need the “perfect” framework—you need the one that fits your team’s current reality.

Let’s break down Scrum and Kanban, explore the pros and cons of each, identify when to use them, and outline a recommended strategy to confidently apply them in your projects.

🌀 Scrum: Structure, Sprints, and Iterative Delivery

When is Scrum a good fit?

• Your project requires a clear structure with defined roles, including Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Developers.

• Work is naturally split into time-boxed sprints (Typically 1–4 weeks).

• The team is working toward a larger product or solution, with incremental builds and stakeholder feedback loops.

✔️ Pros of Scrum

• Predictability: Sprint planning and velocity tracking enable reliable forecasting.

• Team alignment: Daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives foster effective communication and drive continuous improvement.

• Clear accountability: Defined roles clarify responsibilities, reducing confusion.

❌ Cons of Scrum

• Rigidity for some teams: The strict structure and ceremonies can feel overwhelming or unnecessary for teams managing reactive or fluid work.

• Heavy upfront planning: Planning and backlog grooming require a disciplined effort and significant time commitment.

• Not ideal for interrupt-driven environments: Unexpected work can disrupt a sprint.

✅ Recommended Use Cases

• Product development

• MVP builds and launches

• Teams with stable, cross-functional members

• Startups with a clear product roadmap

🏭 Industries That Benefit from Scrum

• Software development

• FinTech and blockchain product design

• Healthcare tech (iterative testing and compliance)

• EdTech platforms with incremental content/product rollouts

🔁 Kanban: Flow, Flexibility, and Visual Work Management

When is Kanban a good fit?

• Work is continuous and not easily broken into sprints.

• The team handles changing priorities on a daily or weekly basis.

• You need a visual workflow to track WIP and spot bottlenecks fast.

✔️ Pros of Kanban

• Flexibility: Teams can reprioritize work items on the fly without waiting for a sprint to end.

• Visual clarity: Boards give real-time insight into task progress and bottlenecks.

• WIP control: Helps manage team capacity and avoid overloading.

❌ Cons of Kanban

• Lack of time-boxing: May reduce urgency or lead to slower delivery cycles without strict prioritization.

• Less built-in structure: Without regular planning or retrospectives, process improvement can stall.

• Dependency risks: Work items can get blocked without clear escalation or sprint commitments.

✅ Recommended Use Cases

• Operations and IT support

• Incident and maintenance handling

• Sales and marketing request queues

• Agencies with rapid turnaround cycles

🏭 Industries That Benefit from Kanban

• Managed services and support

• Retail operations and logistics

• Digital marketing and content teams

• Customer service departments

Top 5 key differences between Scrum and Kanban

1. Work Cadence (Timeboxing vs. Flow)

• Scrum: Uses time-boxed sprints (typically 1–4 weeks). Work is planned in batches and delivered at the end of each sprint.

• Kanban: Emphasizes continuous flow. Work is pulled and delivered as soon as it’s ready—no fixed iteration length.

✅ Impact: Scrum works well when you want predictable delivery cycles. Kanban suits teams with frequent or unpredictable work.

2. Roles and Structure

• Scrum: Requires defined roles: Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Development Team.

• Kanban: Has no mandatory roles; teams define their own responsibilities based on workflow.

✅ Impact: Scrum brings accountability and structure. Kanban offers autonomy and flexibility, especially for mature or cross-functional teams.

3. Planning and Change Flexibility

• Scrum: Changes to sprint scope are discouraged mid-sprint to preserve focus.

• Kanban: Allows changes at any time, as long as WIP limits are respected.

✅ Impact: Scrum favours commitment and focus. Kanban supports adaptability and responsiveness to changing priorities.

4. Work in Progress (WIP) Management

• Scrum: WIP is implicitly managed through sprint scope and team capacity.

• Kanban: WIP is explicitly limited using visual boards and column limits.

✅ Impact: Scrum uses time limits to control scope. Kanban controls workload directly through WIP limits, helping avoid overburdening.

5. Ceremonies and Meetings

• Scrum includes prescribed ceremonies: Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, Sprint Review, and Retrospective.

• Kanban: No required ceremonies, but teams may hold regular standups or reviews as needed.

✅ Impact: Scrum offers predictable rhythms for reflection and alignment. Kanban lets teams design lightweight or custom rituals.

Strategy for Junior PMs: Don’t Marry a Framework—Date It

Frameworks are tools, not commandments. The best Agile leaders understand this:

“Don’t marry a framework. Date it. See what works. Adapt fast.”

Here’s a strategy you can use to decide and evolve:

1. Assess your current team dynamics: Is the work time-boxed or reactive? Are team roles clear?

2. Pilot and reflect: Run a short project or iteration using one approach.

3. Collect team feedback: Use retrospectives or informal check-ins to see what felt natural or forced.

4. Blend and iterate: If you liked the cadence of Scrum but need flexibility, try Scrumban.

5. Measure outcomes: Track flow, cycle time, predictability, and stakeholder satisfaction to evaluate fit.

Final Thoughts

There’s no universal answer to Scrum vs. Kanban. It’s about context, not perfection. Both frameworks can drive success when matched to the needs of your team and type of work.

👥 If you’re a junior PM unsure of where to start or feeling like your team’s Agile setup isn’t quite clicking, don’t go at it alone.

I mentor PMs who want to move beyond textbook Agile and lead real teams in real-life situations.

Drop me a message via LinkedIn → Bashar Nammari

Let’s build your confidence, your toolkit, and your strategy.

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The Project Habit You’re Probably Skipping

If your team keeps solving the same problems on every project, it’s not because they’re not smart. It’s because they never stopped to remember.

Let’s fix that.👇

Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Every project wraps the same way:

• Deadline slides (again)

• The team’s running on fumes

• All the docs dumped into a folder called: Final_Final_(REAL)_v3

Then what?

A quick high-five. Maybe a recap call. And off you go into the next firestorm. No reflection. No structured review. No iteration.

It’s not that your team is doing a bad job. They’re just not giving themselves a chance to do a better one.

📉 Why “Lessons Learned” Often Mean Nothing

Let’s be honest: we say, we want to learn from each project.

But here’s what that typically looks like:

• A last-minute meeting no one’s prepared for

• A few bullet points typed in a shared doc

• A polite nod around the room that “we’ll do better next time”

And then… business as usual.

The truth?

Lessons learned that aren’t used are just historical fiction.

What Real Learning Looks Like

If you want your team to get smarter not just faster you have to build memory into your project rhythm.

Here’s what that means:

• Logging feedback in real-time, not just at the end

• Making reflection a team habit, not a one-off meeting

• Turning patterns into processes

• Sharing insights in places where people actually see and apply them

It’s not about more meetings. It’s about more awareness.

Ways to Build a Feedback Loop That Works

Let’s turn lessons into leverage.

Here’s how:

1. Log Issues As They Happen, don’t wait until a post-mortem to start documenting.

When something breaks, stalls, or exceeds expectations, write it down. Right there in the moment. While the context is still fresh. You’ll get better detail, clearer memory, and fewer “oh yeah, I forgot about that” moments. Use whatever’s lightweight and visible, Slack threads, Notion comments, even sticky notes on your dashboard.

2. Ask Better Questions.

Instead of the classic “what went wrong?”, try this:

• What surprised us?

• Where did we get stuck?

• What shortcuts worked and which ones didn’t?

• What would we definitely do differently next time?

These questions surface insight, not just issues. They spark a conversation that leads to growth, not just venting.

3. Make Feedback Visual + Visible

One of the biggest killers of learning is hiding it. Your insights shouldn’t live in a Google Doc graveyard.

→ Add lessons to sprint retros

→ Share takeaways at project kickoffs

→ Highlight what worked on dashboards, not just metrics that tanked

→ Use visual tools (think: playbooks, posters, workflows) to make the learning part of the environment

If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. So keep it in plain view.

4. Turn Insights Into Actions

Documentation isn’t the finish line, it’s the launchpad.

For every lesson captured, ask: “How do we make sure this informs the next project?”

That could mean:

• Creating an SOP

• Updating a checklist

• Changing how a kickoff runs

• Building a trigger into your PM tool

A lesson not applied is a lesson lost.

5. Build Reflection Into Your Culture

Learning shouldn’t be an event. It should be a rhythm.

Try these rituals:

• Monthly recaps → What themes are we noticing across projects?

• Quarterly resets → What do we want to stop/start/continue?

• After-action reviews → Fast, focused reviews post-delivery

• Team shout-outs→ Celebrate small wins + behavior shifts

Learning happens when it becomes how you work, not something you occasionally do.

Remember: The Best Teams Aren’t Just Talented, They’re Self-Aware

The smartest project managers aren’t always the most technical.

They’re the most curious. The most intentional.The most reflective. Because they understand:

📉 Every lesson ignored is a drag on future performance

📈 Every insight captured is compound interest for the next sprint

And while new tools can help most of the time, the answers are already in the room.They just haven’t been collected, named, or used yet.

🧭 TL;DR: Stop Running Projects on Repeat

If your team isn’t learning, they’re just surviving. Break the cycle:

🔁 Make reflection a ritual

📌 Keep feedback visible

📈 Turn every mistake into a micro-upgrade. Projects will still be messy.

That’s the nature of the game. But with a solid feedback loop, your team can evolve in motion.

Thanks for reading. Appreciate you.

Now go turn your last misstep into your next unfair advantage. Catch you in the next issue 👋

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