Series: Kanban to Scrum Transition | Part 4 of 4 | Documenting our team’s structured evolution from Kanban to Scrum
Introduction
In this final post of the series, I’ll walk through the five core Scrum plays we designed as a remote-first, autonomous, and highly collaborative team: Daily Sync, Planning, Refinement, Retrospective, and Lean Inception.
These plays started from a textbook, and they evolved through need, feedback, and reflection. Each one is designed to foster connection, alignment, and continuous delivery.
Daily Sync
Our Daily Sync is more than a traditional stand-up — it’s a team huddle, where we align not just on what we’re doing, but on what we can finish.
We follow a remote-first principle: everyone joins from their own space on Google Meet, audio and video on. Even when some are in the office, we connect as equals.
The structure is straightforward:
- Start from the rightmost column of the sprint board (closest to DONE), move left.
- Ask: “What can we finish today?”
- Check for blocked issues and encourage the team to self-organize around priorities.
- Keep it tight — 15 minutes.
- After the sync, we leave the room open for optional continued discussions.
This format builds urgency around finishing, promotes visibility, and avoids unnecessary context switching.
Planning
Sprint Planning is when our team aligns intent with capacity. We start with the sprint goal, making sure it’s tied to one or more OKRs or product themes.
We:
- Review velocity and capacity.
- Refine priority stories and confirm they meet our Definition of Ready.
- Discuss edge cases and known unknowns.
- Break epics into manageable deliverables.
- Ensure balance between delivery, tech debt, and experiments.
Facilitation rotates. One engineer drives the board; another checks alignment with the sprint goal. The Product Owner supports context and scope.
The output? A confident, balanced sprint backlog — and a team that knows why it matters.
Refinement
Refinement isn’t an isolated meeting — it’s a habit. But we do set aside dedicated sessions once a week to go deeper.
We:
- Clarify acceptance criteria.
- Raise implementation risks and architectural decisions.
- Link to designs, data dashboards, and user stories.
- Flag dependencies early.
Our heuristic: if a story raises too many “what ifs,” it’s not ready. We park it, ask the right questions, and bring it back when it’s shaped.
Refinements are short and sharp. They keep the planning clean and prevent overloading the sprint with surprise complexity.
Retrospective
Our retros run every two weeks, with rotating facilitators and evolving formats. We alternate between Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed for), and sometimes just open space dialogue.
Each retro has:
- A warm-up prompt.
- A collective insight phase.
- A team agreement opportunity.
We document learnings and create visible team agreements. These shape how we evolve — not just what we deliver, but how we work.
We also use monthly team health check-ins, asking people to rate and discuss key areas (trust, clarity, speed, joy). This supplements retros with longitudinal signals.
Lean Inception
When we start a new epic or large initiative, we run a Lean Inception. It’s a blend of business discovery and engineering planning, often spread across 2–3 sessions in FigJam.
We explore:
- Business goals and user outcomes.
- Journey mapping and system touchpoints.
- Risks, uncertainties, and first deliverables.
- Success metrics.
The goal is not to plan everything, but to build a shared understanding of value, scope, and direction — before we commit code.
Lean Inceptions have become our favorite way to start strong and avoid scope confusion later.
Final Reflection
Process isn’t the goal. Collaboration is. Learning is. Ownership is. Moving from Kanban to Scrum didn’t “fix” our team — it unlocked a new phase of intentional growth.
And because we made it ours, it sticks.
# End of series note
echo "Every process we run, we've designed, reflected on, and refined together." >> culture.md
Previous in the series: Part 3 - Coaching Engineers to Lead the Process
Kanban to Scrum Transition Series:
- Part 1: Recognizing the Need for Change (Oct 27, 2022)
- Part 2: Aligning Goals, Metrics, and Shared Understanding (Nov 3, 2022)
- Part 3: Coaching Engineers to Lead the Process (Nov 10, 2022)
- Part 4: Our Plays, Our Way (This post)