Scrum is a fine religion, but its liturgy is expensive: daily standups, storypoint poker, sprint planning marathons, and retrospective theater consume hours that could be spent shipping value.

The sprint boundary becomes a straitjacket. Priorities discovered on Wednesday must wait until the next ceremonial kickoff.

In practice, product managers often rewrite the sprint backlog mid-flight anyway, which makes the whole pageant look rather hollow.

I dropped the ceremony and kept the alignment. A single Kanban board (To Do, In Progress, Done) governs the flow. Work enters as soon as it is ready and leaves as soon as it is finished. No points, no velocity charts, no “commitment.”

The only fixed event is a 30-minute review every two weeks.

We ask three questions:

  1. What shipped?
  2. What should ship next?
  3. What (if anything) has changed in the outside world that demands a pivot?

Then we shuffle the cards and go back to work.

The cadence is light enough that nobody confuses the process with the purpose. Engineers do not defend estimates; they defend outcomes. Product managers do not negotiate capacity; they negotiate impact.

The board is visible to everyone, so surprises are rare. If a customer emergency lands on a Thursday, we pull it straight into In Progress and eject something else. No drama, no sprint-abort ritual.

The result is a system that moves as fast as the market, yet retains just enough structure to keep teams cohesive and aligned. We spend our cognitive budget on the mission, not on serving the process.