Kanban Strategy for Global Teams

The rigid cadence of Scrum—planning, sprinting, reviewing—often breaks down when your team is spread across London, New York, and Singapore. When you can't get everyone in a room for a sprint planning session without someone waking up at 3 AM, it's time to consider a flow-based approach.

The Scrum Friction in Distributed Teams

Scrum relies heavily on synchronous ceremonies. Sprint Planning requires the whole team to agree on a commitment. Daily Scrums are meant to unblock immediate issues. Sprint Reviews demonstrate value to stakeholders.

In a global context, these ceremonies become bottlenecks. If a developer in India finishes a task at 6 PM IST, but the Product Owner in San Francisco isn't online to review it until 9 AM PST (9:30 PM IST), that task sits idle. In a two-week sprint, these idle hours compound, leading to missed commitments and frustrated teams.

Why Kanban Fits the Global Model

Kanban is about flow, not timeboxes. It focuses on visualizing work, limiting work in progress (WIP), and maximizing efficiency. For distributed teams, this is a superpower.

• Decoupled Planning: You don't need a massive planning meeting. The backlog is prioritized continuously. As soon as a developer has capacity, they pull the next highest-priority item.
• Asynchronous Handoffs: Kanban boards are the single source of truth. A developer in Europe moves a ticket to "Code Review," and a developer in the US picks it up hours later. The board communicates the status, not a meeting.
• Focus on Cycle Time: Instead of asking "Did we finish everything in the sprint?", you ask "How long does it take to get value to the customer?" This metric is timezone-agnostic.

Building an Effective Global Kanban Strategy

1. Visualize the "Follow the Sun" Workflow

Don't just use "To Do," "Doing," and "Done." Design your board columns to reflect your timezone advantages.

Consider columns like "Ready for Review (US)" or "QA (APAC)." This makes it explicit who should pick up the work next. It turns the timezone difference from a bug into a feature—a 24-hour development cycle.

2. Strict WIP Limits are Non-Negotiable

In distributed teams, it's easy to start new work when you're blocked waiting for a colleague in another timezone. This is a trap. It leads to a massive pile of half-finished work.

Enforce strict WIP limits. If a developer is blocked, they shouldn't start a new ticket. They should help unblock someone else, write documentation, or improve the test suite. This forces the team to resolve bottlenecks rather than ignore them.

3. The "Async Standup"

Replace the painful 9 PM / 6 AM Zoom call with an asynchronous standup. Use a Slack channel or a tool like Geekbot.

Conclusion

Kanban respects the reality of distributed work. It acknowledges that we are not all in the same room, or even the same day. By focusing on the flow of work rather than the clock on the wall, you can build a global team that is productive, aligned, and sane.