First thing to do when switching from scrum to kanban: abolish anything remotely related to planning or planning day or planning morning.  We planned a short iteration (a.k.a. sprint) kickoff meeting which ended up in being nearly a planning session. Because of the clear scrum way of planning and ‘the deal’ with the product owner, the team held really tight on to “but we must do planning” – Nope, we are going to start at the top of the selected issues and we’re not going to spend our time on team-wide planning. But if planning helps you in getting the solution more clear, please do so. Next iteration, I’m thinking of having an iteration start in front of the board, standup style to keep it ‘light’.

Whereas scrum is organising the chaos, kanban makes you pick one issue from the chaos and just get it done. Anna Forss expressed it nicely on twitter: “It feels like embracing chaos instead of fighting it.”