Does your team need Agile or Kanban? It isn't an either-or: Atlassian calls Kanban a visual Agile framework, so Kanban is one way of working within Agile. Agile is the broad, iterative approach; Kanban runs it through boards, cards and limits on work in progress. Plain Kanban flow fits steady incoming work, while fixed cycles fit work you plan in batches.
Team leads and marketers tend to meet this question when a project starts slipping and someone suggests a new way of working. The two are set out below in no particular order, from Atlassian's own Agile and Kanban guides, with the aim of making the real choice clearer than the search phrase suggests.
Agile is the approach, Kanban is one method
Atlassian describes Agile as a flexible, iterative approach to project management. It's a set of values more than a set of rules: people, customer feedback and working solutions come ahead of rigid processes and documentation. Agile on its own doesn't tell you what to put on a board on Monday morning.
Kanban does. Atlassian calls Kanban a visual Agile framework that keeps work in progress manageable, which means it's one of the ways to practise Agile, not an alternative to it. Asking whether to go Agile or Kanban is a bit like asking whether to eat healthily or eat a salad. One describes the aim, the other is a particular way of getting there.
That distinction matters when you're comparing project tools too. A product described as Agile might be built around boards, around planned cycles or both, so check which rhythm it supports before you move your team onto it.
Where Agile came from
Agile grew out of the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and the frameworks that have grown up since include Scrum, Kanban, Lean and Extreme Programming. Each turns the same values into a different working rhythm, with its own habits around planning, meetings and tracking.
For a marketing team, those values translate into fairly ordinary behaviour: showing work to the people it's for early, changing direction when their feedback says so, and valuing a campaign that's live over a plan that's perfectly documented. None of that needs a particular board or meeting to happen.
One detail helps before anyone tells you how Agile must be done. Atlassian notes that the original Manifesto didn't prescribe two-week iterations or an ideal team size. Those are habits particular frameworks and teams adopted later, not part of Agile itself. If someone insists your small team needs a fortnightly ritual to count as Agile, that's their framework talking, not the Manifesto.
A Kanban board, day to day
Teams using Kanban track tasks on boards and cards, which makes it easy to see what's being worked on and to spot bottlenecks where cards pile up. The key practices Atlassian lists are limits on work in progress, known as WIP limits, standardised workflows, and metrics such as cycle time and cumulative flow diagrams.
The WIP limit is the part that changes behaviour. Capping how many cards can sit in a column at once pushes the team to finish things before starting new ones, which is often what a project that feels busy but never ships was missing all along.
The two metrics sound technical but are simple to read. Cycle time is how long a card takes from the moment work starts to the moment it's done. A cumulative flow diagram shows how many cards sit in each column over time, so a band that keeps getting wider tells you where work is queuing.
Kanban also supports ongoing flow instead of planning work only in fixed cycles. New requests join the queue and get pulled through as people free up. Atlassian says it's used in software, IT, operations and marketing, so it isn't only a tool for developers, and plenty of content and campaign teams already run something close to it without calling it Kanban.
The real comparison sits one level down
Once Kanban is understood as an Agile framework, the useful question changes. It isn't Agile against Kanban; it's Kanban against the other Agile frameworks, most often Scrum, the one Atlassian names alongside it when it says teams often blend the two. At heart, that's a choice between steady flow and fixed cycles.
And you don't have to choose cleanly. Because teams often blend frameworks like Scrum and Kanban, a team can plan its bigger pieces of work in cycles while running a board with WIP limits day to day. What matters is that everyone knows which rhythm a given piece of work follows.
Two questions usually sort it out. Does your work arrive unpredictably, in a stream you can't plan far ahead? That points to flow. Does it come in chunks with a fixed date, where you'd rather commit to a set of tasks and deliver them together? That points to cycles. Most marketing teams have some of each, which is exactly why blending is so common.
Agile and Kanban in one view
Here are the two alphabetically, in no particular order, using Atlassian's own descriptions.
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| Tool | Kind of method | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Agile | Umbrella methodology, iterative delivery | Setting how a whole team plans and works |
| Kanban | Visual workflow method with WIP limits | Steady streams of incoming requests |
Agile
Best for: Teams shaping how they work overall; Atlassian describes Agile as a flexible, iterative approach to project management.
Kanban
Best for: Day-to-day flow on a board; Atlassian calls Kanban a visual Agile framework that keeps work in progress manageable.
Setting up a marketing team's workflow
Start with a Kanban board if your team's work arrives as a steady stream of requests, such as content, design tweaks and campaign changes, because ongoing flow suits work you can't plan weeks ahead. Set a WIP limit on the busiest column from the first day and watch cycle time rather than counting finished tasks.
If your work comes in planned batches, like a product launch or a seasonal campaign, add fixed cycles on top, which is the blend Atlassian describes. My guide to Kanban vs Scrum goes into that choice in more detail, Jira vs Trello compares two tools teams use for boards, and why Kanban is the current trend in project management covers the wider shift towards it.
Whichever rhythm you settle on, look at the board together once a week and ask where cards are waiting. That one habit, more than the name of the framework, is what keeps a project moving.
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Related: the moving page.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kanban part of Agile?
Yes. Atlassian calls Kanban a visual Agile framework, alongside others such as Scrum, Lean and Extreme Programming.
Does Agile require two-week sprints?
No. Atlassian notes the original Agile Manifesto didn't prescribe two-week iterations or an ideal team size.
What is a WIP limit?
A cap on work in progress. Atlassian lists WIP limits among Kanban's key practices, along with standardised workflows and metrics like cycle time.
Can a team use Scrum and Kanban together?
Yes. Atlassian says teams often blend frameworks like Scrum and Kanban.
Does Kanban work outside software?
Atlassian says Kanban is used in software, IT, operations and marketing.
When did Agile start?
It grew out of the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, Lean and Extreme Programming developed from its values.
