What strategy helps limit work-in-progress in Scrum?

Using timeboxes is a key strategy in Scrum that helps limit work-in-progress. Timeboxing involves setting a fixed duration for events or phases of work, such as the Sprint itself or specific Scrum ceremonies like the Daily Scrum and Sprint Planning. By establishing these constraints, teams inherently prioritize tasks and reduce the amount of work they undertake simultaneously.

Timeboxes encourage focus and help ensure that team members dedicate their attention to completing tasks within the set timeframe rather than starting many tasks at once and spreading their efforts too thin. This approach fosters a more efficient workflow and allows teams to incrementally deliver value, ultimately supporting the Scrum values of transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

While daily stand-ups, defining roles, and other practices play significant roles in Scrum's overall effectiveness, they do not specifically target the limitation of work-in-progress in the same direct manner as timeboxing does. Daily stand-ups enhance communication and synchronization, but they don’t impose constraints on how many tasks a team can pursue concurrently. Clarifying roles is important for accountability but does not address the volume of work being handled at any time. Allowing unlimited tasks, on the other hand, would directly contradict the goal of managing and limiting work-in-progress.