...a feeling of accomplishment, directly related to my work ethic.

Back in the dark ages, with Scrum, the fruits of my testing were only given to my users once a month. It was awkward to stop testing FeatureA and start testing FeatureB because I felt no sense of closure with FeatureA. There was always a feeling that if I thought of a new FeatureA test, I could cram it in. It was a very non-committal feeling. Often, the feeling was, “I’ll finish these tests later”. And as the end of the iteration approached, it became, “wow, where did the time go?”.

With Kanban, when I complete FeatureA’s testing, it goes straight to the users. I feel a sense of accomplishment. The production deployment is the reward for my hard work…the closure…full commitment. I feel I am in complete control over how quickly FeatureA moves through development. The harder I work at it and the better I test, the more I focus, the quicker it goes out. I’m motivated to “get ‘er done”, as they say here in the south. But I also have the freedom to do more testing, if we need it.