Hi Kevin, I agree these concepts can be confusing when you go through the theory since they all do have certain elements that seem to overlap.
However, their applications and emphasis are quite different . I recommend doing fun games or creating hypothetical scenarios to illustrate the difference.
When I think of Lean, I think "waste minimization" - typically used when processes are redundant, have too many steps, inefficient loops, etc. Having worked on Lean projects, I can attest that the usual starting point for these is to map out the "As-is" process and highlight "Non-value added" steps.
The focus then is on eliminating as many of them as possible without compromising essential controls (such as maker/checker review).
When I think of Kanban, I think of "Pull" - it is the ultimate illustration of a pull system (versus the traditional push).
The idea is that humans are terrible at multi-tasking (can attest to this, since I get interrupted by "urgent tasks" every 3 minutes at work!)
So the most efficient way to work is to pick one task, work on it till completion, and then pick up the next one. Best to walk through an example (with post-it notes) where tasks will move through each stage before landing in the "Completed" pile.
When I think of Scrum - I think of "Sprints" - everything is centered around the iterative sprint which delivers value in Scrum.
Scrum is the most typical setup for implementing Agile methodology - the one that is followed by most organizations around the world.
Scrum is a pretty structured method, replete with the ceremonies (daily scrum calls, sprint planning, sprint retrospective, etc.)
Items from the product backlog get pulled into a sprint based on team capacity, and incremental value delivered at the end of each sprint.
