What is Cadence?
Cadence is the rhythm work runs on — the fixed heartbeat of sprints, releases, planning, and reviews. A steady cadence removes a whole class of coordination cost: nobody schedules the demo, the demo simply is every second Friday, and everything else arranges itself around the beat.
Different flows suit different cadences: Scrum couples planning, delivery, and review into one sprint-length pulse; Kanban decouples them — planning on demand, releasing continuously, retrospecting monthly. The choice is deliberate, not decorative.
Worked example
A product group sets its beat: two-week sprints, releases every sprint, quarterly roadmap reviews. Vendors learn to bring integration questions before Wednesday planning; executives stop calling ad-hoc status meetings because the review lands reliably every other Friday at 2. The calendar itself became a coordination tool — which is what cadence is for.