Why Tracking Individual Cycle Time Distorts Team Behaviour

When you track individual’s cycle time, you aren’t just measuring the wrong thing—you’re actively distorting behaviour.

People will start working in ways that make them look good instead of making the system better. They’ll cherry-pick the easiest tasks. They’ll rush work at the expense of quality. They’ll avoid collaborating because waiting on someone else makes their numbers worse.

And guess what? The actual delivery time doesn’t improve. You just get more local optimisations that have nothing to do with getting value out the door.

Kanban isn’t about making individuals go faster. It’s about improving flow. You want to optimise lead time, work in progress (WIP), and throughput. That’s where speed comes from—not from pressuring individuals to move faster.

How are you measuring flow in your system?