Why Tracking Individual Cycle Time Distorts Team Behaviour

TL;DR; Tracking individual cycle time leads people to focus on looking good rather than improving team performance, causing them to pick easy tasks, rush work, and avoid collaboration. This does not improve actual delivery time and results in local optimisations that do not help deliver value. Focus on measuring and improving team flow metrics like lead time, work in progress, and throughput instead.

Published on 12 March 2025

Written by Martin Hinshelwood

1 minute read

https://nkdagility.com/resources/cbyRy2IJmM0

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?

Also published on: LinkedIn

Connect with Martin Hinshelwood

If you've made it this far, it's worth connecting with our principal consultant and coach, Martin Hinshelwood, for a 30-minute 'ask me anything' call.

Our Happy Clients

We partner with businesses across diverse industries, including finance, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, technology, engineering, transportation, hospitality, entertainment, legal, government, and military sectors.