Disadvantages of Kanban

Many of the disadvantages associated with Kanban come with misuse or mishandling of the Kanban board. An outdated or overcomplicated board can lead to confusion, inaccuracies, or miscommunication.

Here’s more on the disadvantages of Kanban:

• Outdated board can lead to issues: The team must be committed to keeping the Kanban board up to date, otherwise they’ll be working off inaccurate information. And once work is completed based off an out-of-date board, it can be hard to get things back on track.
• Teams can overcomplicate the board: The Kanban board should remain clear and easy to read, however some team members may learn “new tricks” they can apply to their board. Adding these kinds of bells and whistles to the Kanban board just buries the important information.
• Lack of timing: A frequent complaint about Kanban is that you don’t know when things will be done. The columns on the Kanban board are only marked by phase (to do, in progress, complete), there are no timeframes associated with each phase, so you really don’t know how long the to do phase could last.