Kanban boards are useful tools. However, more often than not, a kanban board is simplified to a so-called Scrum Board (ready, in-progress, done) that's so simplistic as to be of little or no actual value beyond feeling good about finishing things. 1/4
The board should show literally every state a story goes through from conception to the customer's hands. I rarely see that. The other problem is that kanban boards come from a manufacturing world where going backwards is a huge problem—it's unnecessary rework. 2/4
Software development, unlike an assembly line, is not linear. Going back and modifying prior work based on current feedback is central to the discovery and refinement (Inspect-and-adapt) process. 3/4
Kanban boards are still useful tools in the software world (for doing things like identifying where you need to swarm to move work forward), but you can't use them as if you're working in a factory. 4/4
