Gemba Walk is a management practice where leaders go to the “real place” (gemba in Japanese) to observe operations firsthand and identify areas for improvement. More specifically, to review the status of work, availability of people, conditions of machines and performance of processes.
Elon Musk is known to do a similar practice in his many long stints at the Gigafactory’s during what he refers to as “production hell” of for instance the Model 3, at SpaceX during critical phases in production of various rockets. This is well documented in e.g. the book Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson.
The benefits of a Gemba Walk include:
- understanding the current reality
- capturing information for better decision-making
- connecting with people
🎯 1. Define the Purpose
Define the reason for why to do a Gemba Walk, so that it’s clear what you will be looking for. E.g. opportunity discovery, waste identification, maturity assessment, or root cause analysis, with focus on a specific performance gap, customer complaint, process delay, product failure or non-compliance. The more specific the purpose, the “Why”, the more effective the Gemba Walk.
📣 2. Inform the Group
To make people feel comfortable and open to the upcoming interactions, explain how the Gemba Walk works, what is expected of them, and how they will benefit from the outcome.
For example: “We are walking the site to find obstacles in your daily work, so we can improve our processes to eliminate double handling and downtimes. We will be asking many questions, not to find fault or to to place blame, but merely to understand why things happen. See you tomorrow between 10:00 – 12:00 at your workstation.”
👥 3. Select Participants
Depending on the purpose and scope, a Gemba Walk is either performed by an individual or a team. When assembling a team, assign key participants (who must attend), while maintaining an open invitation to allow other people to join, learn and contribute. They may offer new perspectives, identifying issues and opportunities that their peers may have missed or gotten used to.
➡️ 4. Walk the Value Stream
The guiding principle for the Gemba Walk
- “Go with the flow”
- “Form follows function“
- “Spot hot spots“
It means walking the value chain in flow direction, covering all critical processes, teams, shifts, and locations. When performing a root cause analysis, include all people and processes that might affect the problem in the investigation. Always involve people who know those areas the best, such as supervisors and lead operators, asking them for their input and verify that hot spots have been covered.
⚙️ 5. Focus on Process, Not Behavior
The purpose is to observe, understand and ultimately improve processes and systems. The Gemba Walk is not an employee performance evaluation to find faults. But if someone is observed making a mistake (wrong thinking) or error (wrong or missing action), don’t blame or punish the person. Rather, be curious and go deeper to investigate the underlying causes e.g. a faulty manual, a poorly designed user interface etc. People do what what they do for a reason. Find that reason by e.g. asking: “Why are you doing it this way?”, or “How do you know this is the right way?”
📝 6. Document Observations
A typical Gemba Walk covers 10-20 processes with 10 observations of each. That it 100-200 observations, so it’s essential to document them as you go along. It’s recommended to use a tablet to take notes, ideally with note-taking app with a dictation feature and voice-to-text conversion. With such apps you can also take pictures and videos, to add to the notes for a more detailed representation for later use. Be considerate and always explain the reason and ask for permission before taking any photos or videos.
🗪 7. Ask to Understand, Don’t Assume
To truly understand and learn something new during the Gemba Walk, it’s important to have an open mind and put your beliefs and assumptions to the side, and refrain from judging anyone. The SIPOC framework provides a solid structure for asking questions during the Gemba Walk.
SIPOC framework
- Supplier: Who is involved? Did you get what you need?
- Input: What materials and information are used?
- Process: What do you do, when, how? How do you know?
- Output: What results are you getting? Is it good?
- Customer: Who needs the outcome? Is the customer satisfied?
🔎 8. Observe, Don’t Fix
The main purpose of the Gemba Walk is to learn, not to change anything, yet. It’s an opportunity for observation, not action.
It represents the “Plan” phase of PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) improvement cycle and the “Measure” phase of the DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) improvement process.
After discussing findings with stakeholders, only then decide on next steps, which is the “Do” phase of PDCA and “Improve” phase of DMAIC.
🛠️ 9. Communicate Next Steps
After the Gemba Walk, share learnings and communicate the next steps, which represents the “Plan” of the PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act). Complete the cycle by doing something new or different (“Do”), validating its impact (“Check”), and integrating improvements (“Act”), creating real value from the Gemba Walk. By closing the PDCA management loop, people see that their voices count, and things change to the better when they are getting involved and provide useful answers.
🔁 10. Return and Repeat
Doing a Gemba Walk not only helps managers and teams to solve problems and make better decisions, but also to observe those changes in action and verify that they are delivering desired results. Do it daily. Walking the floor, reviewing status of work, availability of people, conditions of machines and performance of processes helps you recognize anomalies early, before they grow into larger problems, ultimately saving time in problem solving and performance management.
Read on to learn:
How to Enable Continuous Improvement through 10 Principles of Kaizen
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