A Gemba Walk is the practice of Product Owners, Product Managers, Business Analyst personally observe the place where work is being done. The original Japanese term comes from gembutsu, which means “real thing” or “real place.” Thus, the Gemba is wherever work happens, and value is added to products or services. The Gemba may be a production floor, an emergency room, a construction site, or a classroom.
During a Gemba Walk, PO’s / PM’s should physically go to the places where people are putting together products or using them, helping customers, analyzing data, maintaining machinery, or any other process. The philosophy behind Gemba Walks rests on the idea that it is easier to gather feedback, spot process or workspace issues, and build trust with the team by observing work firsthand. Employees tend to be more open to pointing out opportunities for improvement or sharing concerns when they are in their own workplace.
PO’s / PM’s who have committed to Gemba Walks typically spend about 60 minutes a week at the Gemba. They pay careful attention, ask questions, and observe processes, The idea is to catch on ground information and understand the nature of work getting performed
Some Tips on doing a GEMBA walk:
- Define a clear focus – In terms of what is to be observed? Who is to be observed? What is the purpose and scope of my learning?
- Communicate with the Team Before the Walk:You don’t want your client / end users to feel blindsided by a Gemba Walk – it isn’t a surprise inspection, rather it is a technique for collecting requirements, it is essential to describe the purpose of Gemba Walks and let the team know what to expect. Open communication in advance will help people feel more comfortable and foster engagement.
- Pay Attention to the Handoffs: If you follow the value stream, you will likely find that all the stakeholders and output of that process along with the handoffs between processes, peoples, or departments. Those areas may yield the most potential for eliminating waste.
- It’s not about just observation: The process of capturing the information / data is very important.
- Separate Observations from Interpretation: Pay heed and attention to the methods of working, work around solutions as used, challenges faced, discussions between 2 people (do OSMOTIC communication – do not participate)
- Pay attention to routines and details: Qualify how long a work takes (measure it), Quantitative analysis can be easily visualized with charts and graphs and more meaningful insights can be obtained.
- Based on all of the above: Obtain new insights on how the problem is resolved today and how the process is lived in the real world
- Do not fire or make judgement calls.
- Follow Up: After your walk is over, be sure to follow-up with the teams, let them know what you learned and ask for additional input. It’s a good idea to close the loop so people aren’t left wondering about your impressions.
Gemba Walk Checklist
Every time when a PO / PM performs a Gemba walk, they will need to prepare a checklist in advance. This list will help them focus and target their efforts in right direction.
The checklist has to include questions that will help understand the process that they are going to observe in a better way. Questions may vary depending on the theme of your Gemba walk.
Here are some basic Gemba walk checklist questions:
Use Gemba walks a means to collect needs, observe the current behavior and work as performed, challenges, If possible speak to end users or doer’s of the process, understand their needs and viewpoints.
Perform this activity for multiple days and across different segments of people, this would enable you to focus on different situations and scenarios that may come up.
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