Gemba Walk

Jan. 9, 2014

Gemba is rarely found at an executive desk. Instead, you'll find it on the shop floor. Or in the marketing department. Or at a customer's place of business.

Bill Wilder

Gemba. Mention it outside lean manufacturing circles, and you're likely to draw a blank stare.

So, what is gemba? In short, it's the place that matters most. It could be a crime scene: In Poe's The Tell-tale Heart, gemba is that heart thumping under the floorboards. In sports, it's wherever the ball is. In business, it's the place where real value is created, the place where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. In other words, gemba is the beating heart of your organization.

And as a manager, owner, or CEO, it's where you should be, at least some of the time.

Walking the Gemba Walk

Gemba is rarely found at an executive desk. Instead, you'll find it on the shop floor. Or in the marketing department. Or at a customer's place of business.

Wherever gemba is, go there. In lean manufacturing, this is called the gemba walk. It's the best way to see, firsthand and unmediated, what works and doesn't. It's the best way to get the information you need to make the best possible decisions – usually in the most efficient possible manner.

Think about The Tell-tale Heart. Did the police officers sit at their desks, mentally working out the cause of the shriek heard in the dead of night? No; they did their footwork. They got up, went out, and found the gemba. They asked questions. They learned. And they got what they were after.

There are three essential elements to the Gemba Walk and they are:

Go See: (get to the Gemba)

Is the purpose aligned with the overall change?
Is the process designed to achieve the purpose?
Are people engaged to achieve the purpose and are they supported by the process?

Ask Why: (how we understand the technical or process side)

Opportunity – look for symptoms rather than prescribing solutions.
Waste – eliminate redundancies, overproduction, and others of the eight wastes.
Problem – confirm what we are trying to achieve and why can’t we?
Kaizen – seek patterns, forms, tools and routines

Show Respect: (engage the “Hearts and Minds” of the people doing the work)

Respect people
Rely on people
Develop People
Challenge People

Some resources that will help you dive deeper into these concepts are:

Gemba Walks by Jim Womack
The Lean Enterprise Institute

About the Author

Bill Wilder | Founder and Director

Bill Wilder, MEd, is the founder and director of the Life Cycle Institute, the learning, leadership and change management practice at Life Cycle Engineering (www.LCE.com). The Institute integrates the science of learning and the science of change management to help organizations produce results through behavior change.

Bill led the creation of the 3A learning process that incorporates the concepts of active learning and change management. He has worked with many organizations to develop learning and change management solutions that engage people and drive accountability for behavior changes that deliver results.

Bill is a certified Prosci Change Management professional and is one of the few Prosci Authorized Training Provider Certified instructors in the world. He is the author of several articles, white papers and videos on the topics of learning and change management.