As a manager, you can’t be everywhere at once — so it’s inevitable that recurring challenges or inefficiencies will slow down certain processes in your business. That’s where a Gemba Walk comes in.
This practice can help improve processes, facilitate problem-solving, and reduce wasteful activities. It’s a simple strategy for finding inefficiencies, solving problems, and driving continuous improvement.
Below, we summarize what a Gemba Walk is, why it’s important, and how to incorporate it into your wider business success strategy.
In this guide:
What is a Gemba Walk?
A Gemba Walk is a lean management practice that allows leaders to see work processes in context. Similar to management by walking around (MBWA), it involves physically visiting the front line where team members work to get a better sense of how things are running. It also helps managers identify areas for improvement. The goal of a Gemba Walk is to show leaders what’s really happening in their organization.
The Gemba Walk itself originated from Toyota’s manufacturing department in Japan, with “Gemba” roughly translating to “the actual place”. However, although it originated on the production line, it’s useful and applicable to most industries and workplaces.
Why are Gemba Walks important?
By regularly analyzing processes within the context of the workplace, Gemba Walks help leaders spot waste and manage inefficiencies. It enables them to become more involved in day-to-day operations, while helping them make more realistic, informed decisions.
- Gemba Walks can be a crucial tool for driving continuous improvement, with management decisions inspired by contextual and accurate workplace observations. By maintaining this real presence in the physical workspace, managers can bridge the gap between their leadership vision and employees’ day-to-day operational reality.
- This helps to provide a fresh perspective on how a business is performing, rather than simply relying on second-hand knowledge.
- On a more personal level, Gemba Walks can also help to build a stronger rapport between managers and their direct reports. Besides the reassurance of their presence in the workplace, it also gives leaders a chance to converse with employees and gather real and direct feedback.
By building these relationships, and gaining an overall better understanding of processes, this can foster lasting positive change.
How often should you do a Gemba Walk?
How often you should do a Gemba Walk depends on many factors, including:
- The industry you work in.
- The products or services your company offers.
- Your company size.
- Any specific goals and objectives.
For example, in manufacturing or healthcare, some supervisors may Gemba Walk daily to observe different parts of the business. This helps to maintain a consistent overview of operations, making it easier for managers to track and identify inefficiencies.
With less ‘active’ settings — such as a financial or software office space — weekly or monthly walks might make more sense. This helps to maintain employees’ sense of independence, while also ensuring consistent improvements are maintained.
Ultimately, it’s up to you as a business leader to decide what makes sense for your company, its teams, and goals.
How to do a simple Gemba Walk.
While the process of implementing a Gemba Walk may vary from company to company, and leader to leader, the following steps provide a general outline of the desired process from start to finish.
1. Make a plan.
By going in with some idea of what you might look for and hope to identify, you can ensure your walk is more productive.
You could start by choosing a theme or focal point for your efforts — for example, time management, workflow, and project timeline inefficiencies. Decide on your focus and consider making a more detailed, specific list of things you want to look at.
Keep in mind that this list is only a guide — the point of doing the Gemba Walk is to see things that would not have occurred to you from your desk. So, be prepared to be flexible.
You may also wish to prepare a set of questions for team members during your walk. For example, you might ask them to explain their roles and responsibilities in more detail, or what they perceive to be the most challenging part of their work.
2. Prepare your team.
If you’re planning to “walk around”— virtually or physically observing and asking questions — it’s a good idea to inform employees of your Gemba Walk ahead of time. You don’t want to raise concerns or suspicions or leave them wondering if their jobs are somehow on the line.
Let everyone know when the walk will occur and explain its purpose and your overall goals. Focus on what the Gemba Walk hopes to achieve for them, and make it clear that the idea is to improve workflow and processes in the long run.
This can also make them more comfortable in sharing their thoughts and ideas with you, thus improving rapport and feedback accuracy.
3. Focus on the process, not the people.
The goal of the walk is not to analyze your employees, as this can be counterproductive. Focusing on people and their ‘faults’ might appear insensitive and may come across as a personal attack.
Instead, focus on specific processes to alleviate pressure and encourage ideas and collaboration. Similarly, ensure your questioning clarifies that there are no right or wrong answers.
Employees may begin to dread Gemba Walks if they find you’re critiquing them during the process. This can foster mistrust and won’t give you a true picture of how your business really operates. It’s important to stress that you’re not conducting evaluations — rather, you’re trying to understand the value of certain processes, and identify ways to optimize them.
4. Follow the value chain.
The value chain, or the value stream, is the flow of value through the company. What product do you produce? You’ll need to identify the value that your company provides and then consider how your organization develops and provides that value.
To do this, find where the ‘flow of value’ begins. Perhaps it happens at the beginning of a production line, or when a new job comes in. The true beginning will sit with the person who accepts the job and initiates the first steps of the process.
During your walk, move through your company by mirroring the generated value. Essentially, start at the beginning.
By following things step-by-step, you may be able to identify inefficiencies in the pipeline, or as jobs move from one team to another. You may find a bottleneck as workloads combine and tasks are not distributed optimally.
5. Ask who, what, when, where, and why.
If you prepared questions during the planning phase, now is the time to ask them. As you move through your Gemba Walk, or follow the value chain, try to use the five whys analysis and the ‘five Ws’ — who, what, when, where, and why?
For example, you might ask:
- Who are the team members involved in a particular part of the process?
- What do those team members do? What are the steps in the process, and how are they carried out?
- Where does the work take place? Is the workplace set up in a way that increases efficiency, or is it cluttered, disorganized, or insufficient?
- When is each step of the process performed? Are steps completed in a certain order? Is this organized in the best possible structure?
- Why is the work performed important? In what way does it add value or enhance the value stream? Are there things done that do not serve a purpose?
6. Take thorough notes.
As you’re observing things in real time, it’s best not to rely on your ability to remember everything you see. Make sure to take notes during the Gemba Walk and not afterwards, to keep track of as much detail as possible.
- While you may prize yourself on your memory, taking detailed notes — even if they’re quick or shorthand — will provide a more effective and reliable bank of information.
- Note-taking also helps to maintain your focus on specific observations. You may feel inclined to make suggestions on the spot, but this is not always a good idea. It’s usually best to sit with your observations before developing an improvement plan.
This also gives you more time to craft suggestions with care and thought, rather than providing reactive feedback.
7. Don’t give feedback during the walk.
Similarly, when you’re on a Gemba Walk, you’re there to observe and learn. It’s okay to ask clarifying questions, but you shouldn’t give feedback or try to fix anything during the walk.
You might not have all the details you need at the time. Instead, treat the experience as a fact-finding mission. After the Gemba Walk, you can talk about potential solutions with your management team and employees based on your observations.
Gemba Walks aren’t about correcting employees, but understanding what you can improve for long-term efficiency. If mishandled, this could affect employee engagement and morale.
8. Refer to an objective observer.
Have an objective observer at your side to gain additional insights. They might be a manager or leader from another department, one of your vendors, or someone else in a similar position at your company.
For an observer to be truly objective, they shouldn’t have a stake in the outcome of your Gemba Walk. This allows them to focus on what they actually see, not what they hope to, or fear, they might see.
An objective observer may also ask more valuable questions that might not have occurred to you, as they may be less familiar with your team members and processes.
9. Review with your team.
After you complete your walk, review your notes, and create an initial list of possible changes, improvements, and suggestions. When you’re ready, regroup and share these findings with your team.
You may choose to do this in a meeting with team leaders or by sending out an email or announcement. If you use team or project management software, you could even share your Gemba Walk results and suggestions on a company-wide platform.
Since a Gemba Walk is a collaborative process, it’s best to share your results with your team and ask for further suggestions. This will not only help you design a more efficient workflow, but also show employees that you take their feedback seriously.
Make sure, when you ask for changes, that you explain the reasoning behind your decisions and the long-term vision in mind. People often find process changes much easier to manage when they understand and believe in the rationale behind them. How will they benefit your workers themselves?
10. Follow up with another walk.
With continuous improvement in mind, it’s a good idea to do regular Gemba Walks once you’ve allowed time for your suggestions to settle.
On your next walk, you can directly observe how well any changes are working and identify if any new problems have arisen as a result. You’ll also be able to ask employees what their opinions are and whether they have seen increased efficiency as a result.
What is a virtual Gemba Walk?
Rather than taking place in a physical workplace, a virtual Gemba Walk uses video calls to observe or talk-through processes.
These digital ‘walks’ can be just as effective for remote or hybrid teams as they are for manufacturers — and are a great option for businesses that don’t own physical office space.
Virtual Gemba Walks can help save time and money on travel, while also optimizing the overall process. Plus, as they’re usually one-to-one meetings, they can encourage better remote collaboration. This can be valuable for isolated team members who may not interact regularly with fellow employees and leaders.
How to do a virtual Gemba Walk.
Virtual Gemba Walks can be conducted in a variety of ways. As they’re not in-person, there is a little more flexibility when it comes to format. Some of your options include:
- One-on-one remote calls. Schedule a video call with your employees and interview them about their roles and certain processes. This is a good opportunity for them to provide more specific — and sensitive — feedback in a more private setting.
- Online focus groups. This is ideal if you work in a team-oriented environment that requires a lot of collaboration. Focus groups can bring people together and help make the virtual process feel much more cooperative. You can ask people directly for their thoughts on certain issues, encourage a wider discussion, focusing on any barriers they have and how you can help remove them.
- Virtual shadowing. This involves an employee sharing their screen and the manager getting an understanding of their process as they work. Like an in-person Gemba Walk, you’ll only interrupt the employee to ask clarifying questions, rather than to provide direct feedback.
Virtual Gemba Walks follow the same steps and checklist as in-person walks. However, there’s also the added benefit of taking screenshots or recording the walkthroughs, making it easier for you to retain and manage information and build out a long-term plan.
Your Gemba Walk checklist.
Gemba Walks require consistency, so it’s important to use a checklist to structure each one. This provides your team with a framework and helps to ensure consistent quality of findings with each walk.
Every organization is different, but you can use this Gemba Walk checklist as a starting point when building out your focus points and questions:
Establishing work processes.
- Describe the work process
- How does this process further company goals?
- Which employee is responsible for each task?
Reflecting on processes.
- Is the process clearly documented?
- Why does the employee perform the task this way?
- What would cause this process to not meet its target?
- Is there a process for reporting problems?
- Does the employee know who to report problems to?
Building solutions.
- What would speed up or improve this process?
- Does the employee have any concerns or problems with the process?
- What is the root of the problem?
- Does the employee have ideas or suggestions for solving the problem?
- Would any materials, machinery, or software make this process easier?
Getting started with Gemba Walks.
Gemba Walks thrive on structure and consistency. It may be tempting to jump straight into your first walk, but it’s important to plan and prepare both yourself and your employees beforehand.
Remember, the walk itself is about gathering information, not providing reactive feedback. It’s only after you’re done with your observations that you should start to build your long-term plan to foster a culture of continuous improvement.
When you’re ready to start implementing your changes, solutions like Adobe Workfront can help drive better collaboration to deliver measurable business outcomes.
Workfront integrates people, data, processes, and technology across an organization, so you can manage the entire lifecycle of projects from start to finish — giving you a better overall picture of the value chain. By optimizing and centralizing digital projects, cross-functional teams can connect, collaborate, and execute from anywhere to help them do their best work.
Recommended for you
https://business.adobe.com/fragments/resources/cards/thank-you-collections/workfront
