Gemba Walk Checklist: Walk the Process Effectively

Walking the process is an important stage to be able to effectively understand the status quo. Lean techniques call this a Gemba walk. But when you’re starting your Gemba walk, it’s easy to rush in at high speed, eager to going. This can result in missing important steps and overlooking opportunities. Use this Gemba Walk Checklist to effectively and efficiently observe and understand the process and operation

1. Where to Start

This is an area where you can make or break your Gemba – before you get anywhere near the process. As the Benjamin Franklin saying goes: “Failing to plan is planning to fail”. So, we start our Gemba walk checklist which the steps you need to plan.

Defining your goal, scope and theme

However, before you can even get into planning, you need to confirm your goal. What is it that you want to do a Gemba walk for? In particular, what do you hope to find out? Furthermore, what would make this activity a success? Define your goal and write it down so it stays lodged in your head as you continue to plan.

Next, define what it is that you want to actually observe. What is the scope of your Gemba walk? You should define specific departments, processes or teams. This will allow you to zoom into more detail and will help you to get more out of the activity.

Also, you should identify a theme for the day. For example, are you looking to reduce costs? Perhaps you’re looking to minimise errors? Maybe, it’s about serving your customers better. Set a theme and your brain will be more focused on meeting that challenge.

Getting support for your Gemba

With your scope and theme identified, now consider who else could help you. Who would bring unique experiences or perspectives? Who could add a “fresh pair of eyes” to see the big questions that are left un-asked. Finding additional people to support will result in a richer output and can get buy in from your stakeholders.

At this stage, you can build an outline plan. You can then use this outline plan to get more support for your Gemba walk. You should get support from operational leaders. In our example of a retail store Gemba, this would be in the form of Area Managers, Store Directors and Retail Directors. Getting support can help overcome challenges as well as give you more exposure to the organisation.

Once these steps are complete, you can get into the next stage of this Gemba walk checklist – all about the logistics of scheduling and planning the activity itself.

Gemba walk checklist: 1. Planning effectively to succeed

Define your goal – why are you doing a Gemba walk and what would it a success?
Set a scope – which areas will you observe?
Set a theme – what challenges or topics will you focus on?
Finding additional viewpoints – who else can help you?
Getting support – bring visibility and sponsorship for your Gemba

2. Planning the Logistics

The next stage in this Gemba walk checklist is to plan out the logistics for the activity. The first questions you need to ask are “when” and “where”.

When will be good to observe the process

Your when will be defined by deadlines and objectives. You may also need to consider times when you will not be able to do your Gemba walk. Busy periods may not be so good as you’ll hamper the operation. Quiet periods may also not be useful as you won’t see where the challenges exist. Depending on the process area you’re looking at, you may also need to consider avoiding shutdown periods. Be sure to also consider times of day, days of the week and any other time based variations that occur in the process.

Finding the right location(s)

Where to observe the process is only applicable for multi site operations. For example, if you’re observing processed in retail stores, you will have many sites that could be used. You may need to add in multiple locations to observe the process and any variability. Examples of variation that you need to consider are: size, performance, operational complexity, demographics as well as any areas where different processes and procedures are used (for whatever reason).

Diary planning – always trickier than it should be

During this stage, you will of course need to consider diary planning. Finding suitable days for this activity can be one of the most challenging parts. But it does unfortunately need to be done. Offer 3 options to see if you can get one to work. Alternatively you could track the different options via a spreadsheet. You could also try using various online tools to find the best time for all involved.

Remember to involve a representative from the operation (e.g. the store manager using our retail store example). They will be able to confirm if the time you’ve chosen will work for them too. This is obviously critical to get successful buy in.

It’s important to consider travel times and overnight stays too if relevant.

Mapping what you’ll see

The next stage of planning is to map out what you expect to see. This is often forgotten so I wanted to include it in this Gemba walk checklist for you.

Often, people assume they know what they want to see. In turn, this can result in dangerous assumptions and can lead to missing intricate parts of the process.

You may be able to reuse existing process maps or training material. Also, you could consider doing a mini-Gemba as a trial run. This can be particularly useful if you have a large number of people attending the Gemba or if you are doing extended process observations.

Building an agenda

With the processes identified and mapped, you can set out an agenda for what to see. Don’t be too strict in your timings, especially if processes are ongoing. The main consideration here is to plan time for specific time sensitive elements of the process. For example, if you know deliveries are expected between 6am and 8am, don’t plan to observe delivery processes in the afternoon! Yes, it sounds obvious – but I’ve also seen people make this mistake before.

Make sure that the operational owners understand this agenda and plan. With their support, you may need to refine it based on their knowledge. Plus, the operational owner will be able to plan the operation and their team to support your Gemba.

Gemba walk checklist: 2. Planning logistics to meet your aims

Agree when to do – finding a suitable time from the process’ perspective.
Find the right location – where should you see the process? Also, do you need to consider visiting multiple sites?
Finding time in diaries – offer up options to land on a time.
Consider travel implications – remember to allow for getting to site and expenses involved.
Map what you’ll see – define the process steps that you expect to see.
Build an agenda – what parts of the process will you see in what order? Are there any time sensitive processes to observe?
Sharing that agenda – Sharing your agenda to get help from the operational owner.

3. Doing the Gemba Walk

The majority of this Gemba walk checklist does focus on the upfront planning activities. You can get more “bang for your buck” by planning effectively. However, it’s also important to keep your eye on the ball during the Gemba walk itself or all that planning will go to waste!

Explain what you’re doing

It’s important to put people at ease when you’re doing a Gemba. It is nerve-wracking to have someone come to observe your work. Put yourself in their shoes for just a moment. Someone has come to watch you work and ask you questions. What questions is your brain jumping to? Am I in trouble? Are they going to fire me? Do I remember how the process works? What if I don’t know, will that come back to me? Will I let my boss down? Not very helpful questions, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Put people at ease by telling them what you’re looking at and why. Of course, use your discretion if you’re looking at a potentially contentious goal. Your focus should be on explaining that you’re understanding the process itself, nothing to do with the individual performance of who you’re observing.

Use your agenda

Remember to use your Gemba agenda (and the other preparation steps that you went through beforehand. Keep an eye on what you are meant to be doing and the time. You can keep some flexibility in there, particularly if you are getting value from an observation. Or if you are part way through a particular process that you’ve not followed before.

The last thing that you want to happen is to reach the end of your agreed Gemba timescale and find that you’ve not yet seen everything that you needed to.

Ask open and closed questions

Perhaps this is where you will find the golden nuggets in your Gemba. Ask questions to gain a better understanding of what’s going on.

Use open questions to prompt discussion and explore what’s meant to happen. Open questions are also great to understand the challenge with a particular process step. Particularly good questions to ask are:

“what happens…”
“what if…”
“if you could…”
“what one thing…”

Use closed questions to test your understanding of the process. Yes, that’s right, contrary to popular belief, closed questions can be useful too! Bet you never though that you’d be encouraged to use closed questions!

However, you do need to be considerate about asking questions. The operation is live and every question you ask is slowing down the process.

Take notes to capture reality

Whilst a Gemba walk is a break from your normal day, it still means that you have to be on your ball. You should see a lot and find out a lot. Take notes to ensure that you get the details right. Also, record exact quotes through the day. Exact quotes are particularly useful when talking about the challenges with a process. You’ll find they bring the process to life when you are telling more people about your findings.

As soon as your Gemba is over, I also like to immediately review notes to make sure there is nothing else to capture when it is fresh in my mind.

Gemba walk checklist: 3. Actually doing the Gemba walk

Explain what you’re doing – put people at ease when you’re observing the process.
Use your agenda – keep some flexibility but also make sure to cover everything.
Ask open questions – open discussion and explore the process challenges.
Ask closed questions – use this to check your understanding of the process.
Capture reality with notes – take notes as soon as possible to make sure you recall the reality of the situation.

4. After the Gemba Walk

Once you’ve done your Gemba walk, you’ve finished right? Wrong.

Now the fun really begins as it’s time to take action.

What did you learn?

Review your notes and your memories. What have you seen? What have you learnt? There may have been things that you expected would happen – but didn’t. Equally, there may have been activities that you didn’t expect to happen.

For any anomalies, you need to consider if what you saw was widespread or just a one off. Good examples are when a tool breaks or a system error occurs. Are these events happening everywhere, all of the time. No, of course not. In fact, you just happened to see one of the random occurrences. Look with a critical eye. But, if you are in any doubt, just ask operational experts or the operational owner to help gain that clarity. Another option is to go on another mini-Gemba, focused on that particular tool, system or step.

Take action

Usually, people feel highly energised and excited after doing a Gemba walk. They’re full of great observations and brilliant ideas. However, after one distraction or another, the observations are forgotten and the ideas never come anywhere near fruition.

Don’t let those learnings be forgotten. Equally, don’t let your vigour be dampened or everything will have been a waste of time. Plan a review session with all of the Gemba walk participants to review your collective experiences. Define next steps based on these findings. In turn, agree your top priorities. Taking these actions will help you to keep action on the agenda, especially a few weeks after the Gemba activity happened.

Set up meetings with stakeholders to talk to them about what you saw and learnt. Sharing with other people will help hold you to account.

Gemba walk checklist: 4. After the Gemba walk

What did you learn – what did you expect to see but didn’t? Also, what did you not expect to happen?
Review challenges with a critical eye – were challenges widespread or just one offs?
Take action – define next steps and agree which are highest priority.
Hold yourself to account – share your recommendations with others.

Gemba walks can be very useful to bring yourself back to reality. However, they can also be a waste of time if there is no goal or are not planned effectively. Likewise, they can be a wasted opportunity if they are not carried out effectively or if nothing happens as a result. Use this Gemba walk checklist to effectively observe the process and to understand reality.

What extra tips do you think should be in this Gemba walk checklist? Comment below or let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.

About the Author

Oliver Banks is an expert at delivering retail change projects and programmes. He’s observed many different retail operations and knows the types of challenges that can be presented. He blends classic project management techniques from PRINCE2, PMBOK and Lean Six Sigma with a dose of pragmatism and business reality to ensure these important retail projects are led, managed and delivered successfully.