1. How to Do a Gemba Walk
Get Your Boots on
and Start Walking!
Michael Bremer
Author E-Book “How to do A Gemba Walk”
A 2016 Shingo Research Award recipient
https://youtu.be/7qLkzudtfho
http://www.amazon.com/How-Gemba-Walk-Michael-Bremer-ebook/dp/B00KKPSQS8
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2. Definition Gemba Walks
Go to the source to find the facts to make better
decisions, build consensus and achieve goals
• Gemba means “the real place”
• Go “see” first hand, with own eyes what is
really happening vs. what you assume is
happening
• The “Check and Adjust” part of PDCA
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3. Purpose
• Learning opportunity for walker
– Test actual reality against your assumptions
– More deeply understand what’s really happening
• Separate process & people performance
– 85%+ performance problems are process issues
• GWs can change the culture
– People are afraid they will get blamed
– Change the way you talk about improvement
– Foster more critical thinking
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4. When You See Problems
• What happens? Do you…
– Immediately determine countermeasures?
– What impact does it have on people if leadership
solves the problems?
• Or do you coach the people on how to
resolve?
– Elite companies use Gemba Walks to drive/align
accountability and to foster more critical thinking
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5. GWs Build Relationships
• Learning opportunity for people visited during
the walk
– Better understand why their work is important
– Improve critical thinking skills & confidence
– Increase trust with leadership
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6. Learning to Observe
• Takes time
• Requires a quiet humility
• Takes practice
• Requires patience
• Should be done with respect
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7. Surface Abnormalities
• Many abnormalities (exceptions) exist at start of
lean journey
– Early on GWs might focus on increasing process stability
• Evolve standard work practices
– Difficult to have effective standard work, when
considerable variation exists in the way work gets done
• Create environment to foster critical thinking skills
and improvement action
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8. ‘Leader Standard Work’ Type Walks
• Supervisor (multiple times per day )
• Leadership team walk (2 or 3 times per day)
• Value Stream walk (weekly)
• Waste identification walk (a common starting
point)
• Executive walk (people from outside the
facility - periodic)
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9. Walks to See How Problems Handled
• Check on general plant 5S conditions
• Check on a production quality issues flagged by customer
inquiries
• Observe a huddle at a work cell closely linked to a customer
service change
• Check on standard work sustainment in a new or improved
key process
• Randomly audit team huddle boards for logical layout, info
flow and corrective action
• Waste identification walk (a common starting point)
• Process review for uncovering improvement opportunities
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10. Did you ever wonder
why women live
longer than men?
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11. Key Activities
• Prepare for the Walk
• Do the Walk
– Go See
– Ask ‘What’ then ‘Why’
– Show Respect
• Debrief the Walk
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12. Prepare for the Walk
• Define ‘purpose’ for walk – why doing it?
• Define a scope for the walk – where headed?
• Coach appropriate behaviors to participants:
– One conversation at a time
– Show respect, listen more than you talk
– Make no on the spot judgments, seek to
understand
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13. Go See
• Test your assumptions and learn
• Do people in the organization:
– Understand purpose of their work?
– Follow standard work practices?
– Understand performance expectations and why?
– Use a scientific thought process for problem
resolution?
• Are people inhibited from doing their jobs by
organizational support systems?
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14. Go See #2
• Observe the 5Ms (Man, Machine, Methods, Materials,
Measurement)
• Observe the 3Ms (Muda, Mura and Muri) - they all deal
with capacity utilization
– Muda (8 Wastes) Inefficient/ineffective use of capacity
– Mura (uneven) Inefficient flows and capacity
utilization…sometimes too little, sometimes too much
– Muri (overburden) Work exceeds the capacity - in an office
administrative this looks like multi-tasking as people try to do
several things at the same time
• Develop a deeper understanding of value added, vs. waste,
vs. non-value added but necessary to do - in the current
environment
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15. Ask What, then Why
• Anyone can look around, good observations
require skill
• What is the work people are trying to
accomplish?
• What are the targets? Why is that important?
• Why is performance less than desired?
• Why is there backtracking, rework….?
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16. Ask the right questions
Coach employees on more critical thinking skills
• What type of a problem were you trying to solve?
• How did you become aware of the problem?
• What did you (the team) change?
• How did this improvement affect business results?
• What is your next improvement?
Reinforce lean concepts
• How do visual management tools help you?
• How do you know when there is a problem?
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17. Current Target
Current State
Desired
Improvement
Any Obstacles
What was
Learned
Next Steps
At Gemba Seek
Understanding
Coach Critical
Thinking
Align Support
Systems
Show Respect
Provide Positive
Reinforcement

18. Walker’s Seek to Understand
• Future state targets for area observed (what is it, why
is that the target?).
• Current state (what is the current reality, the current
condition, the amount of variation) of the process(es).
• What improvement is being worked to close the gap?
• Is it done in a scientific fashion following some type of
Plan/Do/Study/Adjust methodology?
• What obstacles hinder progress
• What was learned from improvement experiments?
• What are the next steps?
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19. Show Humility and Respect
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20. Show Respect
• Ask open-ended questions
• Listen more than you talk
• Create a safe environment for people to talk
(it pays considerable dividends)
• Always jump to the 5 Whys, never the 5 Whos
• Don’t remove problem ownership, trust
people to act when they learn to ‘see it’
• Help them learn to see it and gain confidence
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21. Debrief the Walk
• What was done well?
• What could be done better?
• Do questions asked build associates self esteem and knowledge?
• Did the questioner remain humble?
• Did the questioner keep problem/opportunity ownership with
associates?
• Do walkers seek to understand where management support
systems are dis-aligned?
Close the debrief by asking these questions:
• Did we make any decisions during the walk today?
• If yes, how are we going to communicate that decision?
• How are we going to follow-up on progress?
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22. Sustain the Gains
• Follow-up on discussion items from past walks
• Align support systems (they often inhibit new
behaviors from becoming a norm)
• Learn how/if good ideas are replicated across
the organization
• Coach other Gemba Walkers to become better
walkers and coaches
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23. Takes Practice to Perfect
• Don’t try to do too much on one walk
• Learn how to effectively coach people
– Seeing issues
– Clearing them
– Finding root causes
– Solving them
• Institute cycles of experimentation, learning
and doing
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24. Some Things Never Change
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25. What can go wrong?
• If the leader lacks humility it can be a challenge to do
• Don’t teach people too many things in one setting.
• Remember, when you give a CEO type leader, an idea,
it’s like launching 1,000 ships, be careful with what you
recommend
• Make certain coaches also ask open ended questions
rather than giving the coachee the answer or telling her
what to do
Don’t try to change the world with a single Gemba Walk!
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26. How To Do A Gemba Walk
• 2016 Shingo Research Award recipient
• More information available, along with host of questions
for different types of walks in the e-book on this subject.
Only $6.99 U.S. https://youtu.be/7qLkzudtfho
• http://www.amazon.com/How-Gemba-Walk-Michael-
Bremer-ebook/dp/B00KKPSQS8
• Interested in learning about your experiences with GWs,
insights learned, how it changed perspectives and how (if)
it improved your culture. Please let me know…thanks.
• You are welcome to use this material, would appreciate
your honoring our contribution by referencing the
materials came from the Cumberland Group.
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27. Contact Info
• Michael Bremer
• The Cumberland Group and
• Chicagoland Lean Enterprise Consortium
• Hinsdale, IL 630-235-4210
• michael@cumberlandchicago.com
• www.cumberlandchicago.com
• “How to Do a Gemba
Walk” http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KK
PSQS8
• https://youtu.be/7qLkzudtfho
• “Escape the Improvement
Trap” http://tinyurl.com/44osfyu