Gemba. Our Office Cat.

Gemba walks denote the action of going to see the actual process, understand the work, ask questions, and learn. It is known as one fundamental part of Lean management philosophy. (Wikipedia)

“Gemba” is Japanese for “the real place”. It’s the shopfloor or the offices where we do our actual work.

From the literature on Lean Management I read or at least browsed through, I took along the following comparison (Allow me the blunt use of stereotypes for theatrical reasons.):

A “western” manager will lead and manage a process or department with KPIs based on a report handed up to him/her.

A “lean” manager will lead and manage a process or department with facts and insights from going to “the real place” herself/himself.

How we promote Gemba
My team’s mission is to promote Lean Thinking at our company, to support teams and management in improvement activities and to establish a lively network of insiders, evangelists and enthusiasts that constitute the core of our company-wide community.
After a lengthy and thorough evaluation with facility management, we chose a cat as a team pet for our office. When it came to naming her, we were a lot quicker: we named her “Gemba”.
True to her name and nature, she is never in our own office … But of course raises questions and awareness for her and our cause, and she adds that little “haha” to this serious topic of continuous improvement.
PS: We also use a Shopfloor Board with the relevant KPIs to track our mission’s progress. One of the KPIs is “Number of people that asked whether Gemba is here, or even real”.

In one of my earlier post (see “Experience the Customer. Lions don’t learn to hunt in the Zoo.“) I describe how Gemba is used in the context of Customer Experience Design – including some hints on “how to”. The roots are the same.

Value Stream Mapping before/after Gemba

Here’s a recent example from of a value stream project we’re working on.

To start with, we got 5 or 6 managers together to map the current state of our monthly (financial) Closing Process.

Here’s a picture of the value stream we mapped based on their understanding of what is really happening. It’s in low resolution as we don’t need to be able to read the details to make some interesting observations.

A) Value Stream mapped by managers, before Gemba

Here’s the same value stream after we added 5 or 6 key players to the team and instructed all of them to go observe the different activities in real life – and then map them together in a workshop.

B) Value Stream mapped by managers and key players, after Gemba

Here are “some interesting observations”

A) is neat and structured.
In B) we found 5 further roles (the blue post-its on the left) that are essential to the real value stream.
The number of discovered activities (in B) is significantly higher.
B) has many more connecting arrows and output being carried back and forth.
When mapping B) we found out that there wasn’t really an overall plan that coordinated all the activities. The teams sort of help themselves by “just knowing more or less when to start with their activity”.
The number of systems, tools, templates and ways of doing the same thing at different places, only comes forward in the discussion around B).
Everyone involved agreed that only B) provides the necessary basis to name the “real problem spots” (the red and orange bubbles).
Many volunteered to go to the “Gemba” again, to gather an even better understanding of the current state.

Now, that is the basis you want to start the design of the Future State.

We invested half a day for the first mapping, then half a day of Gemba and one day to map B).

Again and again, I find it impressive how much valuable insight you can gain as a team with that little effort. Also, there are always colleagues that have actually worked together for months, even years – but then realize that they didn’t really know what the other one was really doing. So, Gemba builds respect and mutual understanding. A great side-effect.

Overall it helps establish a culture that allows to be transparent, to name things, to tell how things really are working. This is a prerequisite to continuous improvement. How else would you know what to improve or how much you have improved?

What’s keeping you in our office? You roll!

It’s pretty simple in theory, right? But, why are we too often stuck in meetings, looking at reports, interpreting KPIs, working all by ourselves on a concept?

On a visit to the “Briefzentrum Zürich-Mülligen” organized by ZfU we learned about Swiss Post‘s fruitful, hands-on Kaizen program and we’re guided on a tour through their huge shopfloor of sorting machines and delivery chains.

In front of their “command stand” I found these two electric Scooters!

A fun, personalized element to get one hurdle out of the way, to go to the Gemba. You roll!

What is your experience with Gemba?

What’s the name of your Office Cat?

Emotion Curves. The Circus Experience.

Complex or Complicated? The Rubik’s Cube.