Gemba Walk

What is a Gemba Walk?

A gemba walk is a lean management technique where leaders physically go to the place where work gets done. The word "gemba" comes from Japanese and translates roughly to "the real place" or "where things actually happen." Rather than sitting in a conference room reviewing spreadsheets, leaders walk through factories, warehouses, office floors, or service areas to witness processes firsthand.

The point isn't to catch people doing something wrong. A gemba walk is really about watching, listening, and learning. Leaders ask questions, have conversations with the people who do the work day in and day out, and look for ways to improve quality, safety, or efficiency. This practice originated in the Toyota Production System and continues to be a cornerstone of lean manufacturing and continuous improvement efforts.

So what sets a gemba walk apart from just walking around? It's the intent. You're trying to understand how work actually gets done through direct observation, not through reports or what someone tells you in a meeting. Leaders who make gemba walks a habit tend to develop stronger connections with frontline workers. They catch small problems before they become big ones, and they make decisions grounded in what's really happening rather than what they assume is happening.

Key Characteristics of Gemba Walk

• Direct Observation: Leaders see work conditions as they actually are, rather than relying on dashboards, reports, or secondhand accounts.
• Ask Why, Don't Tell: The approach leans heavily on asking open-ended questions to get at root causes. Jumping to solutions or pointing fingers misses the point entirely.
• Respect for People: There's an underlying belief that workers closest to the process usually know best what's working and what isn't.
• Focus on Process: You're observing and trying to improve how work gets done, not grading individual employees or looking for someone to blame.
• Regular Practice: Gemba walks work best when they happen on a consistent schedule, not just when something breaks or there's a crisis to manage.

Gemba Walk Examples

Example 1: Manufacturing Floor

A production manager does weekly gemba walks through the assembly line. One day she notices workers keep leaving their stations to grab tools from a cabinet across the floor. They mention it's been annoying them for months, but nobody did anything about it.

After watching this play out a few times, the team moves the most commonly used tools within arm's reach of each workstation. The outcome: cycle time drops by about 15%, and there are fewer quality issues from workers trying to rush. The manager also uses Glitter AI to update the standard work instructions with the new tool placement so all shifts stay consistent.

Example 2: Customer Service Center

A call center director schedules gemba walks to sit in on live customer calls and watch how agents navigate their knowledge base. He notices agents frequently putting customers on hold while they hunt through multiple systems and outdated documentation.

Talking with the team, he discovers that recent product updates never made it into the support docs. The fix: consolidating everything into one searchable knowledge base and creating visual guides for the new features. Average handling time falls by 30%, and customer satisfaction scores climb noticeably.

Gemba Walk vs Management by Walking Around

Both practices get leaders out of their offices and visible to employees, but they serve different purposes.

How Glitter AI Helps with Gemba Walks

One tricky part of gemba walks is capturing what you see and turning observations into real improvements. Leaders often scribble notes on paper or just try to remember things, and those insights can slip away before anyone acts on them. Glitter AI makes it simple to document processes during or right after a gemba walk by recording screen workflows or grabbing annotated screenshots.

When you spot an issue during a gemba walk, your team can quickly create or update standard work instructions with clear visuals showing the right way to do things. This approach to lean documentation helps spread improvements across the organization and keeps documentation current. Everyone gets access to the same information about how work should be done, which reinforces whatever gains came out of the gemba walk.