We did not invent the Gemba Walk, but we have embraced it as our primary mechanism for Continuous Improvement.
The concept of the Gemba Walk was developed by Taiichi Ohno, an executive at Toyota. As part of the Toyota Production System (TPS) and later Lean, The Gemba Walk is an opportunity for staff to stand back from their day-to-day tasks to walk the floor of their workplace to identify wasteful activities.
In the context of IT systems, the Gemba Walk is our opportunity to observe processes and structures from the perspective of the people who are most impacted by them: front line workers. It allows us to identify areas for improvement and to get critical feedback regarding any processes we have implemented. It also encourages workers to report seemingly “small” issues that they were putting off reporting. The final result is high quality, responsive, truly proactive IT systems that increase productivity, reduce downtime and save you money.