Go and See

 One of the fundamental principles of Lean comes directly from the Scientific Method of Francis Bacon: In order to know what is true, you have to go and see (genchi genbutsu) – check things out for yourself. In particular, if you want to know about a situation, a team, an issue – you have to visit the actual place of the work – the gemba. You can’t rely on the second-hand information you get from reports, metrics or dashboards. From these visits you will gain an understanding of the team’s strengths and weaknesses, challenges and opportunities. It will give you the insight needed to deal with things beyond the team’s capability to solve. It will help you provide opportunities to help the team learn and get better at their work, and get better at their work, and how they work together to do the work.

This practice – to take a gemba walk – has been so successful, in every industry, across every culture that it is the first lesson given to every new Lean leader: “Go and See, Ask Why, Show Respect”.

Getting Started

The first question is, where do you go? Where does work happen? Where is “value” created? In people’s heads? On whiteboards? Chat channels? Conversations? Meetings? Is there an actual physical place where the team resides? What if the team is distributed, or remote? Is there a visual management system used by the team? Where can you observe the team in their “natural habitat”?

The second question is, what do you do when you are there? You should watch, listen and learn. Especially at first. If this is brand-new for you and the team, you need to establish that you are not there to judge or criticize, only observe. You need to go often enough that your visits are not an “event”, not an interruption, and not a change from their daily activities.

What do you see and hear? What can you see and hear? What do you not see or hear?

You will see things that may seem odd, that are unexpected, perhaps wasteful and maybe even nonsensical. Resist the temptation to intervene and “solve things”. Understand that they do these things this way because they are trying their best given the constraints and demands they work under. This is the basis of showing respect.

Self-reflect on what you see and hear, and consider whether you are the source of those constraints and demands. As you provide safety in these visits, you can begin to ask the question “why”.

Ongoing Practice

Once the practice established you can expand your interactions. This begins by asking “why” in a respectful, non-judgmental manner. Remember that ultimately, they are only doing what you told them to do. What did you do say to make them behave this way? Ask questions to understand.

Of course you will see things and think immediately of the solution. If it is a burden you can take off the team’s back then tell them and do it. Otherwise look for a way to allow the team to learn their own way to a solution on their own.

Before you go

What do you know about team? What is the purpose of this team? What is their value stream? What is their part of the total value delivered by the organization? What is the skill distribution? What are their known issues? Who are their sister teams? Who are they dependent on? Recent crises and emergencies? What do you know about their daily life?

Review all of it – and then set that knowledge aside and visit with an open mind.

After each visit

What did you learn? What does the team need? What does it need less of? What should be celebrated? What lessons can help other teams?

What will you do differently next time? What do you want to look at next? what will you change about yourself – expectations, style, attitude?

Make your follow-up actions on any commitments visible.

General rules

• Expect to learn: about the work, about the team and what you can do to help
• Look for things you can take off their plates (admin, reports, etc)
• Help the team learn to recognize waste
• Have you created the conditions for continuous improvement to occur? Is it?
• Are your there to see? Or be seen? Observe the team with respect- the team is the focus of your visit
• Take time to reinforce the team’s learning
• Learn how to help the team learn
• Don’t be a burden during your visit
• Coach the team in systems thinking – how they fit in the bigger picture
• Occasionally get “down in the mud” – what are their actual work problems? Try to get a real sense of what they do every day
• Look for what the team has control over and what they are controlled by. Their work intake? Getting to production? Sister teams? Dependencies? Meetings?
• Avoid a rush to judgement. Avoid a rush to “fix” things
• Make it safe for the team to express their pain, their issues. Don’t show up just to shoot the wounded
• Don’t think you have to make a contribution or give advice
• Coach the team in problem solving
• Help the team build a sense of urgency 

Balanced Rules

A few additional guidelines that perhaps seem self-contradictory:

• Go often enough to not let a single rare even distort your impression of what is “normal” and “abnormal” – and also often enough to catch a unique crisis
• Use the 3:1 rule of encouraging statements to challenges – but don’t validate bad practices
• Make “go and see” a regular practice, but don’t make it a ritual or meaningless ceremony

Summary

There is no substitute for being present with a team to see how they actually work. There is no metric or report that can give you the same depth of insight and awareness. It is only by seeing things first-hand that you can know what could help or hurt. A regular practice of effective gemba walks lets you grasp the situation each team is in. Asking “why” leads to uncovering root causes. And acting on what you learn from your visits – to make the daily life of the team better – is the greatest kind of respect.