In the film “Up in the Air,” Ryan Bingham makes his living traveling to clients and laying off their employees with his own special charm (he is played by George Clooney, after all). His upstart colleague, Natalie, proposes a new method via videoconferencing. But before the new system can go into place, their boss convinces Ryan to take Natalie on the road with him so she can see first-hand how it’s done and maybe learn a thing or two to make her proposal even more effective. He likes Natalie’s idea, but first he needs her to go see things for herself. By seeing for herself – no spoilers here – everyone learns a lot and we have the ingredients for a pretty good movie.
By making this road trip, Natalie is going to the gemba. The gemba is a Japanese term meaning “the real place,” and is a basic concept in the modern quality and product innovation movement. The gemba is the place where the actual product is used by actual people solving actual problems. It is where value is created, where the rubber meets the road, and where chickens come home to roost. This is an important place because this is the place where problems and opportunities are visible, and we can better understand how our products can better help our customers.
The gemba, as a business concept, took hold in manufacturing. Plant managers and engineers left their offices to hit the shop floor (go on a “gemba walk”) to collaborate with production line staff on making incremental, continuous improvements. For example, an engineer visits a production line and discovers that a wiring harness can be modified to make it easier to install and less prone to shorting out. But the gemba is not just a place for manufacturing. Bill Marriott, CEO and Chairman of Marriott International, visits 250 hotels a year for the opportunity to interact directly with employees and hotel guests (in our native habitat).
The gemba is equally at home in software design and development. The gemba exists in between the keyboard and the chair that your users are sitting in. Although it seems like an obvious step to engage end-users directly in your software project, it may not happen as often as you think. Impending deadlines, political forces, and fear of finding out what users actually think conspire to make this a difficult step. But there are a few shortcuts to the gemba.
In their book User-Centered Design Stories, Janice James and Carol Righi outline a technique called Contextual Inquiry. Contextual Inquiry is a process of visiting users in their own work environment, observing them carrying out tasks, and asking questions. It’s a cross between interviewing and observing, combining the best of both.
A cornerstone of Agile development is the ongoing, frequent release of incremental code for end-users to test and provide quick feedback to the development team. This technique not only provides a regular check of the software’s stability, it’s also the opportunity for your customer to weigh in on the software. This is the equivalent of taking your product to the gemba every other week
Think of the product you are developing or the service you are delivering right now. Have you been to the gemba yet?
