Practice ·
A gemba walk for a software project
What to watch, what to ignore, and when you have seen enough to build.
A gemba walk is not a tour and it is not a requirements workshop. You go to the place the work happens and you watch a real cycle of it, with the person who does it, while they do it.
Start with one job, not the whole company. Follow a single order, ticket, patient, or delivery from the moment it enters until someone considers it done. Write down the waits, the retyping, the workarounds, and the decisions that depend on a person remembering.
Ask what 'good' looks like in their words. Time, errors, rework, and revenue are usually enough. If you cannot name the number the walk is supposed to move, you are not ready to design software.
Stop when you can tell the story back and the person doing the job corrects only details. That is the brief. Everything else can wait for the next visit.