A Gemba walk is one of the most important Lean techniques to understand the current state of any process. The idea behind Gemba walks is to physically visit the actual location and carefully observing the work being performed to identify potential areas for improvement. By making incremental improvements consistently, Gemba walks allow making small improvements many times over pursuing a single large-scale improvement.

This Gemba walk template offers a simple and consistent approach to gain valuable insights into the operational dynamics of your processes. It brings together many of the continuous improvement tools used in problem solving and process improvement. Following the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) framework, this template consists of four sections: Go, See, Think, and Do (GSTD).

This template is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that can be customized to fit your specific needs. It can easily be modified to include additional sections or tools as required. For instance, a “Visuals” section can be included to incorporate the photos and visuals collected during the observation. Additional rows and space can also be added in any section as necessary.

In addition, two additional forms are provided to enable the observer to collect data in a simple and silent way. The first form can be used in any production environment, while the second form is specifically designed for customer service environments. The data obtained through these forms can then be recorded in another provided worksheet for further analysis.