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That's exactly what they should be doing though. Toyota calls it a "gemba walk" -- managers and even executives need to walk the factory floor and see problems
by mitthrowaway2 3y ago
That's exactly what they should be doing though.
Toyota calls it a "gemba walk" -- managers and even executives need to walk the factory floor and see problems with their own eyes, not through hearing reports.
With software, the codebase is the gemba, not the office. Managers don't need to be writing code, but they should be reading it. Otherwise it's like a production manager who has never seen the inside of their own factory.
- aworks 3y agoNot quite the same thing but I subscribed to one of my team's code review email lists. I also cc'ed myself on bug reports. Mildly interesting but didn't really impact anything although I was always looking for signals in the noise. On the other hand, my boss had a de facto policy of visiting each remote office at least once a year and conducting one-on-one meetings face-to-face as much as possible. I found this useful for myself to understand the team/environment/product and good for building connections with people, especially when cultures are significantly different. It did result in my visiting Wuhan 16 times between 2012 and 2019, for better or worse.
- yndoendo 3y agoUser experience and observing how they interact with the end product of software development is the true version of walking the aisles. What to find improvements, just be the person that trains and teaches the administrator, the general user, the maintainers, and the installers. For example, I documented how to load an OS image for assembly. Watched them use the guide and saw they flipped through the document. Afterwards, I inserted an extra page of what shows up in the text stream and said, "sit and wait for ...." at that point they started flipping around.
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoThat's looking at the car and driver, not the factory. That's important too! But the gemba walk is about seeing the factory floor where the car is made. If your cars are shipping late and there's lots of defects, you have to look at the factory to find out why.
- yndoendo 3y agoFor example is talking about the assembly line. Assembly workers are your users too. Having an application packaged as as an installer versus a ZIP reduces knowledge and work on both by the assembly user and the maintenance user. In automation, Assembly works still have to engage with the software and make configuration changes, from factory settings to job settings. There really is not a black and white, just a gray area when it comes to assembly and end user.
- throwaway2037 3y agoWould you compare "walking the floor" to doing some PRs or improving test coverage? Neither of these specifically delivery features, but they keep a close eye on the software.
- noodlesUK 3y agoI would say getting a development environment up and running and running the test suite would usually be a great start. You’ll see pain points almost immediately if you just do those things.
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoThat's going a bit above and beyond a gemba walk, but certainly a good thing!
- glandium 3y agoFWIW, in Japanese, gemba/genba/ 現場 just means location (as in "on location")
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoYes, walking the place where things happen.
- bigger_cheese 3y agoI work at an industrial plant (steel mill) - "Walking the floor" is still taught to current managers I think it comes out of LEAN manufacturing or similar. It is supposed to be an informal thing, so not looking over people shoulders and writing things up etc. I believe the idea is for the manager to be visible and approachable so people can feel comfortable coming up to the manager raising issues etc. If the manager is away off site in an executive office or similar then it becomes an added barrier for people to be able to approach them, to notify them about issues etc.