3 Key Learnings from my Gemba Walks
🌿 When we over-channel a river, it eventually overflows. When we over-optimize our processes without seeing the field reality, our teams do too. 💫
Originally published on December 9, 2024
This reflection was inspired by Olivier Hamant's (INRAE) striking presentation at Tech.Rocks Summit 2024 on "Sub-optimality as a Lever for Robustness." A powerful message: nature shows us that absolute performance makes systems fragile, while "imperfections" create resilience.
At Bpifrance's Digital Factory, this lesson resonates deeply. Like a river that needs space to meander, our teams need flexibility to adapt.
Here are 3 key learnings from field observation through the Lean practice of Gemba Walks:
Respect Natural Flows Not rigid processes, not extremely standardized workflows. The real daily work of teams. When you observe how Product, Data, and Tech naturally collaborate, you discover efficiency patterns that no framework could have predicted.
Build Collective Resilience It's not an audit. It's a continuous adaptation exercise where managers and teams together understand field reality. The results? An eNPS above 50 and more than 40 production deployments per day. Not by forcing optimization, but by enabling adaptation.
Balance Control and Adaptation Dashboards are our reference points, but like riverbanks, they should guide without constraining. This approach helps us achieve 89% customer satisfaction. Numbers alert us, field observation guides us toward the right adjustments.
💡 My advice? Don't confuse optimization with improvement. Improvement comes from our ability to observe and adapt, not from our obsession to control everything.
In your organization, how do you find the balance between optimization and resilience? Do you have tips or better yet, failures to share?
#LeanManagement #LeanEngineering #Leadership #ProductManagement #Innovation #TechLeaders #Resilience #gembawalks