Compass Instruments · CHANGE & TRANSFORM
Gemba Observation Sheet
A decision made in a conference room is a hypothesis. Gemba is where it is tested: at the work, with the people doing it, comparing the standard as written to what actually happens.
A workaround is a design defect with a human patch on it.
This is instrument six in the CHANGE & TRANSFORM register, worked through stages five and six. Status reports tell you what people believe is happening. Gemba tells you what is happening.
The unit of analysis is always the process, never the person. When the observed practice differs from the standard, the standard, the tooling, the capacity or the incentive is what gets examined — and the difference leaves the floor with a countermeasure, an owner and a date.
Work the Sheet
Instrument · Gemba Observation Sheet
The standard as written, against the work as done
Go and see. Ask why. Show respect. The standard as written is compared to the work as done, and the difference is treated as information about the system — not about the people in it.
Observations
One row per step of the process. A gap without a countermeasure, an owner and a date is a note, not an observation.
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
What the sheet says
No observations recorded yet.
- Steps observed
- 0
- Blocking
- 0
- Friction
- 0
- Watch
- 0
- Holding
- 0
- Observe the work, never the worker. The unit of analysis is the process.
- Ask the people doing the work what makes the standard hard to follow today.
- Record workarounds without judgement — a workaround is a design defect with a human patch on it.
- Every gap leaves the sheet with a countermeasure, an owner and a date, or it is not an observation, it is a note.
- Set the follow-up observation before you leave the floor.
This is a management instrument, not a performance review. Record the process, the standard and the barrier — never a named individual's performance. Entries stay in the browser that created them until you export the sheet.
Where this sits in the sequence
What you observe here is evidence for the working board and the scorecard: repeated barriers become system changes, and adoption stops being an opinion.
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