I was searching for someone to mention Gemba. The Toyota Manufacturing system is so amazing: its tenets keep somehow following us into the tech industry, reminding us that all of these have been tried and tested in the grind of the shop floor.

I spent a few years at a motorcycle parts manufacturing plant in India, and while I am in software now, I keep seeing how effective the Lean Manufacturing system would be here. We need more of it.

That being said, how would a company like this deal with Gemba if their employees can't drive anything. I can't drive a car or a motorcycle. So how would I be able to join the Gemba walk?

Walking to inspect a process is quite different from doing it yourself.

Given the distributed nature of a business like door dash using the app as a driver is about as close as you can come to walking around the floor.

Still way better than the current practice of observing from status reports and not knowing the process at all.

It's not. Actually it's almost worse because it tends to hide issues even deeper.

This practice is very similar to when teachers would reward students for good behavior on days the teachers would be evaluated.

Principal looks good to the board/state, teachers look good to the principal, and students look good to the teachers - but yet, we get caught up in looking good and impressing others, that we forget the real issue of children that are still getting left behind.