Genchi-Genbutsu is the Japanese expression for a practice of finding your answers right down at the source, rather than relying on second-hand reports or charts of data to achieve true understanding. This practice emphasizes going to a place(gemba) where you watch, observe and ask “WHY” five times. I shared few posts earlier on 5 Whys.
Most of the time we are hidden in our project plans and design documents to find root causes. Traditional methods assumed that having a great plan and good documentation is the secret to project success. They alienated themselves from implementation and real world.
Agile, on the other hand, believes in delivering some thing early on to confirm our understanding. It inherits the expression Genchi-Genbutsu.
[Read more…] about Agile is Genchi-Genbutsu: Go, See and Confirm