Before you can improve something, you must first have a very clear understanding of what its current state is. Don’t assume you know what it is. Go to the gemba, be it the factory floor, the shipping and receiving area, your office, or even take a minute to focus on yourself, and observe what is going on. It is important that you get close to the action. The worst thing you can do is try to document the current state from a meeting in a faraway conference room.

To document key processes, such as accounts payable, production, sales, and so forth, document the current step-by-step activities of each of those processes. How long does each step take? How are they physically laid out? Where do backlogs occur?

If you are documenting the current state of a company or organization, there are a variety of ways to do it. You can use the key metrics of the organization, including financials, customer service, quality, operations, and so forth. If they are not the appropriate metrics, create new ones. Then decide how your observations compare to your expectations, industry average, etc. What are your suppliers saying about you? Your customers? Your employees? What about your competition?

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