In April 2023, LEX360 and The Legal 500 held the UK’s first ever legal Gemba Walk, utilising methods from Lean Six Sigma. Gemba is from the Japanese for ‘the real place’, and it is the most important place for a team as it is where the work happens. The Gemba Walk allows management teams to leave their daily routines, and experience how the team works and build better trust relationships, understand the issues, and find solutions. Our first Gemba Walk was provided by the award-winning legal team at E.ON UK.
Based on our research, there are five actions that legal leaders should undertake to drive a culture of continuous improvement:
