Genchi Genbutsu... "Go and see"

I don't speak Japanese, but I had to post about this!

Genchi Genbutsu, Japanese and translated into English means "Go and See". Toyota implemented this strategy and recently it's become a fairly popular way to approach problem solving.

It boils down to the fact that whether management, operations, production or user experience, the business needs to "go and see" what is actually happening. In product management, we can equate this to user experience and usability testing. I also think it's similar to NIHITO (Nothing Interesting Happens In The Office) from Pragmatic Marketing.  As a product manager, I know the value of getting out of the office and seeing what my customers are doing, but it's so hard to schedule it!  I need to take a more proactive approach to interacting with customers and prosepctive customers by simply observing what they're doing.

For the next few weeks, I'm going to focus on "Genchi genbutsu" and see how it goes!  I have some customer interview scheduled, and will hopefully get the chance