Individual Assignment Unit 7

Presented by: Eliana Lopez

To: Professor Joe Malak

Unit 7 - Continuous Improvement

Write: Conduct 1-2 “5 Whys” on a real problem at your work. Document the findings and be
prepared to discuss. Conduct at least one Gemba walk at work and write a 750-1000 work
subsection in your paper on the approach, execution, and findings of the Gemba. Develop a plan
to remediate Gemba findings.

“5 Whys”
Problem Statement: Cannot continue development of download page due to a server error.
1. Why this error appears now.
- Due to database server disconnection.
2. Why is the database server offline?
- Due to a problem in the hosting provider.
3. Why the hosting provider has a problem?
- Hosting provider reports disconnection due to a malware attack on your infrastructure.
4. Why the backup server has not started due to service failure
- Because the malware has reached the backup server.
5. Why we don't have a second backup server
- Because our customer has not authorized the acquisition of a second backup server in a
second datacenter.

The root cause of this problem was in the selection of the hosting provider because although the
platforms developed are secure, if the hosting provider does not have a robust infrastructure will
fall to the first malware attack. Therefore the plan that should proceed can be focused on the
selection of safe and reliable hosting providers to migrate all the services there.

Gemba walk:
At the beginning of my working day, I set myself the goal of the Gemba walk to know the current
status of my development team, in order to identify possible problems or improvements that the
process requires.
The beginning of my Gemba walk is in reception, where all the consultations, appointments and
requests of new clients arrive, there I ask the person in charge:
- What tasks are there in the company today?
R/ Today two of our clients submit requests to register their platforms to our maintenance plan.
- Who develops each of the tasks you mentioned?
R / The maintenance plan is directed by the group leader who divides the tasks to execute.
- Is there anything new in the process, do we have to make an improvement?
R / It is recommended to implement a line of research to test services in the cloud as Azure, Google
Cloud or Amazon Web service.
I know that my next visit will be to the technical department, where each of the engineers will be
working to solve the existing problems in each of the companies associated with us, there I will
ask each of the dev /ops:
- What changes will be integrated today?
R / Today will integrate a new customer service area in the blogs of our client ABC.xyz
- What impact will these changes have on the platforms?
R/ It will allow the company's clients to communicate their requests through the blog.
- Is it necessary to communicate any concerns or suggestions to the customer before
implementing the change?
R / It will communicate when it is ready for testing.
- What improvements or changes do you think we should take into account from management to
implementation in the short, medium or long term?
R/ Have a larger development group to be able to attend simultaneously.
Then I go to the development leader and ask him:
- What is each developer working on?
R/ There are three people working on the new responsive presentation, one developer is writing
the front-end, another the back-end and another developer in the database management.
- Has there been a problem or has the problem of the previous day persisted to this day?
R/ No problem has persisted, everything has been overcome.
- How can the efficiency of the process be improved?
R/ Having clearer specifications of what the client wants.

Knowing that the development group is missing a person who has submitted a letter of resignation
and the sales team is saturated. And with these shrimp walks, I observe that there are two
problems to address and is the job that is going to be empty after the resignation of a developer,
the implementation of cloud services in our portfolio of services and the improvement in the
requirements that are provided to developers to start a task.

Follow the plan to remediate Gemba findings:

1. To face the resignation will be to work hand in hand with human resources to recruit a new
developer who is able to join the group and continue to develop software.
2. To integrate cloud services I will appoint a research group which will define the state of the art
and performs tests to identify how viable it is to implement cloud computing from the point of
view of our present and future customers.
3. To address improvement in the specification of requirements I will evaluate how developers
understand more quickly the idea that the customer wants to convey and thus standardize the
process of creating tickets.