This post shows the A3 technique and how it is an effective management tool.

The contents of this post are my summary of THE BOOK on this subject: Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process to solve problems, gain agreement, mentor and lead – by John Shook. Available via Lean Enterprise Institute and Ocapt (in Canada).

Why A3?

Over the last year, I have used A3 to solve serious problems myself as well as with clients that I am coaching. I am blown away by how effective it is. I think of it as the howitzer (big gun) of problem solving and use it for complex problems.

Root cause analysis tools are very helpful, however, do not provided a context for resolving problems. A3 is a complete process. If you are not familiar with root cause analysis, see my related blog post.

What is an A3 anyway?

As shown in the middle of the diagram below, A3 is the name for a large sheet of paper (17″ x 11″). With the A3 technique, it is filled up with useful information. Space is intentionally limited to make sure only the most relevant information is shared. At Toyota, the A3 report is used to drive company decisions from shop floor to senior management.

Let’s walk through the sections:

1. Problem – What is the problem that is causing problems? Also, give attention to the title as the summary.
2. Background – How did you decide to work on this problem? What is business problem?
3. Current Conditions – Describe the current conditions with visuals and numerical data that you have analyzed.
4. Goals/Targets – What is the desired target state? This is the place to use SMART goals.
5. Root Cause Analysis – What are the underlying causes? Use ask why five times and fishbone diagram.
6. Countermeasures – How will you reach goal state? What activities can be identified that will address root causes and how were the best ones selected?
7. Plan – What is the plan for getting there? When will the countermeasures be implemented?
8. Followup – What were the results of deploying the countermeasures? Now that there is new information, it is time to revisit the A3.

You may have noticed that this is an elaborated version of PDCA – Plan Do Check Act. This is the heartbeat of a learning organization.

It takes time and effort to complete an A3. Weeks not days. Use when appropriate.

Tips: Experts strongly recommend using real paper. Yes, you will need to re-write; editing is a good thing. A wiki is great for details, but not for thinking and summarizing.

A3 to gain agreement, mentor and lead

In this section, I want to share how the A3 technique is a powerful management tool.  Consider the following diagram:

A3 is about people working together to solve problems. The Japanese word Nemawashi is about going to the roots to reach consensus and alignment in a deep way. An A3 changes the way we work and communicate with each other. When meetings start by reviewing the parts of the A3 that have been completed, there is great focus on the remaining work. I have also seen new project participants brought up to speed very rapidly.

At Toyota, the A3 is used to do work. It is used to solve problems, make (set-based) decisions and execute plans.

Lean is famous for using pull to deliver the right part at the right time at the right place. With A3, the person driving the change effort can pull authority by working with other people and demonstrating leadership. It is chilling to see this work. I was coaching a junior analyst to put together an A3 on a production problem. When the issue escalated, the VP recognized the analyst as the expert and asked him to tell people what to do to fix the problem even though he had no formal or informal leadership role.

Finally, the A3 can be used to build a learning organization. One key aspect is to celebrate mistakes. This is also common with building an innovation culture through Improv or theatre techniques. At Toyota, it is used to develop people by helping them think for themselves to solve problems. A manager’s job is to build people and mentoring people on the A3 is a great way to do it. (Like a self-organizing team, but on an individual scale.)

I wish I had a real A3 to share, but the better ones I have are client confidential.

If you want to learn more, I urge you to buy the book or check out webinar on Managing to Learn.

Lyssa Adkins ran a very practical session at DeepAgile that shared several tools for team formation or for tuning up existing teams. She often uses these right at the project start since team members may know very little about one another – even if they have been working together for years. Here is a run-through of three of the exercises.

Constellation – Understanding each other through motion

I love this exercise. It provides the team members as well as the coach important information about everyone on the team. It is called constellation since everyone arranges themselves around an object on the floor (in our case a roll of tape) depending how they feel about a statement such as “I like getting results”.  People align their bodies with the statement: standing beside the object signifies strong agreement while standing far away to signifies strong disagreement. It is very powerful since people are engaging their whole bodies. To learn more, there is a full write-up on Lyssa’s blog.

Timeline – sharing our pasts

In timeline, each participant draws a timeline of their life with peaks, valleys and major life events. In turn, each person describes their timeline to the team. Team members listen and note skills or talents (on sticky notes) that stand out. These are then posted at the bottom of the timeline and reviewed as a team. This approach is about figuring out who the person is and what special perspectives they bring to move the project forward. When we did this, it helped the demo subject feel more positive about their talents. Nice.

Marketplace – sharing our talents

In marketplace we pretend we are a vendor in an open-air market place and decide what wares we have to sell. What are our special skills and talents that pertain to this project? We even get to create a banner to attract people. Under the table are things that are true for us, but may not directly relate to the project. The debrief is the same as timeline. Usually a coach will use one or the other (in the training session half of us did marketplace and half did timeline).

Below is my marketplace as an Agile coach.

(This is part of a series on DeepAgile 2010 Games Weekend).

Mary Poppendieck gave her usual well-researched and convincing tour-de-force presenation at LSSC10 on several approaches to organizational change with a talk titled “What’s wrong with targets?”

The purpose of the whole talk is to trash Management by Objectives. See my related blog noting the damaging effects: SMART goals may not be that smart. As an alternative, Mary shares 4 effective models for organizational change.

I have heard a lot recently about the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. It uses the metaphor of the Rider and the Elephant. I like it a lot since it lines up well with my NLP tools and understanding of the unconscious mind. Anyway the change model is very clear:

1. Direct the rider – provide clear direction and objectives.
2. Motivate the Elephant – appeal to emotions to provide energy for change.
3. Shape the path – create a supportive environment that will keep things on track.

Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results by Mike Rother is a second approach for driving change. Check out the above description in the mind map. It reminds me of the A3 technique that I have been using for the last year with great success. I’ll blog on my experiments later.

Strategy and Deming’s systems analysis + PDCA + People were the two final models to round out organizational change approaches that involve people rather than measure them. Caveat: SMART is OK for projects; not people.

One of my goals is to make a mindmap of every book that I read.  I figure if I can take the time to read it, I may as well take a little time to synthesize the content of the book into a mindmap so I can remember it later.  Seems like a good idea, and this is the first one in what I hope will be a long and informative series.

So, today’s review is on Why We Make Mistakes – a book that describes failure modes common to people. Many of my regular readers will be wondering what this has to do with Agile and Lean, but it turns out that there are several direct links to industry practices.