Summarizing A3 Management on Last Minute Notice

 

A friend asked me to help him prepare for a last minute interview by summarizing what I know about A3 management.  I thought others might find my response useful.  The summary follows: 

Bruce, (not his real name) 

A3 is being promoted heavily by the Lean Enterprise Institute to emphasize the need to apply more than just the technical tools and methods of Lean but the social/ management side of Lean as well.  Thoroughly understanding A3 is a big undertaking – but you have an excellent advantage – you understand many of the components already.  A3 is structured scientific problem solving to:

· meet company goals

· develop/ coach all employees to be better problem solvers

· develop managers to be effective problem solving coaches and to become creators of more managers with the same capability 

Together these goals ensure the organization will continually improve its capability to deploy strategies, meet goals,  respond to changes in the marketplace, and to solve performance problems.

The name comes from the paper size (roughly 11 x 17) used by Toyota as the standard for creating and displaying  their A3 reports.

The important thing to understand is, “it’s not about the tool”.  It is about the points above.

It can get complicated or it can be kept simple.  One resource book I have lists 9 different types of A3’s used by Toyota.  And, on the other hand, I have worked with companies using only one type. 

In its simpler application, a single A3 form can serve as one stop shopping for learning about a project and how it is going.  It may go through the following logical progression:

· At first the A3 describes the problem, goals, objectives  - agreement is established between the manager and leader (usually another manager; an engineer or supervisor maybe at lower levels of the organization)

· Next an action plan is developed – those closest to the work help put it together and again agreement is established – this time all of the people who are responsible for the action plan are included in the agreement (this is done to ensure the plan is realistic and doable – people closer to the work are better able to determine how realistic the plan is)

· Actions are taken to carry out the plan and at appropriate intervals the A3 is updated – for example, a department level A3 may be updated every month while a division level A3 may be updated every quarter. 

· Lower levels A3’s are collected to support higher level A3’s, to ensure the results are rolling up to successfully meet the goal.  It is typically not a straight mathematical rollup – just a general measured push to get the plan completed and meet the goal. 

You can find examples here made available through the Lean Enterprise Institute’s website.   

You can see it is not very different from methods I know you have used in the past – it just emphasizes some things more:

· clear communication

· reaching common understanding and agreement

· bottom-up action planning   - executives say what needs to be done, employees say how it will be done

· maintaining clear evidence that a working plan, based on a scientific process, is in place and working

· ensuring managers are coaching subordinates to apply the process better and better at every level – executives too 

Lastly – you should know the term Catchball.  You can read a simple explanation here   Catchball – Without it You Probably Have the Wrong Plan

Just about anything else I point you too will just confuse you on such short notice.  Descriptions for A3 Thinking are all over the map.  Thinking of it the way I described above should get you through the interview just fine.

I’ll be around in the morning if you have questions.  Good luck!

Craig