What is A3 Thinking and how can it help you?

When looking for agile techniques for your business, you need to consider A3 thinking. It teaches you that you can manage your projects using an A3 piece of paper. It can be difficult to find an in-depth explanation of A3 thinking, how to use it, and how to adopt it for your business on the internet. The best way to find out how the A3 technique can elevate your business’s projects is by the book “Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota’s PDCA Management System”, written by Durward K. Sobek and Art Smalley. What is the A3 Technique?

In most organisations you’ll find overblown, bureaucratic project management methods, used to direct business improvement projects of all sizes and complexity. They require you to produce project plans, project descriptions, initiation documents, reports, risk logs, and many more. They can all be considered waste because the real value is produced technically by the project and deployed as a solution to the original problem. At the end of a project all the project management material is just thrown away.

Project management is there to provide control over the technical work, to control risk, and ensure an effective result. However, it can’t be denied that the project management work is overhead, and to be minimised where possible.

This is where the A3 technique comes into play.

A3 thinking is a way of thinking that believes an improvement project can be managed and summarised on a single side of A3 paper. All a project manager or team needs to do is produce a well-designed A3 sheet, divided into sections with appropriate text, tables, or charts in each section, and the project documents itself. All senior management need to see is the single sheet of paper, and this reduces overhead, improves communication, and enables management to use their time effectively advising the project team.

WHAT’S IN THE A3 THINKING BOOK?

The A3 Thinking book contains a description of the basic elements behind the use of an A3 chart and how it can be used to manage your project. according to the authors, the chart needs to be logical, objective, focused on results and the process used, visual, aligned, coherent and be based on a systems view.

As well as describing the elements of an A3 chart, the book explains several uses and formats for problem solving, for proposals, and for status reporting.

Finally, it provides notes on style, form, and using A3 charts within a project office and for coaching.

HOW CAN YOU USE THE BOOK IN YOUR BUSINESS?

You can easily develop your own version of an A3 report based on the book and the one-page project management series. Use these when delivering change programmes on client engagements, a summary chart for the overall change, and separate charts for each component project.

Another idea is you could design process management scorecards that explain how an operation process works, its current performance, planned improvements, and the status of current improvement efforts.

Applying the A3 technique to your business will result in happy clients/ customers because communication is effective and efficient they’ll be able to engage in conversations about project progress.