Understanding A3 Thinking (Sobek, Smalley, 2008)

Understanding A3 Thinking (Sobek, Smalley, 2008)

A Critical Component of Toyota's PDCA Management System

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Summary of A3 Thinking, May 11, 2008
By W. D. Laske

I finally got my copy of this book in the mail last week. I guess it is sold out and hard to obtain at any site. I'm glad to finally have mine. Given some of the comments above I'm guessing there was either a delay at the publishers or they simply did not anticipate all the demand. I did finally get mine however...

Regardless I am please to note that this book is an excellent summary of A3 Thinking. I've had some exposure to the topic in the past and always been left wanting more. This finally gets at a lot of questions I had about the concept. If you have ever wanted to learn what an A3 report is and more importantly the thought process behind one then this is the best place to start that I know of. The print is a little small and the text is 164 pages I think the 184 page figure comes from including the other pages in the foreword, acknowledgments, and introduction sections etc. However there is no shortage of good information inside. I zipped through it over the weekend and got some great insights right away.

The contents of the book include the following eight chapters. Each is roughly about 20 pages in length.

1. A Basis for Managerial Effectiveness
2. A3 Thinking - the Seven Elements
3. The Problem Solving A3 Report
4. The Proposal A3 Report
5. The Status A3 Report
6. Notes on Form and Style
7. Supporting Structures
8. Conclusion

I thought the second chapter on the seven elements A3 Thinking was particularly insightful and appreciated the advice on the different types of examples as well. The book is both a good "what is" summary of the topic and contains some very practical advice about "how to" write different types. Equally importantly for me at least it included some insight on how to critique A3's as well. I give the work five stars as it fills a void in the lean literature in a very readable manner.

x PDCA [Plan, Do, Check, Act] ...has become engrained as an intimate part of the [Toyota] corporate culture. Also engrained in the culture is a way to report on the results of the PDCA and that is now becoming well known as the A3 report. The A3 is an 11 x 17-inch piece of paper and the rules of the game are to put the whole report on one side of one sheet.

xvi A3 thinking is as much about developing good problem-solvers as it is about effectively solving problems.

p.5 The reason Toyota spends so much time and effort on the planning phase is because that phase is so critical to learning. Toyota managers want to make sure they deeply understand the background and facts of the current situation before moving forward. After the current state is thoroughly probed, they want to establish a high degree of certainty that they have accurately identified the root cause of the problem. This includes understanding the situation from multiple perspectives, not just one's own, and gathering and analyzing system performance quantitatively.

p.5 thorough planning includes a reasonable prediction of the change in performance... The prediction of future performance is actually an informal statement of hypothesis based on the current state of knowledge... We either confirm our current understanding or unequivocally find out that we have more to learn.

p.12 Toyota views the inability to properly discern between cause and effect as the leading cause of many poor decisions and problems that remain unsolved in daily management.

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