Magazine Summer 2009 Research Feature

Toyota’s Secret: The A3 Report

How Toyota solves problems, creates plans, and gets new things done while developing an organization of thinking problem-solvers.

John Shook Reading Time: 4 min 

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While much has been written about Toyota Motor Corp.’s production system, little has captured the way the company manages people to achieve operational learning. At Toyota, there exists a way to solve problems that generates knowledge and helps people doing the work learn how to learn. Company managers use a tool called the A3 (named after the international paper size on which it fits) as a key tactic in sharing a deeper method of thinking that lies at the heart of Toyota’s sustained success.

A3s are deceptively simple. An A3 is composed of a sequence of boxes (seven in the example) arrayed in a template. Inside the boxes the A3’s “author” attempts, in the following order, to: (1) establish the business context and importance of a specific problem or issue; (2) describe the current conditions of the problem; (3) identify the desired outcome; (4) analyze the situation to establish causality; (5) propose countermeasures; (6) prescribe an action plan for getting it done; and (7) map out the follow-up process.

The leading question

Toyota has designed a two-page mechanism for attacking problems. What can we learn from it?

Findings
  • The A3’s constraints (just 2 pages) and its structure (specific categories, ordered in steps, adding up to a “story”) are the keys to the A3’s power.
  • Though the A3 process can be used effectively both to solve problems and to plan initiatives, its greatest payoff may be how it fosters learning. It presents ideal opportunities for mentoring.
  • It becomes a basis for collaboration.

However, A3 reports — and more importantly the underlying thinking — play more than a purely practical role; they also embody a more critical core strength of a lean company. A3s serve as mechanisms for managers to mentor others in root-cause analysis and scientific thinking, while also aligning the interests of individuals and departments throughout the organization by encouraging productive dialogue and helping people learn from one another. A3 management is a system based on building structured opportunities for people to learn in the manner that comes most naturally to them: through experience, by learning from mistakes and through plan-based trial and error.

The A3s reproduced in this article represent just some of the stages in a typical development sequence — a process that may involve numerous iterations of the A3 before it is final. To illustrate how the A3 process works, we’ve imagined a young manager — call him Porter — who’s trying to solve a problem. The problem is that his Japan-based company is building a manufacturing plant in the United States, requiring many technical documents to be translated into English, and the translation project has been going badly. Porter uses the A3 process to attack the problem, which means that he gets coached through it by his boss and mentor — call him Sanderson. The A3s shown on these pages will give an idea of how one learning cycle might go, as Porter works on the problem under Sanderson’s tutelage. Porter’s first attempt at the A3 reveals, as early-stage A3s often do, his eagerness to get to a solution as quickly as possible.

(Editor’s note: The example is drawn from Managing to Learn, by John Shook, The Lean Enterprise Institute, 2008.)

Seeing this first version, Sanderson uses the A3 process as a mechanism to mentor Porter in root-cause analysis and scientific thinking. Through coaching Porter and others in this manner, Sanderson seeks to embed organizational habits and mind-sets that enable, encourage and teach people to think and take initiative.

The iterative process of producing progressive A3s generates practical problem-solving skills for the learner, while providing the manager with a practical mechanism to mentor others while achieving desired business results.

The last pages of this article show the final A3 in this iterative sequence. Author Porter uses the A3 process not only to figure out the best solutions to his problem, but to manufacture the authority he needs to proceed with his plan. Sanderson uses it to mentor his protégé, while getting the required results for the company (in this instance, the solution to a problem). Organizations use A3s to get decisions made, distribute authority to the level needed for good decisions, align people and teams on common goals and learn for constant improvement. The ultimate goal of A3s is not just to solve the problem at hand, but to make the process of problem solving transparent and teachable in a manner that creates an organization full of thinking, learning problem solvers. In this way, the A3 management process powerfully embodies the essence of operational learning.

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About the Author

John Shook is an industrial anthropologist and senior advisor to the Lean Enterprise Institute, where he works with companies and individuals to help them understand and implement lean production. He is author of Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process to Solve Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor, and Lead (Lean Enterprise Institute), and coauthor of Learning to See (Lean Enterprise Institute). He worked with Toyota for 10 years, helping it transfer its production, engineering and management systems from Japan to its overseas affiliates and suppliers.

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Comments (22)
Tom Oser
The value of iterative learning cannot be overstated as it is practiced in this method to fully understand a problem and develop a resolution through clear and concise communications.  Still good in 2021

TOM OSER
Kirk Gould
After a whole week of A3 training by an experienced Lean practitioner, the elegance and beauty of it started to become clear.  The A3 is designed to be carried with you and is historically done with paper and pencil on the shop floor.  As updates are needed, it is erased and updated.  It is always real time.  

It also requires a face to face conversation and the need to go to the gemba (the place) . The pictures also tell a richer story than just words alone.  This is not just an analysis tool, it is a results tool.  In fact, it drives the process.  

When people can see the whole thing on one piece of paper, they can understand it in a better way than they can by trying to synthesize things pulled from multiple recesses of their minds.

-Lean Agile Coach
sheila colinlak
Can I just say what a relief to find someone who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I cant believe youre not more popular because you definitely have the gift.
Patrick Doyle
The value in A3 reporting is that it forces the author to think and communicate concisely while presenting  the current state, what the problem is, and at least one feasible solution. It forces people to present solutions, not complaints.
Acta de Constitución de Proyecto Ágil, un elemento diferenciador. | Agilia
[…] Shook habla en un artículo en MIT - Sloan Management Review del valor del informe de una página A3. El A3 (llamado así por el tamaño de la hoja de papel […]
dave whaley
Simple solutions are elegant. The A3 is a great tool to chnage culture.
flaviolima
As usual any tool stamped with a Toyota badge is considered the panacea for all problems. Please let keep in mind any tool when it is well applied will bring out a satisfactory result - since a simple Ishikawa to a most sofisticated 8D or Deep-Drill or TRIZ. Most important than tool is application of a correct/suitable management of people guiding their efforts towards results.
WILLIAM HARROD
This approach has potential in many areas where information overload is used in place of understanding.  As a decision maker, being presented with this instead of many pages of dialogue would demonstrate clear thought, provide opportunity for challenge and support effective action.
Anonymous
Simple stuff
byrnec
I agree with neeti. It is clear the anecdote in First Person that the A3 was not itself driving the solution process: his manager was. It would have been much faster based on six-sigma thinking wherein one concentrates on the causes of variation. Clearly the A3 helps clarity of presentation (wonderful in iteself), but this only _might_ help clarity of thought.
gmunoz2008
My opinio is tha people from Toyota that uses this report(A3)are very practical and simple to use and to develop team spirit.
Very truly yours
gmunoz2008
redcedar
In our first application of A3, we turned a planned 2-day workshop into four hours of immediate collaboration. "Simple" works.
HOWARD S WEINBERG
Yes, this is simply the scientific method applied to work.  But do not minimize the effect of everyone in Toyota using the same systematic  process and the same language to solve problems. And A3 is only part of what creates Toyota's performance. It is the corporate system in which A3 fits that is so hard to duplicate.  "The Mind of Toyota" is a great book that explains it.
systemental
It is easy to lose sight of common sense in a large complex organization.  The A3 brings common sense (along with the scientific method) into clear view.  
I believe in the practice - just don't get too hung up on the one page thing the first time you try it.
faceman888
neeti,
It is common sense.  It works.  Many people are seduced by the complexity of more extravagant measures.  It is a simple and visual approach to the scientific method.  Observe, hypothesis, Test your hypothesis, Study results and take action.  
I resisted this and other Toyota based methods because I wrongly thought the simplicity to be inadequate and also arrogantly thought them to be beneath me.  I have learned.
khucxuanthinh
usefull design!
as i see it build from cause - effect theory. but this is great. it help people go from step to step in the right logical sequence. so if follow this logic, problem will be sold with easy to understand display.
Many thank!
rajivbahl
Such beauty in its sheer simplicity. Thanks John for sharing your wisdom. Will implement A3 rather A4 :) for my team in Bangalore.
brata
Great innovation, great design. After all there are not many Harvard MBA around you like General Motors. You have to work with different people with their different level of knowledge. So most easy edible meal is loved by workforce.
getstuff
A3 thinking seeks out the important mole hills from the mountains of 'favorite' mole hills

Read the book; Managing to Learn, by John Shook
leanvsl
A3 thinking is a good thing. 

The Alternative is to sit in meetings for days and discuss multiple political agendas with people who would rather play golf.
purunep
yeh! it's sound nothing. but it has lots of value because most managers don't use their common sense.
neeti
A typical example of making a mountain out of a mole by management consultant.It sounds nothing more than common sense.