The Value of A3 Reporting

Business ideas alike face many challenges in introdcuing a successful product, service, or process change to an organization, company, or even to the world. It focuses very aggressivly on solutions for these challenges as they appear and tend to ignore the business model and whether it contiunes to be viable. In order to fully understand a problem, The A3 reporting process developed within Toyota provides a problem solving tool which allows a scientific apporach to root cause analysis and debunk any assumptions that are made. A stronger aspect of the tool is it also provides a learning mechanism for personel throughout an organization, company, and start up to understand the value in executing such problem solving initiative in order to achieve higher successful rates. This learning experience promotes a culture of engaged thinkers throughout every level to identify opportunities for innovative ideas to become visable and supported.

The A3 tool encompasses 7 areas in order to implemetn such root cause analysis to a problem and encourage people to work together.

1. Problem or Issue – What is the problem that is causing problems.
2. Background – What is the current coniditions and business problem.
3. Goal – What is the desired outcome.
4. Root Cause Analysis – Analyze the current situation and what are the underlying causes.
5. Countermeasures – How will you reach goal state. What are the proposals.
6. Plan – Define an action plan with the counter measures to achieve the goal.
7. Followup – Execute follow up plan to verify results are inline and no negative reactions.

 The value of such a tool is evident in organizations, small and large. There is always room for improvement and great problems that require great solutions.

Quoting from Jeffrey Liker (The Toyota Way) “The right process will produce the right results.”

 I feel this is key in addressing problems. Without understanding the full scope of the problem (root cause), the effectiveness of the solution cannot be understood. This is no different to and engineering problem which RCA is the standard approach to problem solving to understand the exposure to a given problem and whether there is still risk with introducing a solution.


 Does the A3 reporting tool also provide significant value to Entrepreneurs and align to the Lean Startup? I believe it does with the focus of root cause analysis. The key to lean startup is based on the ability to "pivot" to such problem resolution and determine the appropriate decision (persevere or perish). There are many problem solving techniques, but the A3 reporting tool focuses on identifying the root cause of the problem. Without the root cause of the problem at hand, it is difficult to understand how effective the solution can become (if at all, perception versus reality). With the ability to drive down to the root cause of such problems, it will present the entrepreneur the unbiased data required to make educated decisions versus emotional.