This document summarizes Alexei Zheglov's presentation on A3 Thinking for solving complex problems and evolutionary change. The presentation discusses using A3 reports and the improvement kata approach to facilitate continuous improvement efforts. It emphasizes establishing a clear problem or challenge statement, analyzing the root causes, developing hypotheses to address the problem, and testing proposed countermeasures.

1. A3 Thinking for
Solving Complex Problems
and Evolutionary Change
Alexei Zheglov | November 2013

2. @az1
#lkce13

4. TO
Waterloo

6. The Limited WIP
Society of KWCG

9. …I know it’s been tough.
Listen, I can send you a good
Agile coach to moderate this
difficult sprint
retrospective…

10. The Agile Retrospective Trojan Horse

11. Three Incidents
Three RCA (root cause analysis)
reports

12. Three Incidents
Three RCA (root cause analysis)
reports
Really???

13. • Continuous improvement
• Respect for people

14. Unknown unknown
Incident
Known unknown
RCA
Known known

15. Unknown unknown
Incident
Known unknown
RCA
Known known
Who cares?

16. LeanMemes.com. Created by @Kaizeneer

17. Rediscover the Purpose
$$,$$$,$$$
“root ≠ customer purpose
cause” ≠ problem
incident

18. Is your System 2
talking to my System 1?

19. The Investigation Trail

20. The Processes and Improvement Methods

22. TRIBES

24. Tribal Security
Tribal Dimension 4:
Tribes act to secure their
self-preservation
if their security is under threat

25. Tribal Attributes
Tribal Attribute 11:
A strong tribe develops
it’s own unque language
Tribal Attribute 19:
A strong tribe celebrates
and cares for the skills,
tools and implements
required its prosperity
Find more at greatbossdeadboss.com

26. Create a Bigger Tribe

27. Shuttle
Diplomacy

28. Go and See

29. Shuttle Diplomacy

32. Bigger
Tribe

34. Problem as a Gap

36. Target and Theme
Downtime – what’s that?

37. Work with Existing Culture
…but we’ve got KPIs in
place already to
measure performance
of each department…
…but we’ve got metrics
already to calculate
SLA credits owed to
each client…

38. What Is Downtime?
Client 1 SLA
Client 2 SLA
Client 3 SLA
NOC KPI
We agreed on this temporary metric
to measure the closing gap

40. Strong Opening “Why”

41. DO
PLAN
STUDY
ACT

42. No jumping to
solutions

43. “If I had only one hour to
save the world, I would
spend 55 (59?) minutes
defining the problem and
only 5 minutes (1?) finding
the solution.”
attributed to Albert
Einstein

44. No jumping to problems!

45. A3
A3
A3
A3
A3 Thinking Meets The Improvement Kata

46. Vision
Establish the next
Target Condition –
how?
Challenge
A3
Target Condition
A3
What is a good
Challenge?
?
A3
Current
Condition
?
?
Grasp the current condition – how?

48. The Improvement Horizon

49. The Improvement Horizon

50. Even
Bigger
Tribe

51. How many
Countermeasures do
we really need?
Why are the Indicators
important?

53. Unordered
Ordered

54. Expert analysis-driven

55. Feedback-driven

56. DO
PLAN
STUDY
ACT

57. Hypothesis: Pursuing the Action Plan
to implement the Countermeasures
will solve the problem.
STUDY
the scientific test

58. Changing the Current
Condition Changes a Lot!
Action plan
Countermeasures
Analysis (5 whys)
Feasibility of
countermeasures
Target (date)
Problem (gap)
Current condition

59. Domain of Expert Analysis:
• Current condition?
• What is the problem?
• Target condition? Theme?
• Analysis (five whys)?
• Counter-measures?
• Action Plan? Indicators?

60. Domain of
Safe-to-Fail
Experiments:
An A3 filled in entirely by
expert analysis may be unsafe!

61. “…[a] partially completed A3 as the
basis for discussions. This is
tremendously powerful in
interdepartmental situations where
people may speak different lingo and
have different perspectives.”
Durward K. Sobek II
Art Smalley

62. Emergent
alignment
Expert
analysis
continually tested for fitness

63. The Fitness Test

64. A Method Without Methodology?
Bring your own boxes and arrows

65. Is A3 Thinking Like Water?

66. A3Thinker.com

67. http://www.slideshare.net/cperrone/a3-kaizen-heres-how
http://www.slideshare.net/HkanForss/stop-doing-retrospective-and-start-your-toyota-kata

68. Follow
•
•
•
•
•
•
Claudio Perrone
David J. Anderson
Stephen Parry
Håkan Forss
Yuval Yeret
Jabe Bloom

70. The End (of the Presentation)
Email: alex@leanatoz.com
LinkedIn: Alexei Zheglov
Twitter: @az1
Blog:
learningagileandlean.wordpress.com

71. Image Credits
•
•
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•
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Human evolution. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Human_evolution.svg (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Cynefin framework: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cynefin_framework_Feb_2011.jpeg (CC BY 2.0)
Battlestar Galactica http://www.moddb.com/groups/space-ship-addicts/images/battlestar-galactica-ships
(CC)
Greek temple pillars, source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/isawnyu/5456498539/ (CC BY 2.0)
Tribal ritual: http://www.flickr.com/photos/64749744@N00/8403452/ (CC)
Large Tribe: http://www.flickr.com/photos/75348994@N00/8519730788/ (CC)
Hunting spears: http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/6348543 (CC)
Car in repair shop: http://relationshipmarketingalchemy.com/alfetta-18&page=3 (CC BY 2.0)
Flock of geese: http://www.freefoto.com/download/9910-12-2210/Sunset-With-Passing-Flock-Of-Geese
(CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Water flowing around a rock: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rocks-Water-flowStream_ForestWander.JPG (CC)
Marine fitness test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Physical_Fitness_Test (CC)
All book covers: fair use