Lean from the Trenches

The Lean Problem-Solving Approach: A3 Thinking

One of the core tenets of Lean thinking is Kaizen—continuous process improvement. Toyota attributes much of its success to its highly disciplined problem-solving approach. This approach is sometimes called A3 thinking (based on the single A3-size papers used to capture knowledge from each problem-solving effort).

You can download an A3 example and template from http://www.crisp.se/lean/a3-template. It is hard to show here because, well, A3 is probably a lot larger than what you are holding in your hand right now. Figure 2, ​A3 Example​ shows a high-level view, though.

Figure 2. A3 Example

With the ...