Write and keep up a problem’s A3
Tell on a single sheet the problem, its analysis, its countermeasures and what was learned, and keep it up to date while it is solved.
The task in figures
- Gives you back
- It does not recur every month
- Elmira today
- Helps
- Frequency
- Per project
- Who does it today
- Engineer, Senior
- Version
- Elmira Junior
What hurts today.
It is updated by hand with data from other spreadsheets, and falls behind.
The A3’s plan and the team’s action plan do not match.
Once the problem is over, the A3 gets lost in a folder.
The A3 is a sheet that tells a problem from beginning to end: the background, the current situation, the target, the cause analysis, the countermeasures, the plan and the follow-up. It forces orderly thinking and serves to talk with the coach or with management. Today it is written in an Excel or PowerPoint template, updated by hand with data from other spreadsheets and left in a folder: once the problem is over, nobody finds it again.
Done today with
- In-person meeting
- Paper and whiteboard
- Spreadsheet
- Email and chat
- Slides
- BI dashboard
Each step, today and with Elmira.
On WhatsApp, Elmira brings you the goal’s status and its indicator’s values, and sets the plan down as actions. With the Value Office, the A3 is a story’s document, with its data live and AI help in the editor.
| Step | Today | With Elmira |
|---|---|---|
| Write the background, the current situation and the target | Slides, Spreadsheet30 min – 1 h | Comes with the value office |
| Bring in the data of the goal and its indicator | Spreadsheet, BI dashboard15 min – 30 min | |
| Write the cause analysis and the countermeasures | Slides, Paper and whiteboard30 min – 1.5 h | Comes with the value office |
| Turn the plan into actions with an owner and a date | Spreadsheet10 min – 30 min | |
| Review it with the coach or management | In-person meeting | Your call |
| Update it and share it while the problem is solved | Slides, Email and chat15 min – 45 min | Comes with the value office |
The conversation
- Ana, continuous improvement engineer
Elmira, for the waste A3: how is the goal doing, and what was the waste over the last four weeks?
“Cut Packaging’s waste” is critical. The waste was 3.6% in week 38, 4.1% in week 39, 4.6% in week 40 and 4.4% in week 41.
Does this happen to your team?
Book a demo and we will show you Elmira doing this task.
More cases of problem solving
- Gather the problems people on the floor reportWhat is said in the hallway reaches nobody.
- Spot the problems in the indicators’ deviationsPeople react to every number that drops, and none gets solved.
- Keep the list of open problems and their statusThe list lives apart from the plan, and goes stale.