@agilesensei

r d i e
l ve o
Evo n F low
pcor
P o
ng and
h in ki ct i on written, illustrated
A3 T in A and performed by
Claudio Perrone

agilesensei.com
a3thinker.com
Today I’m going to
change the world
… (a little).
“A few years ago, I made a world of
difference to one client”
“Except… I didn’t.”

28 months later...
Hello?
“I saw good people
swallowed by an enemy
they could not defeat”
“innovation and growth being crushed by
status-quo, fire-fighting and conformity.”
“the company went through many
reorganizations, only to stay the same”

Organization chart Victims

Blame flow God

Rule makers

Controllers

Enforcers

Losers
organizations can’t be “agile” if only the
development teams are doing Agile

Typical “Agile” Enterprise

SMs
“all was left was a desolate, lifeless place,
with seemingly little to offer humans.”
 But What if
an “alien” technology
could change it?
 @agilesensei

1 LEAN
MANAGEMENT
“ All we are doing is looking at the
timeline from the moment the
customer gives us an order to the
point we can collect the cash.

And we are reducing that timeline by

removing the non-value-added
wastes.
-­‐-­‐-­‐  Taiichi  Ohno,  Founder  of  TPS  
“but that’s only part of the story…”
Why do you allow
your competitors to
copy all your tools?
What they need to see…
is not visible
What the
hell is He
talking
about?
W. Edwards deming believed that…

“ 95% of variation in worker’s

performance is governed by the
systems.
---W. Edwards Deming
Perhaps…

“ We should work on our processes, not

the outcome of our processes.
---W. Edwards Deming
in lean, we co-design and continuously
improve processes and tools…

…TO BETTER SERVE

INDIVIDUALS AND INTERACTIONS.
“learning to see” involves bringing to the
surface what we learn

Value Stream (from concept to cash)

Learning
Stream(s)
(from
question
to
knowledge
base)
With method and guidance, managers grow
to become problem solvers, critical
thinkers and mentors
(YOU MAY ALSO CONSIDER THAT…)

“ Management is too important

to leave to the managers.
Management is everyone’s job.
-­‐-­‐-­‐  Jurgen  Appelo  
 @agilesensei

2 A3 THINKING
I had terrible experiences with problem
solving meetings
in Lean, a "problem" is the gap between the
"current situation" and the "standard/
expectation"

Gap = Problem

Standard

Current Situation
Following that definition, there
are 3 classes of problems:

Preventive

Kaizen
Standard
(or Shared Expectation)

Maintenance
A3 Thinkers are like investigators at a crime scene…
They capture a shared understanding of a problem
- often with just pencil and paper.

Why are we
talking about it?

Where do things
stand today?

What should be
happening?

What would be a step in

the right direction?

What causes prevent us

from reaching our
target condition?
To find causes, they use simple analysis tools Such
as fishbone diagrams…
… And 5-whys

Problem: got a
Therefore
Speeding ticket

Why?
Therefore
Late for work

Why?

Got up late Therefore

Why?
Alarm clock Therefore
didn’t work

Why?
Batteries
were flat
Once the nature of the problem is clear, they take
steps to move towards the target condition
systematically.

What countermeasures
should neutralize the
causes?

What steps are required

to implement the selected
countermeasures? How will you know if the
countermeasures work?

Based on the results,

what’s next?
filling a report as quickly as possible would bring
you fast nowhere.
A3 is about the thinking, not the report.

“ It’s not what you do but rather what

you learn by doing it that matters.
-- Claudio Perrone
I learned to develop each section thoroughly…
… and validate my current understanding with others
before moving to the next SECTION
Traditionally, a mentor would challenge
a problem solver’s line of thought with
quick coaching cycles

What do you mean by it? (Clarity)

Is it always the case? (Assumptions)

How do you know? (Evidence)

What are you implying

by that? (Implications)

Would that necessarily

happen? (consequences)

Do anyone see it
another way? (Alternative
Point of views)
A3 thinking is not about problem solving…

… it’s about creating problem solvers.

I saw situations like this…

Why did the site

go down?

Ehm… someone made a mistake.

WHO?
I want his f$g#
Head!!
… Turning into this

Hi all, u m m ary of the

Here’s a q u ic k s
w e d id t h is morning.
analysis cause:
root cause o 15 :40 be
15 :3 1 t
e w as o ff li ne from atabase.
he We bs it th e d
Problem: T io n t o
h a connect
't e s t ablis me m o ry limit.
u ld n t io n
-Website co q l s e r v ic e crashed. t h e de f a u lt configura uest more
ca u s e M y S e r e a c h e d a d s t o r e q
- Be
M y S q l s torage eng
in
f ig u r a tio n allows thre
- Becaus e server con
A p a c h e w e b MySql. are not
B e c a u s e a il a b le t o n s e t t in g s
-
s ic a l m e m ory than av d e f a u lt c o nfiguratio v ir t u al server.
phy y S q l e n e w
e c a u s e A p ache and M re n t ly a v a ilable on th
-B r
is e d f o r the RAM cu
optim

de t ec t it b ecause: r esponsive d properly

We faile d to w a s n o t o nf ig u r e
t the site ht not be c
otify us tha
didn't n a tio n
r investig
. It m ig
- New relic ee d s f u r t h e (cont..)
We d o n't know yet, n
-
… n running.
n ow u p a
e actio ns an d the site is
t oo k a d a p t iv
We
h er ac tions t o take:
se are t h e f u rt
However the

e : ( f u t u r e / c a use)
Preventiv e w v irt u a l s e rver
w ] E xp a n d R AM on n f iguration
[no M y S q l c o n
w ] R e v ie w A pache &
[n o
m o v in g t o n ginx
igate
[later] Invest
e s p o n s e time, n of
e n t ( f u t u re / e ffect): ( a le r t s on site dow
n , r
Conting ew Relic's mon
itoring pr o p e r ly
re N
[now] Configu
emory) r app profiling
processes, m N ew R eli c f o
igate using
[later] Invest
Without guidance It’s all too easy to develop
shallow A3 reports.

… and Good
mentors are
rarer than
plutonium.
So, with the motto:
“Toyota supplier in 2 years or less”…
… I released a family of thinking tools…

www.a3thinker.com  
to help you change the world.
one problem at a time.

www.a3thinker.com/deck  
Arguably, an A3 report “surfaces” a learning stream
around a problem
 What other
Learning streams
can we seek to
surface?
 @agilesensei

3 POPCORN
FLOW
A while ago, I worked with a team who
had not deployed in months
We worked together and evolved using
the kanban method
But the real “secret” was our ability to
SYSTEMATICALLY DEFINE AND negotiate
explicit change experiments…
… a powerful learning stream that I defined
and captured on a parallel “Popcorn board”

Problems & observations

Options
Possible experiments
Committed
Ongoing
Review
Next
It starts with Problems & Observations...
...which I use to elicit options.
Promising options lead to a backlog of
possible experiments.
experiments that we Commit to pursue have
an action, reason, expectation and Review
date.
At Each retrospective, I ask exactly these
questions:
Some people fear “failure”…

Gap = Frustration

Expectation

Reality
…but we only really “fail” when we limit
our opportunities to learn

Learning
Gap = Frustration

Expectation

Reality
It’s Not “fail fast, fail often”...

… It’s “Learn fast, learn often”.

Right from the beginning, I knew this was
different.
... Because the team COULD easily handle 5-10
change experiments each week, rapidly enabling it
to DELIVER multiple times a day
…and then it spread.
Popcorn boards started to appear to other
parts of the organization.
Imagine a continous flow of experiments to
dramatically accelerate the rate of change
in every corner of your organization...

... How far would you go?

Final Thoughts
“ To improve is to change.
To be perfect is to change often.
-- Winston Churchill
 Next is Now

Claudio  Perrone  

claudio@agilesensei.com  
www.agilesensei.com  
www.a3thinker.com  
@agilesensei