A3 THINKING FOR SOLVING COMPLEX PROBLEMS AND EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE (ALEXEI ZHEGLOV) - LKCE13
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A3 Thinking for Solving Complex Problems and Evolutionary Change Alexei Zheglov | November 2013
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A3 reports are known as a way to capture problem-solving activities following the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle and also to focus problem-solvers’ thinking, helping them understand the problem deeply and uncover hidden root causes leading to effective countermeasures. This session demonstrates the potential of A3 Thinking as an evolutionary improvement method in organizations that can complement existing process and improvement methodologies, such as Agile, Kanban or ITIL. The session contains a story of a “data centre crisis” in a software company, when multiple departments, each using different processes and improvement methods, came to work together to learn deeply about their common problem, address its root causes, drastically reduce the downtime and lock in lasting improvements. The story is used to reinforce several key aspects of A3 Thinking, to demonstrate its evolutionary nature, and to explore its relations to organizational complexity. The story also has a number of stopping points, highlighting several key coaching behaviours important to Lean/Kanban change agents, including: the non-judgmental attitude, avoiding resistance to change, working with the existing culture, validated learning, and the ability to lead improvements with safe-to-fail experimentation.
Transcript of A3 THINKING FOR SOLVING COMPLEX PROBLEMS AND EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE (ALEXEI ZHEGLOV) - LKCE13
A3 Thinking forSolving Complex
Problems
and Evolutionary ChangeAlexei Zheglov | November 2013
@az1#lkce13
TO
Waterloo
The Limited WIP Society of KWCG
…I know it’s been tough. Listen, I can send you a good Agile coach to moderate this difficult sprint retrospective…
The Agile Retrospective Trojan Horse
Three RCA (root cause analysis) reports
Three Incidents
Three RCA (root cause analysis) reports
Three Incidents
Really???
• Continuous improvement
• Respect for people
Unknown unknown
Incident
Known unknown
RCA
Known known
Unknown unknown
Incident
Known unknown
RCA
Known known
Who cares?
LeanMemes.com. Created by @Kaizeneer
Rediscover the Purpose
$$,$$$,$$$
≠≠
“root cause”
incident
customer purposeproblem
Is your System 2talking to my System 1?
The Investigation Trail
The Processes and Improvement Methods
TRIBES
Tribal Security
Tribal Dimension 4:Tribes act to secure their
self-preservationif their security is under
threat
Tribal Attribute 11:A strong tribe developsit’s own unque language Tribal Attribute 19:
A strong tribe celebrates and cares for the skills, tools and implements required its prosperity
Tribal Attributes
Find more at greatbossdeadboss.com
Create a Bigger Tribe
ShuttleDiplomacy
Go and See
Shuttle Diplomacy
BiggerTribe
Problem as a Gap
Target and Theme
Downtime – what’s that?
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…
What Is Downtime?
NOC KPI
Client 1 SLA
Client 2 SLA
Client 3 SLA
We agreed on this temporary metric to measure the closing gap
Strong Opening “Why”
PLAN
STUDY
ACT
DO
No jumping to solutions
“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
No jumping to problems!
A3 Thinking Meets The Improvement Kata
A3
A3 A3
A3
Vision
Current Condition
Challenge
Target Condition
A3 ?
A3 ?
A3 ?
Grasp the current condition – how?
Establish the next Target Condition –
how?
What is a good
Challenge?
The Improvement Horizon
The Improvement Horizon
EvenBiggerTribe
How many Countermeasures do we really need?
Why are the Indicators important?
Ord
ere
dU
nord
ere
d
Expert analysis-driven
Feedback-driven
PLAN
STUDY
ACT
DO
STUDY
Hypothesis: Pursuing the Action Plan to implement the Countermeasures will solve the problem.
the scientific test
Current condition
Target (date)
Changing the Current Condition Changes a Lot!
Problem (gap)
Analysis (5 whys)
Countermeasures Feasibility ofcountermeasures
Action plan
• Current condition?• What is the problem?• Target condition? Theme?• Analysis (five whys)?• Counter-measures?• Action Plan? Indicators?
Domain of Expert Analysis:
Domain ofSafe-to-Fail Experiments:
An A3 filled in entirely by expert analysis may be unsafe!
“…[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
Emergent alignment
Expert analysis
continually tested for fitness
The Fitness Test
A Method Without Methodology?
Bring your own boxes and arrows
Is A3 Thinking Like Water?
A3Thinker.com
http://www.slideshare.net/cperrone/a3-kaizen-heres-howhttp://www.slideshare.net/HkanForss/stop-doing-retrospective-and-start-your-toyota-kata
Follow
• Claudio Perrone• David J. Anderson• Stephen Parry• Håkan Forss• Yuval Yeret• Jabe Bloom
The End (of the Presentation)
Email: [email protected]: Alexei ZheglovTwitter: @az1Blog: learningagileandlean.wordpress.com
Image Credits• 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-flow-Stream_ForestWander.JPG (CC)• Marine fitness test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Physical_Fitness_Test (CC)• All book covers: fair use
