Define stage:

Why is the change necessary?
What is the proposed scope of this project?
What if we do nothing?
What alternatives have been looked at?
What will be the key objectives for this project?
What is out of scope?
Who is the sponsor for this project?
Who are the key stakeholders?
What are the principal risk to success?

Measure:

What specific benefits of this project deliver?
How will this project contribute to our goals?
What budget and resources will be required?
What assumptions and constraints should be considered?
What dependencies or interfaces should be considered?
What are the major project deliverables and milestones?
Who will manage this project?

Analyze:

How will all the work is scheduled?
Who will be responsible for each work package?
How will identified risk be manage?

Improve:

How are we progressing against our schedule?
How are we doing against budget and resource requirements?
What issues do we face?
What new risk have been identified?
What changes do we need to make to the plant?

Control:

Have we completed our handover to the users?
Have we closed the project and communicated where needed?
Have we captured useful knowledge and lessons learned?
Have we evaluated the results that we have achieved?

P.S. Implementation is a great book to have as a companion before, during and after providing the leadership in a project management process. It is on my trashy section on my bookshelf with other highlighted, written in and dog-eared page books.

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The benefits of A3 are :

1. It helps define a standard for all to use.
2. It provides a clear and concise method of reporting information.
3. Method of operation is visible and accessible to all.
4. It can promote communication, and team working.
5. It leads to a reduction of waste.
6. A continuous improvement activity.
7. It creates an efficient working environment.

So what is so special?

1. I think it has several qualities:
2. It makes you think graphically.
3. It forces you to make the story flow logically.
4. It makes you condense words.

To go about laying the A3 Report out, I have included a diagram from Systems2win for you to use as a guideline. However, another format to follow for the A3’s can vary as long as your story line stays intact. The value comes from the thinking that goes into generating the A-3 reports (as Tim Berry says, “It’s the act of creating the plan that has value”, not conformance to a specific template. If you’re familiar with the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) process it can make a great story line for most problem solving A3’s. However, using the DMAIC process you can:

Define how a particular problem was identified and why it is a problem.

Measure the current state of the problem and how the problem was investigated and Analyze what solutions were considered.

Improve the plan for solving the problem and how the Control or follow-up will be done.

The reason I encourage using the A3 in the marketing process is it demonstrates and recaps the thoughts, efforts and actions that took place for a particular campaign, such as advertising or public relations or even a launch. This report can really highlight the value that marketing supplies. However, always remember that the A3 report is meant to tell a story.

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How do you create a scorecard?

Why do we measure?

Technorati : A3, DMAIC, Lean, Lean Sigma, Marketing Reports, Six Sigma