A3 Reports

A3 reports have been a favourite Lean tool of mine for a long time. The idea is a simple one… All reports should be presented on a single side of a single piece of A3 paper. The philosophy is that ‘less is more’, all the information required should be concise, anything else is just fluff.

Toyota have been applying this concept for a long time and I’ve seen it successfully adopted at a number of organisations outside of Toyota. I heard a rumour about a year ago that Toyota are moving to A4 reporting but I’m not sure in the truth behind that one.

To understand the power that this simple tool provides sit down and think about the amount of time you spend writing stuff and reading stuff. Will anyone read past the executive summary of your business case? Will your executive come back to you and say “that report’s great but could you summarise it to me in a paragraph?”. Maybe A3′s are worth a shot.