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Managing to Learn: summary and review

Using the A3 Management Process to Solve Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor and Lead

By John Shook. First published 2008.

The short answer

Managing to Learn is a short story-format book about a manager who uses an A3 to solve a problem while his boss coaches him through it. Shook's argument is that the one-page sheet is not a reporting format but a way for a mentor to see how someone thinks. The real work is the questions asked across the table, the agreement built before anyone acts, and the follow-up. It reads quickly and suits supervisors, managers and engineers who will coach others.

Read it if

  • You will coach someone through a problem and want to hear what the questions sound like.
  • Your A3s read as reports and nobody leaves a review having changed their mind.
  • You own problems that cross two or more departments and need agreement to act.

Skip it if

  • You want analysis techniques. The book covers the conversation around them.
  • You want measured results. It offers constructed stories and Shook's experience.
  • You dislike business-novel formats. One reviewer notes a few readers will not like the style.

When it pays off: Read it before you ask anyone to write an A3, and again when your A3 reviews have turned into approval meetings.

The core ideas, in plain language

  1. 1

    The sheet carries a conversation

    Shook says an author can learn the layout in a day, but using it as a management process takes much longer. The value sits in the author presenting and the mentor responding.

  2. 2

    The mentor asks, the author finds out

    A good responder asks clarifying questions instead of giving answers, so authors discover whether they understood the cause before proposing anything.

  3. 3

    Facts before answers

    The layout puts current condition and cause on the page before any countermeasure, guarding against jumping to conclusions. Shook writes from experience: he learned A3 as a new Toyota hire in 1983, coached by two managers.

  4. 4

    Countermeasures, not solutions

    The word marks something you try now and replace when a better one appears. It keeps follow-up honest, because the plan was never presented as final.

  5. 5

    Agreement is part of the job

    A thorough A3 exposes how work is done and whose territory it touches, so expect pushback. One reviewer reads the book as treating fact-based disagreement as a sign the A3 is working.

  6. 6

    Start small and early

    Shook says you can begin early in a lean effort with simple gemba-level problems. He warns that mandating A3s without teaching the thinking turns them into corporate wallpaper.

How to use it on Monday morning

  1. 1

    Choose a small problem you own

    Take one real problem from your area, not a project. Title the sheet with the problem, not the fix. Use pencil and 11 by 17 paper.

  2. 2

    Go and watch

    Spend 30 to 60 minutes where the problem happens. Draw the current condition with numbers you counted yourself, not office estimates.

  3. 3

    Show the left half before you act

    Take background, current condition and cause to your boss or a peer. Ask them only to ask questions, and note which boxes they poke at; those are your thin spots.

  4. 4

    Test the countermeasure with a prediction

    Write what you expect to happen as a number and put a check date in the calendar before you leave the room. Run the countermeasure as a trial.

  5. 5

    Report back on the same sheet

    Write the actual result beside the prediction and show it again. If you missed, write what you learned, and start the next sheet from that.

What to be careful about

  • The story format splits readers

    The TWI Service Blog review says a few readers will not like the style. The book follows a novice and a mentor in a partly fictional setting, so you are reading illustrations, not case data.

  • It is easy to read as universal

    Art Smalley says most Toyota problems are handled verbally or on task-specific forms, and A3s are for harder or recurring ones. Shook's own warning is about mandating them.

  • The form without the coach fails

    Mark Graban notes that forcing an A3 and letting a poor one pass produces box-ticking: plan and do without check and act. Jon Miller argued in the comments that the A3 name itself invites template thinking.

  • Evidence is experience, not measurement

    The book rests on one practitioner's years at Toyota. One review raises whether its deliberate pace suits US culture, and cites consultant Nigel Thurlow's doubt that linear A3s fit complex problems.

Managing to Learn compared with Understanding A3 Thinking

Pick Managing to Learn to learn how to coach and be coached. Pick Sobek and Smalley for the anatomy of the report, the three A3 types and formatting rules. For an A3 program, read both.

Read the summary of Understanding A3 Thinking.

Tools and templates on LeanSuite that go with it

Book details

Bibliographic details of Managing to Learn
TitleManaging to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process to Solve Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor and Lead
AuthorJohn Shook
First published2008
Edition shownFirst edition (October 2008), Lean Enterprise Institute, 2008
ISBN-13978-1934109205
Pages138

Details checked against public records on 7 October 2026. Other editions have other ISBNs. We carry no affiliate links.

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