Tag Archives: PDCA

So what’s the problem – A3 thinking

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If you don’t know what an “A3” is, don’t worry. When I started at University of Michigan Health System, I didn’t either.  When I first saw an A3 meeting on my calendar, I asked “What group is that?”

Plan, do, check, act. PDCA on white isolated background. 3d

There were so many groups with different acronyms!  Turned out it was a meeting with a few colleagues to update our status report on major UMHS IT initiatives. We were using an A3 format for our report.

So what is an A3? It is a tool used as part of Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA).  The A3 name actually comes from the paper size (11 x 17 sheet) that tells a story laid out from the upper left-hand side to the lower right.

Telling the story of a problem on an A3 includes looking at the background (why and what), describing its current condition (where things stand), and doing a root cause analysis. And then, establishing goals and targets, proposing countermeasures, making an action plan and determining success metrics.   Continue reading →

Making time for reflection

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“Hansei” is the Japanese word for reflection. One of my UMHS colleagues, Dr. Jack Billi, told me he’s impressed that I am writing a blog and sees it as an example of Hansei. He says as leaders we don’t take enough time to reflect. I agree.

A typical day for me is running from one meeting to the next, driving back and forth from my office to the hospital campus, and squeezing in email when and where I can. Evenings are more email and prepping for the next day’s meetings.

The practice of writing a blog has indeed caused me to be more thoughtful about a range of topics. I find myself observing things differently. I reached out to one of my industry colleagues, Anthony Guerra, Editor-in-Chief of healthsystemCIO.com, for advice when I first considered writing a blog earlier this year. He encouraged me to do so. He told me that through the practice of writing a blog I’d start looking at things differently, observing things in new ways. He was right. Continue reading →