The A3 is best known as a problem-solving tool. In hoshin kanri it has a second use: a one-page summary of an objective that travels through catchball and gets updated through the year. It forces clarity that a row on a matrix can’t.
In this guide
Key Takeaways
- →A strategy A3 explains an objective. A problem-solving A3 investigates a gap. They are written at different moments by different people.
- →Eight sections, one page: theme, background, current condition, target, analysis, plan, measures and open issues.
- →The left half explains the why. The right half explains the how.
- →The matrix cannot carry reasoning: why this target, why these priorities, what was rejected. The A3 can.
- →It is written before catchball so the level below has something to respond to.
- →A reader should be able to tell in two minutes whether the plan is credible.
Two kinds of A3
The A3 is named after the paper size, roughly 297 by 420 millimeters, and became a standard format at Toyota for thinking through an issue on one page. Hoshin practice uses it in two ways.
| Problem-solving A3 | Strategy A3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Investigate a specific gap and fix it | Summarize an objective and the plan to achieve it |
| When written | When a row stays red | During planning, before catchball |
| Lifespan | Until the countermeasures work | The whole year, updated at reviews |
| Owner | Whoever owns the gap | The objective owner |
This article covers the strategy A3. The problem-solving A3 is covered in When a red bowler row needs an A3 and Writing a hoshin A3.
The condition in row two, a row that stays red while the work underneath it looks fine, is worth understanding before writing either kind. Outcome lag: when priorities are green and KPIs don’t move covers why that happens and when it is not a problem at all.
The sections of a strategy A3
| Section | Contents |
|---|---|
| Theme | The objective, its owner and the breakthrough it serves |
| Background | Why it matters now, and what last year’s reflection said about it |
| Current condition | Where the KPI stands, with the baseline |
| Target | Where it must be by year end, and how that was derived |
| Analysis | Why these priorities, and what was considered and rejected |
| Plan | Priorities, owners, timing and key dependencies |
| Measures | Lagging and leading KPIs, with monthly plan shape |
| Open issues | Unresolved risks and assumptions to test |
The left half of the page (theme to target) explains the why. The right half (analysis to open issues) explains the how. A reader should be able to tell in two minutes whether the plan is credible.
Two of those rows have articles of their own. How a target is derived rather than negotiated is in Setting Hoshin Kanri Targets From the Breakthrough Trajectory, and the monthly plan shape the measures row refers to is in Phasing Monthly Plan Values in Hoshin Kanri So the Bowler Tells the Truth.
Why bother when the matrix exists
The X-matrix shows an objective as one row among many. It can’t show the reasoning: why this target, why these priorities, what was rejected, what could go wrong. The strategy A3 holds that reasoning in a form the level below can read and respond to during catchball.
The matrix tells you what the plan is. The strategy A3 tells you why anyone should believe it.
What the level below does with it is the subject of Running Catchball Rounds in Hoshin Planning: How Many, How Long, and what that negotiation should leave behind is in Catchball in Software: Turning Negotiation Into a Record.
A worked example: a strategy A3, summarized
Here is a hypothetical strategy A3, condensed to one line per section:
| Section | Entry |
|---|---|
| Theme | Services at 34% of sales by December. Owner: head of service. Serves the 40% by 2028 breakthrough |
| Background | Last year’s network bet partly held; adoption lagged until routing changed |
| Current condition | 31.2%, twelve months to September |
| Target | 34%, from the trajectory to 40%; momentum alone reaches about 32% |
| Analysis | Proximity and contract structure drive attach rates; portal relaunch rejected on low confidence |
| Plan | Complete the network (Q1 to Q3); multi-year contracts (legal by March) |
| Measures | Services share (lagging), attach rate (leading); ramp phasing |
| Open issues | Contract approval timing; technician capacity in two regions |
Keeping the reasoning attached, and what that costs
The A3 itself is free. It is a sheet of paper, and its discipline comes from the size of the sheet rather than from any tool. The cost is in what happens to it after the planning week.
An A3 that lives in a shared drive stops being read by about February. The analysis row is the one that matters most and ages fastest: it records what was rejected and why, which is exactly the question the quarterly review asks when a priority is not working. If the A3 is a file with a date in its name and the objective is a row in a different system, nobody opens the first while looking at the second. The reasoning survives only if it is attached to the thing it explains.
Among published alternatives for holding that, OnStrategy lists $200 per month for unlimited users. i-nexus publishes a free Starter tier for up to five users and $28 per user per month at its Standard tier. The seat question matters here because an A3 is written to be read by the level below, which is the part of the organization a per-seat model prices.
Profit.co publishes two plans, Essentials and Enterprise, quoting against modules and scale rather than a public seat rate. Hoshin Kanri sits in Essentials alongside OKRs and Goals, Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Roadmap. What drives the cost of hoshin kanri software lists the rest to total, and the 30-day free trial spans the planning week in which the A3s are written and the catchball round in which they are first used.
Strategy A3s and Profit.co
In Profit.co, much of a strategy A3 already lives on the objective record: its owner, strategy period, KPIs, contributing key results and correlations, with check-in history as the year runs. The strategy A3 itself, with its analysis and open issues, can be attached to the objective as a document, so it travels with the objective through catchball and reviews.
Problem-solving is different. Profit.co builds the countermeasure A3 into the product, opened from a flagged gap and judged after its lag; see Writing a hoshin A3. More on the Hoshin Kanri software page.
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Questions this article answers
A one-page summary of a hoshin objective: its link to the breakthrough, current condition, target, analysis, plan, measures and open issues, written during planning and updated through the year.
A strategy A3 explains an objective and its plan; a problem-solving A3 investigates a specific gap. The first is written in planning, the second when a row stays red.
After the A3 paper size, roughly 297 by 420 millimeters, which limits the document to one page and forces brevity.
The objective owner, during planning and before catchball, so the level below has the reasoning in front of them when they respond.
Why these priorities were chosen, and what was considered and rejected. It is the section the quarterly review returns to when a priority is not working.
No. The matrix shows what the plan is, across every objective at once. The A3 explains one objective in enough depth to judge whether its plan is credible.
