One of the most effective techniques I learned during my time at Toyota is the A3 Way. At Toyota, to justify any spending, whether it be $1000 or $1M, we were required to summarise the proposal on just 1 page – the problem you are solving, supporting data, your plan, and the benefits. The aim was to keep the words to a minimum, make it highly visual, and get to the point! Throughout my career, I coined the term “Powerful Page” and applied this concept to everything from executive summaries describing service offerings, proposals and business cases. I am pretty sure the Lean Canvas had its origins back at Toyota A3 Way. It also facilitates another Toyota practice called Namawashi (or “Turning the Roots”) – which is getting buy-in from individual stakeholders first, making final sign-off a breeze. For many of my clients, we have used the Powerful Page as a short-form business case to outline and justify new initiatives at the early stages of a portfolio lifecycle. It provides the preliminary justification before investing in a detailed business case (and, in many cases, replacing the need for it!) Furthermore, a “Powerful Page” is awesome at communicating an initiative quickly to a broad range of stakeholders. A Powerful Page might appear simple, but it forces you to cut the bullshit and get to the point – which is not as easy as it sounds! You know you haven’t succeeded if you resort to using the smallest readable font to fit all the text on your page. So cut to the chase and use the Powerful Page to make your business leaner. #200Ignites AdaptivOrg + Seisma SEISMA GROUP Follow me on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/gz8dkuhU
