AbstractThis research investigates the application of A3 Architecture Overviews (A3AOs) in subsea front‐end engineering studies. A3AO is a valuable method to support multi‐disciplinary communication and share architectural knowledge in complex engineering domains. The method captures key information of an overall system and displays the system overview in a standard A3 format. In this paper, we investigate the beneficial impact a global subsea supplier can gain by applying A3AO as part of their concept evaluation process in the early phase study. Through interviews and a survey, we identified company's main challenges in concept evaluation of tie‐in and connection system. We then applied the A3AO method to investigate its mitigating effect in early phase concept evaluation. We found that the company resources found the A3AO to provide a holistic system overview and support knowledge sharing. Overall, our research supports the use of A3AO as a method to promote common understanding.