Lean > Lean Six Sigma

🤣This isn’t a waste of time if it’s 90-95% Lean methods and 5 to 10% Six Sigma.

Lean is an organization’s overall improvement strategy that involves everyone in the organization making things better every day for the benefit of the customer. Six Sigma is a set of statistical tools for a specialized few.

I’m not a fan of the term Lean Six Sigma (it’s not even close to 50/50 balance), but some Six Sigma tools like SIPOC and DMAIC are valuable ways for Lean organizations to scope improvement projects and solve problems.

I’ve seen many organizations spend exorbitant amounts of money on training (tens of thousands of dollars per employee) on Lean Six Sigma belt training that involves the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach of bombarding participants with an onslaught of convoluted statistics and conflicting ideas.

Yes, having a few people with this knowledge is helpful, but most employees don’t need a masters degree level of knowledge in statistics to improve their processes. A typical Lean Six Sigma certification examination includes 85% Six Sigma tools and only 15% Lean methods. This is problematic.

100% of the content covered in Lean certification training is applicable to everyone, every day, unlike the ineffective hybrid, which focuses on training people on a body of knowledge that is filled with material they’ll never use.

Organizations that want to build continuous improvement cultures should focus on spreading actionable knowledge of Lean principles and methods through all levels, and leave in-depth Six Sigma capabilities to a few specialists.