To be an effective Green Belt, Black Belt, or Master Black Belt requires and in-depth knowledge and understanding of the Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques. For that to happen and be successful requires a periodic review of your Lean Six Sigma training plan and curriculum. Here are some essentials you should keep in mind as you review your program:
- Emphasize “hands-on” learning. I find it useful to have activities and exercises that demonstrate the use of a particular concept and it’s associated tools and techniques. Using that approach, students walk away with a clear understanding and how they can apply it to their project and to their job. It’s important that students be required to complete a project as part of their certification. Going through and understanding the DMAIC process, using various tools, participating in toll-gate reviews, and leading teams is all part of the experience and is invaluable to the students learning.
- Provide relevant examples that demonstrate how the tools, techniques and strategies pertain to their business. Lean Six Sigma instructors that are not able to relate to their students may be able to provide awareness, but can’t show them how to use the tools, techniques and strategies to solve the problems in their business.
- Continue to build knowledge and understanding. Continuous improvement is a life long journey and is never complete. The same goes for increasing the skills and knowledge of the belts. As a Master Black Belt for many years, I concentrate on the core tools by making sure students master them. At a Green Belt level I keep it pretty basic by making sure they know the sources of variation (6Ms) and how to identify and eliminate waste. (TIM WOODS)
- Vary the format of learning to include games, exercises, activities, discussions, videos, etc. to accommodate the learning styles of the participants.
- During training reinforce common messages that promote benefits to the organization and to the participants themselves.
- Training is an ongoing effort and is not a hit and run exercise. Most organizations provide their employees one or two weeks of training and expect them to know and use a variety of new tools and techniques and are disappointed when it doesn’t happen. For employees to master them, they must get periodic refreshers on a regular basis. These refreshers can be done in-house by MBB’s and BB’s that become proficient in using a tool and can teach others what they’ve learned and where to use it. Refreshers can include a variety of topics such as:
- Use of Minitab or other statistical software
- Hypothesis testing
- Analysis of variance (ANOVA)
- Regression techniques
- Design of experiments (DOE) techniques
- Etc.
Increasing the effectiveness of your training requires organizational effort. It takes project coaches, sponsors, and champions constantly reinforcing the use of correct and appropriate tools and techniques in tollgate reviews and project discussions with teams for the organization to grow in its learning effort.