Lean and Lean Six Sigma

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As well as studying for my ILM5 qualification, I’ve also been undertaking other training and development. A lot of this has centered around process improvement, which is going to play a larger part in my role going forward, and which is something I’m very interested in anyway. As part of this I attended a day-long simulation exercise around Lean and a two day course on Lean Six Sigma.

The Lean simulation was a lot of fun, and nicely demonstrated the principles of Lean IT, eliminating waste and optimising workflows through the medium of building Lego cars. Anything involving Lego can’t be too bad, and I can’t remember a day of training that I’ve been more engaged with for a long time. I also learned a couple of useful practical applications of the theory, which I may very well try out with the team soon.

The Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt course was a lot drier, and concentrated more on the theory and history of Lean (which concentrates on eliminating waste and streamlining processes) and Six Sigma (which concentrates on standardising processes and reducing unneccesary variance and defect). I’m not sure the training covered much that I hadn’t already had exposure to, but I accept that I do tend to read around subjects as soon as I know I need to study them, and by the time I did the course I felt like I had a fair understanding of the content. The exam was trickier than I thought it would be, but I’m happy with my 80% and am already thinking about perhaps doing the next qualification up.

I also feel this training has helped with both my assignment on efficiency and effectiveness and my final ILM project which will involve implementing changes to processes and workflows to optimise call flow at the Service Desk.