Green Belt – Lean Six Sigma Moneybelt

Improvement Insights Blog

Posts tagged "Green Belt"

Books to Simplify and Clarify Lean Six Sigma

After weeks of Six Sigma Green or Black Belt training, many people are still confused about what to do and where to start. These people tell me: “Jay, I read your Lean Six Sigma Demystified or Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals book and it clarified Six Sigma. I felt like I finally knew what to do.”



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of Lean Six Sigma Demystified and Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals

“Over the last decade, I’ve been at conferences and talking to people on the phone, and they say, “Jay, I got my Green Belt training and my Black Belt training (or whatever it was), and I was still confused until I read your Demystified book.”

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

Trying to Save Money on Software Can Kill Your Six Sigma Results

Consultants and trainers keep trying to save money on Six Sigma software while charging a small fortune for training. Without tools to to the job, all of this training is wasted and improvement projects will fail to sustain results. Are you trying to save a few dollars on software or maximize the results from Six Sigma?



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“I’ve been eternally frustrated over the last 20-something years because Six Sigma trainers and [others] will go out and train companies, spend weeks training people in a company, but then not give them the software to do the job.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

Are You Doing Black Belt Work or No Belt Work?

My childhood doctor did it all. Now I almost never see a doctor. Are You Doing Black or Green Belt work, or “No Belt” work?



“When I was growing up as a kid, our family doctor, Dr. Pierce (and what an unfortunate name)… anyway, Dr. Pierce was actually a MASH 4077 kind of a doctor, right? He was he was in Korea [where] they were doing meatball surgery. But back in the 50s, he’d come in and take your temperature, check your pulse, and he would give you the shots and anything else that was there: write the prescriptions out long hand and rip them off a pad and hand them to you.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.

Six Sigma Dogma

When I started in quality improvement, everyone preached Total Quality Management (TQM). Before that it was quality circles. I’d like you to consider that the gospel of Six Sigma is holding back progress. Here’s why:



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].

“The other day I was [presenting] a webinar for one of the ASQ sections; I’ve been doing Agile Lean Six Sigma webinars for the Agile sections that want something to do during this pandemic. One of the guys said, “Well, you’re sort of telling me that that we don’t need Green Belts and Black Belts to do a project.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

Skipping Stones or Diving Beneath the Surface of Your Business?

Are you skipping Six Sigma stones across the surface of your business or are you finding people who take to it like a duck to water. People who can dive beneath the surface to find the invisible low-hanging fruit?

“Have you ever skipped a rock across a lake? Maybe the first time you threw it out there it just went “sploosh.” Then you figured out that flatter rocks skip better, so you started throwing them out and they’d go “skip-skip-sploosh,” or maybe get three or four or five “skip-skips” and “sploosh.”

“Then a duck came flying in, put out its landing gear and just kind of eased into the water.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

How Long Should Lean Six Sigma Projects Take?

Should a project take 4-16 months or 4-16 hours? Should you measure projects with a calendar or a stopwatch? I think the answer is obvious, but here’s my take on it.

“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur. Every year, we exhibit at lots of conferences with QI Macros so I get to go to presentations by all kinds of folks. Now, last year I saw a presentation by some consultants who said they’d done some research into how long Six Sigma projects take. They found Six Sigma projects take anywhere from four months to 16 months.

“I [thought], “What? How’s that possible?” That makes no sense to me, because I’ve done multimillion-dollar projects in between 4 and 16 hours.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Data Mining, Improvement Insights, QI Macros.

Agile Hacks for Making Lean Six Sigma Sticky

Some companies are discovering Agile methods for implementing Lean Six Sigma. Over 50 years of research into how cultures adapt, adopt and reject change can explain why Agile works and why it accelerates Lean Six Sigma adoption.

“I recently did a video about how Christus Health and Novartis and Underwriters Laboratories were all using Agile methods to implement Lean and Six Sigma with one day (sometimes two day) training classes that created Yellow Belts focused on making improvement. I got to thinking about that a little bit, and it turns out that there’s over 50 years of research into how cultures adopt, adapt and reject change.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

IHI’s Trillion Dollar Aim – Reduce Healthcare Waste by 50% by 2025

IHI set a goal to reduce healthcare waste by 50% by 2025. Here’s how to do it with the Trillion Dollar Prescription.

“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals.” We were just out at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement conference in Orlando, Florida. [There were] like, 4500 medical doctors and nurses and CNO’s and CNMO’s and people all involved in improving healthcare quality. This is their 31st annual conference. (I can tell you based on what I was looking at on the posters, people are not really aggressively going after change…)

“The IHI announced that it’s tackling what they call the “Trillion-Dollar Checkbook.”

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Improvement Insights.

Agile Process Innovation Case Studies

What do Christus Health, Novartis and Underwriters Laboratories have in common? In the last few years they’ve rediscovered the essence of Agile Lean Six Sigma. Here’s How:

“Every year we go out to these conferences and trade shows and exhibit the QI Macros, and I get a chance to go see some of the presentations that people are doing. About two years ago I started to notice an interesting trend, and so I got some observations out of this whole thing.

“So about two years ago, I was at the Lean Six Sigma conference in Phoenix and Christus Health was presenting about their quality journey.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

Six Sigma Green Belt Project Problem

One of our QI Macros users sent me a Greenbelt Project to review. The team did a great job of using the tools and connecting the dots. There was only one small problem…

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, QI Macros, Six Sigma.