Improvement Insights Blog
Yellow Belts or Green and Black Belts
Six Sigma dogma says you need Green and Black Belts, but you might be a lot better off with Yellow Belts. Here’s why:
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“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“You know, there seems to be a lot of discussion in Six Sigma about whether you need Green Belts or Black Belts or Yellow Belts. I believe the correct answer is Yellow Belts.
“I just spoke with a company, a worldwide manufacturing company, and they train people. They train Yellow Belts, and they expect each Yellow Belt to create a $10,000 improvement. Then from that, they can figure out who should go on to Green Belt and Black Belt training, because you have no idea when you start. It’s not that you don’t want Green Belts and Black Belts; you can’t start there because you don’t know who has the tools to do the job.
“What we want to do is Minimum Viable Training: MVT. Minimum Viable Training, right? A handful of tools will solve most problems. You know, most Six Sigma courses teach you all the tools you will never need… things that you will never use, right? I was mainly in services, so I’ve yet to use DOE for anything. Now, if you’re in manufacturing, sure… but I don’t need all those things. Most of the world works in service industries now, not manufacturing. All right? Manufacturing is a two-trillion-dollar business, and healthcare is somewhere between three and four and a half trillion. Where would I like to spend my money? Because that’s where I can save the most money.
“Anyway, that’s my Improvement Insight for this week. Let’s train more Yellow Belts. And I have a free Yellow Belt training online that anybody can take anywhere, anytime, and US military can take the certification for free.
“Let’s go out and improve something this week, like how we train people to improve every single day.”
