What Is Lean Six Sigma in Project Management?

In an ideal world, your team would produce work that’s completely error-free — and they’d do it as efficiently as possible. But how do you get there? Lean Six Sigma might be the answer.

So what is Lean Six Sigma? It’s a hybrid methodology that combines two popular approaches to process improvement: Lean and Six Sigma. Understanding each of those will help you better grasp how Lean Six Sigma actually works.

What is Lean? Lean project management is all about reducing waste. The goal is to do more with less. Teams identify waste areas so that they can avoid any project activities that offer little or no value. The result is more efficient processes that require less time, money, and effort.
What is Six Sigma? Six Sigma methodology focuses on using statistics to improve the quality of a team’s processes. It takes a magnifying glass to processes to identify any production defects and variations. Some people even get a Six Sigma certification to prove their knowledge in identifying and removing defects.

When you put the two together, you get Lean Six Sigma. With this approach, Lean first calls attention to any unwanted process variations, while Six Sigma steps in and uses a series of improvements to reduce those variations. How? Six Sigma uses the DMAIC acronym, which stands for:

Define
Measure
Analyze
Improve
Control

To put this all in even simpler terms, Lean highlights the holes in the bucket, and Six Sigma patches them.

Is Lean Six Sigma right for your team?

Lean Six Sigma got its start in manufacturing, but it has since expanded to virtually every other industry.

Despite its popularity, it’s not the default right choice to help your project team work more effectively and efficiently. To determine whether you and your team could benefit from Lean Six Sigma, consider the potential benefits and drawbacks.

Advantages of Lean Six Sigma:

Lower costs: Because there’s less waste and defect-free products, teams can save money.
Improved processes: With more control and fewer variations, processes are far more streamlined and consistent.
Better employee engagement: With Lean Six Sigma, teams are accountable for solving problems. Project managers trust them to carry out any process improvements, and that level of autonomy can boost their enthusiasm and engagement.

Disadvantages of Lean Six Sigma:

Complexity: To do it well, it requires prior knowledge of two different project methodologies. So, it can feel a little daunting and is not as easily adopted as other approaches.
Resource-intensive: It’s not a fast-moving approach and it takes a lot of time to follow the principles. Teams will likely also have increased workloads as they move through the process.
Potential customer loss: To reduce defects, you might have to opt for more expensive resources and materials. That can raise the price of your end product and even lead to customer churn.

To sum it up, Lean Six Sigma combines the zero-waste ideology of Lean and the zero-defects ideology of Six Sigma to create a new, hybrid approach that ultimately helps teams get better work across the finish line in less time.

What Is Lean Six Sigma in Project Management?