When people hear "Lean Six Sigma," they picture manufacturing floors, control charts, and acronyms that sound like military code. They're not wrong, but they're missing most of the picture.
I'm a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt. That sounds like a credential, and it is. But more than that, it's a way of seeing the world.
Here's what LSS actually is: a philosophy of compound improvement.
The technical tools - the statistics, the process maps, the DMAIC framework - that's maybe 20% of the work. The other 80%? It's human. Listening. Following up. Holding yourself and others accountable with empathy. Understanding the culture before you try to change the process.
Every improvement, no matter how small, adds up. Discipline over time beats heroics every time.
People think LSS is about massive transformation projects with big budgets and external consultants. Sometimes it is. But more often, it's about someone noticing that a form has an unnecessary field, removing it, and saving three minutes per transaction. Multiply that by a thousand transactions, and you've just given a city employee back 50 hours a year.
That's not sexy. It doesn't make headlines. But it's real, and it compounds.
The methodology works anywhere there's a process - and there's always a process. I've applied it to military logistics, municipal permitting, utility billing, IT service management, and AI deployments. The tool changes. The thinking doesn't.
Once you learn to see waste - unnecessary steps, confusion, rework - you can't unsee it. That's the gift and the burden of this work. But it's also what makes improvement possible.