Question 1

What actually happens on the assessment call?

Accepted Answer

Thirty minutes. You describe the outcome you need and the constraint in the way. We tell you what a realistic baseline and measurable target look like, and whether this is work we should do together.

Question 2

Is this a Lean Six Sigma training engagement?

Accepted Answer

Consulting engagements and certification training are separate offerings. An engagement delivers a transformation outcome measured in operational results. If you want to build internal capability, we certify Yellow Belts and Green Belts — see the Certifications page.

Question 3

Do you run agile or waterfall?

Accepted Answer

Both, deliberately. Predictive where sequence and hard dates rule, adaptive where learning rules — governed honestly rather than forced into one status format.

Question 4

How do you prove the result?

Accepted Answer

Every engagement defines the measure, the baseline, and the re-measurement date up front. If it can't be baselined, it isn't claimed.

Question 5

What does a first engagement usually look like?

Accepted Answer

Most start with a focused diagnostic or assessment, sized to the process in question and ending with a sized opportunity set and a recommendation. That is a deliberate small first step rather than a long commitment before either side knows the work.

Question 6

Do you work on-site, remote, or both?

Accepted Answer

Both. Discovery and improvement work benefit from being on-site where the work happens; delivery, governance, and measurement run effectively remote. Engagements are usually a mix.

Question 7

How is consulting different from your certification training?

Accepted Answer

An engagement delivers a specific transformation outcome, measured. Certification training builds internal capability. Many clients do both — we deliver the first wave and certify the people who run the next.

Question 8

What counts as validated savings?

Accepted Answer

A financial benefit agreed with finance against a documented baseline, re-measured after implementation. Projected or estimated numbers are labeled as such and never reported as validated.

Question 9

How long before results show up?

Accepted Answer

Rapid improvement events can move a measure within the event. Process redesign and delivery show measured movement once the change is live and the baseline has enough data behind it. Sustainment is checked at intervals agreed for the process and its operating cadence.

Question 10

Which industries do you work in?

Accepted Answer

All of them, and organizations of every size — from small, locally owned and family-run businesses to large investor-backed groups, across manufacturing, distribution, insurance, financial services, technology, healthcare, nonprofit, public sector, and professional services. The methods are process-based, so they transfer across sectors, and the scope is sized to the organization rather than the other way around.

Question 11

How long is each training?

Accepted Answer

Yellow Belt is two days. Green Belt is five days. Both are delivered on-site or virtually and built around your own processes.

Question 12

Why is Yellow Belt a prerequisite for Green Belt?

Accepted Answer

Green Belt is DMAIC in full — measurement system analysis, hypothesis testing, control plans. It assumes you already read a process, see waste, and scope a problem. Yellow Belt builds that, so the five Green Belt days are spent on discipline rather than vocabulary.

Question 13

I already have a Yellow Belt from another provider. Do I have to retake it?

Accepted Answer

No. Submit the coursework and project evidence through the validation step and we review it. If it holds up, you go straight into Green Belt.

Question 14

Are projects completed during the training?

Accepted Answer

No. Yellow Belt includes small in-class project work over the two days, but no project is carried to completion in the room. Green Belt projects run after the training week with coaching support.

Question 15

How is Yellow Belt certification awarded?

Accepted Answer

The exam is taken during the two-day training. A passing score plus the in-class Yellow Belt project work earns certification on the spot.

Question 16

How is Green Belt certification awarded?

Accepted Answer

The exam is taken during the five-day training. Certification is issued once the participant completes a project with validated hard savings of $25,000 or more. Ongoing post-training support is included until the project lands.

Question 17

What kind of project qualifies for Green Belt certification?

Accepted Answer

A full DMAIC project on a real business problem with hard savings of $25,000 or more, carried through to a control plan and validated with finance.

Question 18

Do you train on our processes or generic examples?

Accepted Answer

Yours. Every cohort works on live processes from your operation, which is why the training produces projects instead of certificates.

Question 19

How much does it cost?

Accepted Answer

Pricing depends on cohort size, belt level, delivery mode, and dates. Submit the intake form and we will put together a personalized quote.

Question 20

Does training replace a consulting engagement?

Accepted Answer

It complements one. Training builds internal capability; an engagement delivers a specific transformation outcome. Many clients do both — we deliver the first wave and certify the people who run the next.

Question 21

Who is a Kaizen event for?

Accepted Answer

The people who actually run the process, plus a sponsor who can approve changes on the spot. A typical team is six to ten cross-functional participants — operators or front-line staff, a supervisor, someone from quality or finance, and a support function that touches the process. It is not a leadership workshop and it is not a training class.

Question 22

What happens during the event?

Accepted Answer

The team observes the real work, baselines it with real data, quantifies waste and constraints, tests a better flow, and embeds the change with standard work and ownership. These are fluid phases, not daily assignments: the team can move forward, loop back, or spend more time wherever the process and evidence require.

Question 23

What results should we expect?

Accepted Answer

An implemented change with a documented before-and-after on one agreed measure — commonly cycle time, changeover, touches, rework, or labor hours. Results vary by process and are reported against the baseline rather than estimated. Sustainment is checked at follow-up points appropriate to the process.

Question 24

How much of our team's time does it take?

Accepted Answer

The core team needs protected time throughout the scoped event — that focus is what makes it work. Coverage is planned before the event. Preparation is light: scope agreement, data pull, and logistics. The exact timing is determined by scope; there is no prescribed day-by-day schedule.

Question 25

Is a Kaizen event always the right first step?

Accepted Answer

No. It fits a contained process with an agreed measure. Broader or cross-functional problems start with a diagnostic or value stream assessment, and a stalled initiative starts with a recovery review.

Question 26

How long does discovery take?

Accepted Answer

Scoped to the area in question rather than a fixed calendar. We do not extend discovery to bill more time — we extend it only when the data or the access genuinely requires it. The output is a sized opportunity, not an open-ended study.

Question 27

Do you use our data or bring your own benchmarks?

Accepted Answer

We work from your real transaction and operating data first — that is what makes the opportunity credible to your team. Benchmarks inform context, but the sizing is grounded in your baseline, not a generic industry average.

Question 28

What happens if our data is messy or incomplete?

Accepted Answer

That is common, not a blocker. We reconstruct a defensible baseline from the data that does exist, triangulate with interviews and observation, and state the assumptions explicitly. We never size an opportunity on numbers we cannot show.

Question 29

Do you redesign processes from scratch?

Accepted Answer

Rarely. Most processes already do 80% of the right things. We redesign around the constraints and the waste that actually govern performance, preserving what works. Clean-sheet design only happens when the current state is fundamentally broken.

Question 30

How do you prove an improvement actually works?

Accepted Answer

We pilot against the agreed baseline and measure in the same terms before and after. An improvement is only accepted once the pilot data shows the movement — opinions and projections do not count.

Question 31

What if leaders disagree on the target state?

Accepted Answer

We make the trade-offs explicit. When leaders see the same sized options with the same assumptions, the disagreement usually resolves into a real decision rather than a debate over different numbers.

Question 32

Do you use agile or waterfall?

Accepted Answer

Neither as a default. The delivery method follows the work: predictive for fixed sequence and hard dependencies, adaptive for evolving scope and learning, and honestly governed hybrid when a program needs both. We do not force one rhythm onto the whole program.

Question 33

Who owns the work during delivery — you or us?

Accepted Answer

We lead delivery while internal ownership is built, with a deliberate transfer plan. A named client owner is paired with our lead from day one, so accountability moves to your team by design rather than by departure.

Question 34

What if our program is already behind?

Accepted Answer

We start with an honest read of where it actually is — scope, plan, risk, and capacity — and a workable path to a completed outcome. That often means re-scoping, re-sequencing, or changing the delivery method, not just pushing harder on a broken plan.

Question 35

How do you make sure gains don't revert?

Accepted Answer

Sustainment is designed at the start, not bolted on at closeout. Named owners, control plans, thresholds, and response actions are built into the work from day one, so the gain survives the end of the engagement.

Question 36

What happens after the engagement ends?

Accepted Answer

Ownership, metrics, and operating cadence are handed over with documentation. We measure against the baseline at agreed check points after go-live — set by the process, not a fixed calendar — to confirm the gain is holding.

Question 37

Who owns the metrics once you leave?

Accepted Answer

A named internal owner for each metric, documented before handover. If nobody can name the owner, the metric will not be watched — which is why ownership transfer is a deliverable, not an afterthought.

Question 38

How small is too small for this to be worth it?

Accepted Answer

If you have a process that repeats and a cost you can point at, it is worth it. The smallest useful engagement is one process, one baseline, and one change your team can run — not a program. What changes with size is scope, not the discipline.

Question 39

How much of my team's time does this actually take?

Accepted Answer

Bounded and agreed before we start. Typically a short block with the people who do the work, a working session or two to redesign it, and brief check-ins after the change is live. Nobody is pulled off the floor for days at a stretch unless you choose a focused improvement event.

Question 40

Can you do this without shutting anything down?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We observe the work while it runs, baseline with records you already keep — invoices, job tickets, schedules — and pilot the change on a limited slice before it becomes the way you work. Nothing goes live until it has been run once safely.

Question 41

What does the owner personally have to do?

Accepted Answer

Agree the problem and the measure, approve the change, and back it in front of the team. Everything else can sit with the people who run the process. The goal is to take work off you, not add a reporting job.

Question 42

What do we keep when it is over?

Accepted Answer

The documented standard, the measure and where it lives, and the response when it drifts. Written so a new hire can follow it, not so a consultant is needed to interpret it.

Question 43

Our measure isn't profit. Does this still apply?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The measure becomes what the mission actually runs on — cases closed, wait time, time to service, cost per unit of service delivered, staff hours returned to program work. The method is indifferent to whether the number is dollars; it only requires that the number is real and baselined.

Question 44

Budgets are tight and grant-restricted. How is scope sized?

Accepted Answer

Scope is set to the question you can fund, and sequenced so the first piece stands on its own rather than depending on a later phase. Where funding is restricted to a program, the work is scoped inside that program's processes so it stays allowable.

Question 45

Our staff cannot step away from clients or the public. How do you work around that?

Accepted Answer

Observation happens during live service, not in a workshop room. Sessions are short, scheduled around service hours, and often split across shifts so no single team is thinned out. Volunteer and part-time coverage is planned into the schedule rather than assumed.

Question 46

How do we handle oversight, boards, and compliance requirements?

Accepted Answer

Documented baselines and re-measurement dates are exactly what boards, funders, and auditors want. Every change records what it was, what it became, who approved it, and where the controlling requirement is satisfied — so improvement never trades against compliance.

Question 47

How do you start without disrupting service?

Accepted Answer

We start with measurement only. Nothing changes during the baseline period. The first change is piloted on one team, one site, or one intake channel, with an agreed way to revert if the measure moves the wrong way.

Question 48

We already have a PMO and a CI function. Where do you fit?

Accepted Answer

Alongside them, on the work they do not have capacity to carry, or on the seam between them — where improvement hands off to delivery and the benefit gets lost. We use your governance and your templates where they work rather than importing a parallel system.

Question 49

How do you scope across many sites without a two-year program?

Accepted Answer

Baseline the variation across sites, prove the redesign in one, then roll out with the same measures everywhere. Each wave is separately justified, so leadership can stop after any wave and keep what has already been delivered.

Question 50

What management time does this really take?

Accepted Answer

A sponsor decision point at each stage and a short standing review. The working load sits with the process team, not the executive layer. If a stage needs more executive time than that, it is a sign the scope is wrong and we resize it.

Question 51

How do you avoid colliding with our other initiatives?

Accepted Answer

The first step maps what is already in flight against the same people and systems. Where two initiatives touch the same process, we sequence rather than run both — the usual cause of stalled transformation is contention for capacity, not bad ideas.

Question 52

How do you start without disrupting operations?

Accepted Answer

Discovery is non-invasive: existing data, direct observation, and interviews scheduled around operations. Changes go live behind a pilot boundary with a defined rollback, and finance agrees the benefit definition before anything is claimed.

Every answer, in one place — searchable.

Start with the question in front of you.

What leaders ask before the work begins.

The useful questions are usually the ones nobody has published an answer to.

Let's talk about what needs to move.