Lean Six Sigma

it’s not magic, it’s logical thinking
lean six sigma
Author

Jesse van Elteren

Published

August 27, 2025

Inspired by some recent Lean Six Sigma posts, I thought it’s about time I wrote a blog post on it. I want to convey what I see as the essentials. If you apply this, I believe you can get a lot of the benefits.

There can be a certain elitism around the mysteries of Lean Six Sigma. A lot of tools with strange Japanese names. And those difficult statistics! Many practitioners have gone through training, trying to wrap their head around all of the tools and statistics. But the method is much more important than the tools. Seeing the forest through the trees…

At the core it’s really simple — but not simplistic. Many initiatives fail this logic. Below the 5 steps from the Six Sigma DMAIC method and the pitfalls I often see.

DMAIC 5 Steps (with pitfalls)

  1. Define: What is the problem
  1. Measure: How big is the problem
  1. Analyze: What causes the problem
  1. Improve: Fix the root cause
  1. Control: Don’t slide back

As you can see these 5 steps are nothing fancy. Really applying them with common logic and consistency will get you quite far.

And then there is also Lean. If I really had to simplify it to one sentence: think in process steps, make sure to only do things that add value and try to minimize/automate the rest. And it’s about people, so also make the work worthwhile and fun. So OK that’s two sentences.

What about statistics? Statistics are fun, but like I learned from Master Black Belt Marcus Witteman: practical, graphical, analytical. In that order. So first ask the right question, identify the right graphs and then worry about p-values. It depends on the problem whether they are necessary (often not).

So it’s not magic, it’s mostly logical thinking applied with discipline. While I don’t do formal LSS projects, I use this conceptual framework very frequently to check if we are doing things right. LSS offers a mindset anyone can use.