I recently earned my Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt, and it completely changed how I think about efficiency and quality, especially in a digital environment. While both Lean and Six Sigma aim to improve processes and outcomes, they approach it from different angles. Lean focuses on reducing waste and maximising value, while Six Sigma uses data and analysis to minimise variation and defects. Together, they create a powerful toolkit for continuous improvement, and I now realise it’s just as relevant to software as it is to hardware.
When I started learning about Lean, I quickly realised how much waste exists in the digital world, it’s just less visible. It’s the projects we start and then cancel, or Jira tickets that sit in the backlog forever. It’s unnecessary meetings without a clear agenda, waiting for approvals, and too many stakeholders being looped in before a decision can be made. All of these things slow delivery and inhibit agility. And of course, taking on technical debt is the ultimate form of waste. It might save time in the moment, but it inevitably slows developers down and leads to rework later.
What I found most valuable about Lean was its focus on value-adding activities. If something doesn’t directly deliver value to the customer, it’s waste. Period. No matter how busy it makes us feel or if we think it’s valuable. As a Product Owner, that perspective made me even more mindful of how I prioritise work and reminded me that doing less can sometimes deliver more, if it means focusing on the right things.
The Six Sigma side brought a different kind of discipline. It’s all about using data to guide decisions, which sounds obvious but often doesn’t happen in practice (yes, even in 2025). In my experience working with multiple clients and stakeholders across different industries, many decisions are made using anecdotal evidence or gut feel rather than objective data. Six Sigma reinforced how important it is to measure what’s actually happening before jumping to conclusions. This reaffirmed the value of using my go-to structured prioritisation frameworks such as RICE, MoSCoW and the Eisenhower Matrix when making decisions.
I particularly liked how Six Sigma defines defects, not just as mistakes or errors, but also as under-delivering or over-delivering on customer requirements. Both are defects: one by missing expectations, the other by adding effort and cost without additional value. Using frameworks like DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control), Six Sigma provides a structured way to identify problems, find their root causes and make improvements that last.
Overall, earning my Yellow Belt reminded me that efficiency isn’t about working harder or faster, it’s about working smarter. By combining Lean’s focus on value with Six Sigma’s emphasis on data, I’ve developed a more thoughtful approach to improvement, one that’s grounded in evidence, not assumptions, and focused on what truly delivers value.
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