Lean Six Sigma certification will continue to be an expected part of Six Sigma and related disciplines, in part because it has credibility in the workplace. As Lean and Six Sigma leaders approach certification in their companies, they should consider these tips:

• Focus on the Lean Six Sigma projects
  “I draw a pie chart showing what’s involved with becoming a Black Belt,” Mike Potosky, Lean Six Sigma Deployment Leader at Motorola, said. “About 20 percent of that pie is the training, 5 percent is the test that shows you learned the methods/tools and the rest of that pie is the projects. That’s the important piece, going out there and solving problems.”

• Make Lean Six Sigma certification a top-down issue
  “There’s a lot about Six Sigma that our businesses can determine for themselves, but certification is defined at the corporate level at DuPont,” Don Linsenmann, DuPont’s Lean Six Sigma deployment leader, said. “We wanted the criteria to be universal. It’s too important to be a ‘states’ rights’ issue.”

• Build a Lean Six Sigma brand
  “Six Sigma was a well-established brand at General Electric that was much bigger than the toolset,” Margaret Townsend, Lean Six Sigma leader at Microsoft, said. “So when you talk about driving momentum at a major company, being able to brand the effort makes a lot of sense.”

Six Sigma Belts Earn More Than Their Counterparts

Lean Six Sigma Black Belts earn an average of $83,107 per year, not including bonuses.

After several years of relatively flat numbers, the average worldwide Lean Six Sigma Black Belt salary rose to $83,107, up 5 percent over the previous year.

Since the 2004 report, the overall trend has been upward, with Lean Six Sigma Black Belts experiencing an average increase of 19 percent.

Full report on Six Sigma Black Belt Salaries »