IT'S OUR FOCUS ON SOLVING PROCESS PROBLEMS THAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
About the facilitators - Chris Reed and Hannah Reed
Chris and his daughter Hannah run the training consultancy Lean6Sigma which was formed in 2009 to help companies build their in-house process improvement capability.
Chris is a certified Master Black Belt and Change Practitioner and an accomplished trainer and coach. Chris has a UK manufacturing background supplemented with significant Service, Logistics and Construction sector experience in NZ and previously managed the Air NZ Continuous Improvement team 2006-14.
Qualified to Masters Degree level in Engineering and Business Administration - with strong leadership and workshop facilitation skills; Chris’s passion is helping businesses change and improve their performance by coaching and empowering individuals and teams in process improvement and change management.
Hannah is a certified Green Belt practitioner, scientist graduate , experienced facilitator and course trainer for in-company and public White, Yellow and Green Belt courses using lean six sigma and change methodologies, roadmaps and toolkits. Hannah has been trained to Black Belt level in Seattle USA and has led several process improvement workshops and initiatives with Lean6Sigma clients.
How we like to deliver classroom/in-house courses
We design courses and facilitate training workshops to be hands-on with simulations and project work.
For our public and in-house courses, we structure the training using the 70, 20, 10% model ie 70% learn by doing, 20% by being coached and 10% by tuition. We minimise PowerPoint to a few specific charts/images that can’t otherwise be easily understood.
We often use/create large wall charts where each attendee participates (with a pen) to build for example a high-level picture of the topic being studied.
We use videos, case studies, tabletop exercises, project work, lego simulations (5S) and process simulations (PDCA and DMAIC) to provide a range of media for learning.
Our view is that candidates only learn and recall that learning if they have an insight – our role as trainers is to provide that insight through examples, stories, conversations videos and involvement.
Our training rooms have a pile of lego on each table (as well as some books!) – just to stimulate thinking and to encourage innovation
Our view on training is that the emphasis is on ‘what has the learner achieved’ and our feedback forms score what the learner experience has been – how they have connected with other learners, how they have understood the topics, what opportunities to practise in class were there and confidence level to go and apply in their workplace.
Some courses use blended training where we mix our self paced online offering with our classroom training
Lean6Sigma Ltd is a registered provider of Better by Lean programmes by the NZ Government via Callaghan Innovation since 2015.
How we deliver virtual remote training
Virtual remote training is a live facilitated training class that uses Zoom/Microsoft Teams to connect learners to one another. The aim is to make this a highly engaging and interactive learning experience. This form of delivery is offered when in-house training requires candidates to attend remotely from different sites (geographically dispersed) or when there are restrictions (due to Covid-19 as an example) for a training class to be run face to face (F2F).
Whilst the end goal of virtual remote training is to provide the same problem-solving learning and application experience for the learner as face to face classroom courses and workshops it is designed differently to account for virtual remote delivery - for example, it aims to design and deliver targeted content more rapidly than F2F to appropriate audiences.
What our virtual remote training is:
- A highly interactive training experience with frequent engagement with the facilitator
- Synchronous online events – where everyone meets live at the same time
- Instructor led training
- Training with specific learning objectives
- Connection for geographically dispersed participants
- Facilitated using a web classroom platform like Zoom/Teams – to allow for online screen and file sharing and use of audience participation tools (polling, chat, whiteboarding, break-out etc)
What our virtual remote training is not:
- A webinar or on-line meeting with one-way communication from a presenter
- Distance learning where the facilitator is in one location and connects with a group of participants in another location using video/audio conferencing
How we support and mentor
The Yellow and Green Belt practitioner courses start with some pre-reading and then we make ourselves available after training for help with your process improvement projects. To certify you need to complete an appropriate project from your work/area of interest or the case study that we have provided – so our help is using by remote email/skype/zoom to provide guidance and a little bit of motivation!
In-house and company workshops
Our support for in-house activities can be F2F and on-site often overlapped when we visit to run workshops or training classes. This can also be conducted remotely using Teams or Zoom virtual platforms. We very much believe in visiting the Gemba (workplace) with you to talk about what’s happening and observe the current situation to understand what issues you are facing to deliver your process improvement project. We will ‘hand-hold’ and provide whatever guidance but not take the job off you!
Online self paced courses
Our online courses started in 2020 so we are still building experience in terms of the level of support that candidates are seeking and what we can best offer. We have made a gesture in the spirit of supporting your training to respond to any reasonable queries by email. We are able to track your training progress through the online portal so we will reach out to anyone who is stuck or needs a friendly nudge without being your ‘mum’! During your self paced online training we will keep in touch eg with offers for you to attend free webinars etc but promise not to bombard with promotions.
Read Our Case Studies