Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for Lean Six Sigma Green and Black Belt Certification

There are numerous benefits, but here are the main reasons I hear from students in my classes:

1. Financial – There is value in the marketplace for the certification which can increase your salary, get you a promotion, open up opportunities for special projects or task forces (tiger teams) or lead to a bonus or extra benefits or perks. Read more about how much a certification can increase your salary.
2. Boost skills – It will make you better at solving problems and improving processes, which will improve your job performance. You’ll also be able to show how you are bringing value to the organization through your project successes.
3. New job – It will make you more marketable if you are looking for a new job inside or outside your current company, or it can help you find a job if you’re unemployed and posting your resume.

In general, the Six Sigma certifications are more valuable than the Lean certifications in the marketplace due to the rigor of the statistical tools and emphasis on cost savings on the completed projects. But the Lean certification might be more practical at solving the most common problems.

White Belt and Yellow Belt training is typically covered within Green Belt body of knowledge. It is a great place to start for learning about Lean and Six Sigma. However, the majority of these certifications I have reviewed do not require any hands-on application or experience with the tools. Some of the certifications are given just for attending a class. Others are based on passing an exam. Due to the limited tools provided in the training and the lack of hands-on experience, these certifications do not carry much value in the marketplace. If you want to achieve these as a milestone to a more meaningful certification like Green Belt or Black Belt, then it is a great place to start.

New to Lean Six Sigma> Get started with our FREE Lean Six Sigma White Belt course >>>

To help you decide what course to take, check out our article “Help me choose a Lean Six Sigma certification“

If you are in Manufacturing, Banking, Information Technology, Call Centers, Agriculture or any other industry that has a high volume of transactions, Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt is an essential skill.

If you work in Engineering (mechanical, electrical, industrial), Quality Assurance (quality engineer or manager) or Process Improvement, then you should definitely know how to use the skills of Green Belt at a minimum.

If you work in Healthcare, Education, Government, Nonprofit, Software Development, Construction, Hospitality, Agriculture, Tourism and most other industries, having a strong background in Lean will give you a competitive advantage.

Contact us if you’d like to discuss your situation. It can be confusing sometimes, so we’re happy to assist!

No, you can go directly into Black Belt, especially if you have some experience with the Green Belt tools and methods listed above. If you are wanting to be in process improvement full-time as an internal or external consultant, then we recommend going directly to Black Belt.

If you’re just getting started in process improvement, we recommend going through Green Belt first. Once you complete your Green Belt certification, then you can continue on to Black Belt.

The other advantage of taking Green Belt first is that you don’t have as much content to learn all at once. A full Black Belt training program can be overwhelming with all the statistical terms and concepts. In reality, most (about 80%) of improvement projects can be solved with Green Belt level skills.

DIY (this program) is for those looking for the lowest cost option (usually paying for it themselves, not paid by your company). This program requires you to complete the online training at your own pace, and work with the coach to complete a project. No one is babysitting you, so you will need to be self-motivated.

Guided is for those who need more hands-on help and motivation to progress through the program. You will be assigned homework to work on each week, and we will check on your project progress. The cost is higher because there is more instructor time to help you understand how these concepts in the online training pertain to your work, and we incorporate some hands-on learning exercises.

No, we will walk you slowly through the statistics and software with hands-on exercises, assuming you have no prior experience. Any prior experience will be a great benefit to the program, as you can refresh yourself on the concepts and can focus more of your time on implementing a project.

No problem, even if your company paid for the program, we will continue to support you into your new job and company. You’ve already made the investment, we don’t care who paid for it. Our role is to help you gain the knowledge and successfully implement an improvement project somewhere. That being said, we cannot offer you legal advice. You might want to read any fine print on education reimbursement policies with your current company, as you may be asked to reimburse some or all of the course expenses.

For Green Belt, one option is to get a certification through ASQ. This involves studying and taking a 4-hour exam on the topics in the body of knowledge. You will also need to spend money on the exam (about $500 USD) and study materials (about $100-150 USD). The overall price will come out similar as our program above, and if you don’t pass the exam, you would have to pay another $300-400 USD to retake it.

We are also working on an option to review and qualify your past training course, so you only have to complete an improvement project to earn a certification from us. Contact us for more information (likely available in early 2026).

However, if you haven’t taken the training in over 2 years and haven’t been using the statistical tools or statistics software regularly in your job, we would recommend retaking the training (OpEx Learning options above) so it is fresh in your mind. Simply add the coaching option to the certification you’d like to have.

If you don’t want to retake an entire class, we also have refresher courses on specific Lean Six Sigma tools and methods that are very affordable.

For Black Belt, you will need to complete a real-life project and pass a more difficult exam than Green Belt. ASQ requires one validated project for their Black Belt certification. Costwise, our program with OpEx Learning will be most affordable if you include the certification review option. If you find another Black Belt certification that doesn’t require the completion of a real-life project, I would not recommend it.

Now is a great time to learn new skills. The main challenge is that you don’t have a company that you can more easily complete a project. We recommend connecting with a local nonprofit, charity, volunteer group or program in your community to see if they are interested in some free help to solve a problem. Check our Lean Six Sigma for Good for articles, videos and podcasts about applying Lean Six Sigma to nonprofits and NGOs, governments, public sector and healthcare.

The Individuals program is a little lighter in the content, and also takes less time to complete the training. The courses are all online and self-paced (no live instructor), whereas the Organization program is a blend of live instruction, live coaching and self-paced online training. The cost reflects the additional amount of live training hours and coaching support. The accountability of the live sessions is what ensures students complete the training and have the best chance to complete their real-life project. The Guided program is a mix between the Individual and Organization program, where most of the instruction is done through online courses, but there are regular coaching calls to discuss the content, help with the project and keep everyone on track.

The timeframe depends a lot on you. The online training will take a few days to a few weeks to complete, depending on how much time you commit to it each week. There is a time limit on the online training course, so we recommend focusing on getting through the material as soon as you can.

The project length can vary greatly, depending on scope, difficulty, data quality issues, team support, how much time you spend on the project each week (recommend 5-10 hours) and management support for implementing improvements. If you can commit 10-20 hours a week, you can get through the program much faster (within a few months).

For rough estimates assume a minimum of 3 months starting from scratch, but it will typically take 6 months, and could take up to 12 months. Black Belt could even extend past 12 months for larger projects. This is assuming there is steady progress being made on the project during that time.

Some people have taken a few years to complete the certification due to other workload, changes in jobs or responsibilities, personal life conflicts, major life events, etc. As long as you keep us informed of what’s happening, we will continue to help you until you succeed.

Our Green and Black Belt program is accredited through the Council for Six Sigma Certification and complies with ISO 18404:2015. Learn more about our accreditation. You can put this certification on your resume and apply to jobs that highly recommend or require Green Belt certification.

I set up a separate page to discuss alternative certification options.

Completing at least one real-life improvement project for your Black Belt certification is the most valuable certification to employers that you can achieve, as it proves you applied what you learned. In fact, you should really have 2 or more completed projects to show more than one project example.

However, it takes many months to complete a project when starting from scratch. Black Belt certifications with a project requirement (like ours) does not make it a good option for you, since speed is essential (need it for a job you’re applying for). However, I would really ask you to consider what the real reason behind your certification, and whether speed is really driving this decision. My guess is that you are looking to find the easier option.

Remember, if it only takes you a few weeks to get your certification, how valudable will that certification be perceived by a future employer? If your certification does not include proof of application to real-life problems, how valuable will that certification be?

Similar to Green Belt, outside of our Black Belt program, there are 3 primary options for the quickest Black Belt certifications options:

ASQ – Requires affidavit submittal of one completed project before receiving approval to take the exam.

IASSC (PeopleCert) – No project requirement for Black Belt, so we do not recommend

CSSC – No project requirement for Black Belt Level I, so we do not recommend. However, their Black Belt Level II does require a project, so we would recommend that (assuming you’ve already done improvement projects).

If you have experience and knowledge already, then you will simply need to sign up for the exam.

The most popular options are ASQ, IASSC (PeopleCert) and CSSC (coupon code “provider04853” to receive 20% off with CSSC). ASQ offers the exam every 2 months (Feb, Apr, Jun, Aug, Oct, Dec). The other certifying bodies offer it continually.

We’re happy to discuss other training options to meet your needs. You can start by filling out this training request form, which will ask you some questions to help you clarify what you want. You can also book time on my calendar to discuss ideas, estimated costs and options.

No, the first few sessions will explain the concepts and what types of projects are ideal for a certification project. Here is a comprehensive list of project ideas you can think about now, to give you some ideas on the type of projects that might be applicable for your industry.

Yes, you can go through the training first, then decide to add the project certification review at a later date.

We do recommend that you decide within 6 months of completing the training, so you don’t forget what you learned.

After you get started with the training, you will be assigned a Master Black Belt coach to work with. As soon as you can, you will want to decide on an improvement project. Your coach can help you figure out what project to work on. As you complete different tools and methods from the training in your project, they will review and provide feedback on them. You can send them along just-in-time (single piece flow) or in a batch (as you near the end of the project). Your coach will be checking off what you complete once you’ve met their expectation (can require a few emails or calls back and forth at times). Once the project is complete (showing a successful improvement to a metric) and you have shown proficiency in using the required and necessary tools for the project (depends on the project difficulty), the coach will certify your project and issue your certification.

We recommend you watch this video about the process of working with a Master Black Belt on your certification project.

For a Six Sigma Green or Black Belt project, you will need to have the following (items in bold are required for any project):

• Project Charter
• Process Map
• Baseline Data Analysis
• Data Collection Plan
• Pareto chart or prioritization
• Gemba Walk results
• SPC control charts (if continuous data)
• Capability Analysis (if continuous data with specification limits)
• Gage R&R study or similar evaluation
• FMEA
• Root Cause Analysis (5 Whys or Fishbone Diagram or Statistical Analysis like ANOVA, Regression, DOE)
• Improvement plan
• Hypothesis Test results (not required for Lean)
• Control plan
• Business or organizational financial, employee and/or customer impact

Black Belt projects will need to perform some statistical analysis like ANOVA, Regression or DOE as part of the Analyze phase.

No, we will not ask you to present your project to anyone except your Master Black Belt coach, and it does not need to be a formal presentation. With each coaching call and communication, you are explaining and validating your project with the coach. Once you have completed the minimum project requirements, the MBB coach will ask for validation of your project from the project sponsor or champion. Upon approval from your management, the project will be complete.

However, your company may want you to present your project internally (which we highly recommend), but that is not a requirement that we impose on you in order to complete the certification.

Yes it is possible to submit a prior project, but the requirements are still the same. You will need to have access to the data, slides and/or content from that project and provide it to us. If you don’t have that information anymore (left at the previous company), it will not be accepted.

You will also need to show that you met the minimum requirements for the project. If you cannot meet the minimum or cannot access the information from the project, the Master Black Belt coach will not be able to adequately review and approve your project.

In most cases, you will need to start a new project. Most of the past projects we approve had followed the Lean Six Sigma project structure and was reviewed previously by a Master Black Belt (or equivalent) at their previous company.

If you have a previous project you’d like us to review and potentially sign off on to help you finish your certification, check out our project review for certification option.

No problem, we can work around this restriction. We will need to be able to properly assess your project, but we don’t have to look at the exact data points. We can have you hide the specific data values, hide the axis or recode the original data, as we just need to study the pattern of the data. You can also have us sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) or other documentation to allow us to see the data. Contact us in advance if you think you have a unique situation you’d like to discuss with us.

I compiled a list of considerations before selecting an improvement project. Try and address as many of these as possible. After reading through this list, review this comprehensive list of project ideas to help you brainstorm ideas.

• Opportunity to save money or avoid costs (potential cost savings)
• Positive impact to external customers or employees (not just saving money)
• Alignment to company strategy and goals (to ensure management support)
• Availability of existing data about the problem or potential to gather new data quickly and easily
• Frequency to gather data and make observations (data collected on every transaction, hourly, daily or weekly). Monthly is too infrequent to be able to analyze data and see results for a certification project.
• Support from direct manager and upper management (so they don’t assign too many other tasks to you and give you time to work on the project)
• Ability to influence or change the process (avoid or be cautious about projects that require external companies like suppliers and vendors to change what they do or where management support is missing or lacking)
• Do NOT have a solution in mind, or are willing to change based on what you learn going through the project. You can have ideas of what the solution might be, but you have to let the data guide you to the correct improvement.
• The project is aligned with your current roles and duties (so that it does not get added to your workload as something new that you might not have time to work on)
• A problem that is meaningful or important to you (to keep you motivated to find time to work on it, otherwise it will be easy to make excuses that you don’t have enough time to work on it)

There are two options for selecting projects outside of work.

1. Work with a local club or nonprofit or not-for-profit organization with one of their processes to help them better achieve their mission. Check out LeanSixSigmaforGood.com for case studies and examples.
2. Work on a project in your personal life such as improved sleep, reduced electricity bill, reduced time to complete chores or improve your health. Find something you can get data on every day to allow you to analyze data. Check out LeanSixSigmaHomes.com for case studies and examples.