Course:
Black belt
Drive Strategy and Transform
Leading the deployment of improvement strategies
Built on the British Standard:
Technician Improvement / Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education
Qualification:
Lean & Six Sigma Black Belt ISO 18404:2015 Certificate
Why?:
To understand the fundamentals and mindset needed to solve the business problems you face every day
Duration:
8 days
Where?:
Head office or on-site
Group size:
Minimum group size is 1
Program intended for:
- Managers /Senior Managers / Department Heads
- Continuous Improvement roles / CI Managers
- Operational Excellence roles
- Quality / Process Improvement Managers / Directors
- Business Transformation Consultants
- Lean Six Sigma Coaches / Trainers
- Experienced Green Belts ready to lead at the next level
- Professionals responsible for organisation-wide change
For whom?
Occupation profile:
Improvement Specialists are responsible for leading the deployment of improvement strategy, for training others and for providing broad and deep technical expertise in advanced and complex Lean and Six Sigma, Project and Change Management principles and tools to enable identification and delivery of improvement opportunities aligned to key business goals.
Improvement Specialists typically report to Improvement Leaders who develop the improvement strategy and governance processes, and who provide technical guidance on advanced analysis. Improvement Specialists manage (directly and/or matrix) Improvement Practitioners who lead smaller improvement projects aligned to the improvement strategy. A typical ratio of Improvement Specialists to Improvement Practitioners in an organisation could be 1:10. In comparison with the work of an Improvement Practitioner, Improvement Specialists draw on their advanced knowledge and skills in applying Improvement principles and tools across a range of programmes/ projects/areas to build the capability of others. They also swiftly visualise processes, problems and opportunities and use both graphical and statistical analysis to deliver improvements.
What will you gain?
- Leading improvement teams: Personality types, team development stages, motivational techniques, situational leadership, learning styles, mentoring models
- Project planning: Multi-element business case, financial plan, benefits realisation plan, risk management plan, project plan
- Project reviews & coaching: Coaching models, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
- Change planning: Change management methods, impact/readiness, influencing strategies
- Commercial environment: Business and economic risks including changes in legislation, government regulation or trading condidtions that can impact all aspects of improvement from Project Selection through to selection/implementation of improvements
- Principles & methods for Improvement: How to apply Improvement Methods (eg. Practical Problem Solving, Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control, 8-Disciplines, Identify-Define-Optimise-Verify) across all functions, policy deployment principles, Lean culture
- Voice of the customer: Interviewing and focus groups, Quality Function Deployment principles and how to build a House of Quality
- Process mapping & analysis: Activity network diagrams, design structure matrix, process modelling, key function diagrams and analysis
- Data acquisition planning: Stratification, rational sub-groups, power and sample size
- Statistics & measures: Probability distributions and how to test for fit of probability distributions to data. Confidence intervals, central limit theorem. How to test data for stability and normaility and strategies for dealing with non-stable or non-normal data
- Lean concepts and tools: Principles of Lean Thinking and Lean tools including origins and cultural aspects critical to successful application within an organisation
- Measurement system analysis: Repeatability & Reproducibility analysis. Long term measurement error
- Process capability: Data transformation, life data analysis and prediction
- Root cause analysis: Matrix plots, multi-vari charts, hypothesis testing principles and methods, correlation and regression principles and methods
- Experimentation: Principles of full and fractitional designed experiments including replicates, repeats, randomisation, blocking and centre points, resolution and confounding. Planning and analysis using residuals, main effects & interaction plots, hierarchy of terms, Response Surface Method, Split plots, Analysis of variance (ANOVA). Approaches for model optimisation
- Identification & prioritisation: Creativity tools e.g. theory of inventive problem solving
- Failure mode avoidance: System state flow, boundary diagram, interface analysis tables, fault tree analysis, robustness checklist, tolerance design and analysis. Principles and links between Failure Modes and Effects analysis for concepts, designs, processes
- Sustainability & control: Control and reaction plans. Prevention controls
Improvement Technicians have the Knowledge of:
- Leading improvement teams: Holding team members/stakeholders to account for delivering agreed actions within an improvement project and building/maintaining appropriate stakeholder relationships inside and outside the organisation to deliver improvement project objectives
- Strategic Deployment of Continuous Improvement: Contribute to deployment of improvement strategy, participating as an active member of the improvement community
- Communication: Prepare and present concise proposals and plans. Capture and share progress through effective formats and channels. Use and handle questions effectively. Build rapport with others
- Capability Development: Train, facilitate and critique the application of tools used by improvement practitioners including tool-selection, links between tools, how they are used within a structured method, analsysis of results and presentation of recommendations
- Project planning: Plan and manage finances, multi-stakeholder delivery and benefits realisation
- Measurement: Guide others on the planning, analysis and interpretation of data collection & measurement studies including the design of tests to recreate failures & steps to diagnose/reduce short & long-term measurement variation
- Data analysis-statistical methods: Model random behaviour and make inferences with levels of confidence. Calculate/recommend sample size. Test hypotheses for all data types. Assess input/output correlation. Generate, analyse and interpret simple and multiple predictive relationship models
- Change planning: Design reinforcement, engagement and communication strategies
- Principles and Methods for Improvement: Guide others on the selection of appropriate methods (eg. Practical Problem Solving, Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control, 8-Disciplines, Identify-Define-Optimise-Verify) to deliver improvements. Conduct gateway assessments to ensure suitability of projects to progress
- Project selection & scope: Guides others on the selection and scoping of improvement projects and the intial response to product/process performance issues. Identify, scope and prioritise improvement opportunities that map to high-level organisation objectives and key value-streams
- Process mapping & analysis: Guide others on the selection of appropriate process mapping and analysis tools. Critique improved state
- Lean tools: Identify and analyse value-streams using appropriate methods and tools to optimise flow to customer. Develop a plan for Lean deployment within the organisation including effective and relevant performance metrics
- Measurement: Guide others on the planning, analysis and interpretation of data collection & measurement studies including the design of tests to recreate failures & steps to diagnose/reduce short & long-term measurement variation
- Process capability & performance: Identify data stability/distribution issues and apply appropriate strategies to enable robust Capability Analysis. Analyse life data to establish rates and patterns
- Root cause analysis: Make appropriate use of data to assess contribution of critical inputs/root cause(s) to product/process performance using appropriate graphical and statistical tools to draw and coomunicate conclusions
- Experimentation & optimisation: Guide others on the planning, analysis and interpretation of experiments. Plan,conduct, analyse and optimise both full & fractional experiments
- Data analysis – Statistical Process Control: Monitor and asses ongoing process variation and changes through chart-selection, control-limit setting, sample sizing/frequency and control-rules
- Benchmarking: Guide others on benchmarking to support all stages of improvement projects including future-state design
- Failure mode avoidance: Decompose complex systems in order to define main functions. Anaylse system interactions. Cascade knowledge through fault tree analysis. Create and assess design rules, standards & verification methods. Complete robustness studies to select appropriate control strategies and detection methods
- Sustainability & control: Guide others on control and sustainability planning including methods and tools to maintain benefits, extraction of learning, replication, sharing and consolidation of new knowledge into organisational learning
Improvement Technicians demonstrate the following Behaviours
- Drive for results: Co-ordinates and delivers sustained improvement across the business by engaging with, and inspiring stakeholders; adopting a can-do attitude
- Team-working: Leads cross functional project teams proactively, regularly supports others and replicates learning
- Professionalism: Exemplifies high standard of professional integrity, ethics and trust within the organisation, whilst maintaining flexibility to the needs of the business
- Process Thinking: Drives process-thinking and customer-focused, data-driven decision making
- Continuous development: Identifies & models opportunities for development of self & others
- Safe working: Adopts a proactive approach to safety, encouraging others and suggesting compliance improvements
Your Trainer
Grzegorz Grabski
A highly experienced Leader and Continuous Improvement Coach with over 15 years of expertise in leadership, operational excellence, and Lean Six Sigma.
I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the world’s most respected automotive brands — including Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, BMW, Toyota, and Alfa Romeo.
My career has been built on a foundation of globally recognised certifications and real-world results. I bring a practical, people-focused approach to every engagement, helping individuals and organisations unlock their full potential.
I am fluent in English and Polish, and have extensive experience delivering Lean and Six Sigma training across the UK, supporting professionals at all levels in their improvement journeys.
- Lean Six Sigma Black Belt – British Quality Foundation (BQF)
- Strategic Leadership & Management (Level 7) – Chartered Management Institute (CMI), Salford University UK
- QMS ISO 9001:2015 Lead Auditor – Chartered Quality Institute (CQI), IRCA
- IATF 16949 Lead Auditor – International Automotive Task Force
- Managing Safely – Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH)
How do I sign up for a course?
Individual or company-tailored course
If you are an individual client or a company looking for a dedicated training session tailored to your needs – you can contact us directly.
We offer flexible scheduling and the ability to adapt the content to your team or personal learning goals.
.Reach out to us via email or contact form to arrange a private session.
Join a scheduled course
If you prefer to participate in a group session with a fixed start date – you can sign up for one of our planned courses.
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