Does a Bigger Lean Six Sigma Course Really Give You a Better Chance of Passing?
If you’re studying for your Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification, you’ve probably noticed that training providers seem to be competing to produce the biggest course.
One advertises more hours of video, another promises additional modules and another proudly claims to cover subjects that weren’t included a few years ago.
It’s enough to make any self-study student wonder whether they’re being left behind before they’ve even opened the first lesson.
I’ll admit that I recently found myself asking exactly the same question.
Earlier this year my smart webmaster and nephew, Nick Litten, made an observation about my own Lean Six Sigma Masterclass.
He’d noticed that some competitors appeared to have expanded their courses and naturally wondered whether the official Green Belt syllabus had also grown. Since my course was first published in 2022, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable question to ask.
Rather than speculate, I decided to do exactly what Lean Six Sigma encourages us to do every day in the workplace.
Sometimes It’s Worth Going Back to the evidence
One of the first things I rediscovered was that Lean Six Sigma isn’t owned by a single organisation.
Several highly respected certification bodies publish their own Bodies of Knowledge and certification standards.
Among the best known are the International Association for Six Sigma Certification (IASSC), the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and the Council for Six Sigma Certification (CSSC).
Although there are differences in emphasis between them, I couldn’t find any evidence that the recognised Green Belt Body of Knowledge had suddenly expanded to include an entirely new collection of examinable topics.
What I discovered was quite reassuring.
What I did discover was something rather different.
Many commercial training providers have chosen to broaden their own courses by introducing additional subjects.
Depending on the provider, you may now find modules covering Digital Transformation, Industry 4.0, wider business improvement techniques or more advanced statistical methods.
Those are all worthwhile subjects, and I’m certainly not suggesting they shouldn’t be taught. They can help you become a more capable business improvement professional as your career develops.
The important question, however, is whether those additional topics are essential if your immediate goal is passing the Green Belt certification exam.
In my opinion, that’s where many students unintentionally make life harder for themselves.
Over the years I’ve seen exactly the same pattern with project management qualifications.
Students often believe that the largest course must automatically give them the best chance of success. After all, if one provider offers twice as many videos and twice as many downloadable resources as another, it’s easy to assume that you’re receiving twice as much value.
The reality isn’t always that straightforward.
Don’t Confuse Professional Development with Exam Preparation
Professional development and exam preparation are two completely different objectives.
Throughout your career you’ll continue learning new techniques, new technologies and better ways of solving business problems. That’s part of becoming an experienced practitioner, and I hope none of us ever stop learning.
Preparing for a professional certification exam is rather different.
Your objective isn’t to know everything that could possibly be useful during the next twenty years of your career. Your objective is to understand the recognised Body of Knowledge thoroughly enough to apply it confidently under exam conditions.
Bigger Isn’t Always Better
I sometimes compare it with learning to drive. Before taking your driving test you could spend weeks studying advanced rally driving, Formula One racing techniques and high-speed pursuit driving.
There’s nothing wrong with any of those subjects, but they aren’t what the driving examiner is about to assess. If your goal is passing next Tuesday’s driving test, your preparation needs to match the test you’re actually taking.
Lean Six Sigma certification is no different.
The examiner isn’t trying to discover how many management books you’ve read or whether you’ve explored every possible improvement methodology. They’re assessing whether you understand the recognised Green Belt Body of Knowledge and whether you can apply that knowledge to realistic business situations.
What Changed My Own Thinking
When Nick first raised the question, my immediate reaction was exactly the same as many students. I wondered whether my own Masterclass had fallen behind. It seemed entirely possible, and if that had been the case I would already have been planning an update.
Instead, the evidence pointed me towards a different conclusion.
My course was still aligned with the recognised certification Body of Knowledge.
Will I continue improving it?
Absolutely.
Focus On What Really Matters
Business improvement never stands still, and neither should training. If I discover new ways of explaining a concept more clearly, improving a diagram or helping students understand a difficult topic more easily, I’ll make those improvements. That’s simply good teaching.
What I won’t do is add extra material simply to make the course appear bigger than it was before.
I’ve spent more than thirty years helping professionals achieve certification, and one lesson keeps repeating itself. Successful students rarely try to learn everything. Instead, they become exceptionally good at learning the right things thoroughly. They understand what the examiner expects, they practise applying that knowledge and they arrive at the exam with confidence because they’ve prepared with a clear purpose.
If you’re currently choosing a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt course, I’d encourage you to look beyond the number of hours or the number of videos. Those figures don’t tell you how effectively the course prepares you for the certification you’re about to sit.
Instead, ask a much simpler question.
“Does this course help me understand the recognised Body of Knowledge and apply it successfully during the exam?”
In my experience, that’s a far better measure of quality than the size of the course itself.
Focus On What Really Matters
And perhaps there’s a broader lesson here as well. Lean Six Sigma teaches us to base decisions on evidence rather than assumptions. Rather appropriately, that’s exactly how I ended up answering my own question about whether my Masterclass needed updating.
Sometimes the best improvement you can make isn’t adding more.
It’s understanding what really matters.
