At the recent iSixSigma Live! Summit & Awards in Miami, attendees got something to sing along to. J.D. Sicilia shared a song, called “Lean, Lean, Lean” before his presentation on “Performance Management in the Worldâ??s Largest Organization.” Sicilia is the director of the Lean Six Sigma Program Office at the U.S. Department of Defense. Not only did process improvement activities inspire the song, but they helped create it, too.

In the fall of 2009, Matt Ludwikowski, a young music producer was a student in a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt course. He was convinced by Sicilia that Lean Six Sigma could be applied to any process, including music production. Although Ludwikowski was skeptical, he accepted the challenge and his first project was to pilot the improved process for producing music. Sicilia followed the process and served as the talent and Matt produced the hit single for him. They collaborated according to the process standard operating procedure with Sicilia handling the lyrics and Ludwikowski putting it to music. The results speak for themselves.