Key Points

• Lean Six Sigma is a great fit for any startup.
• While resources might be scarce, LSS can help you make the most of them.
• You’ll need to put in the proper legwork to make the most of your Lean Six Sigma efforts.

Is Lean Six Sigma for startups a viable strategy? Often, when we think of startups, it comes down to a lack of resources, a desire for funding, and ultimately, navigating the hurdles of the early days of a business. However, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. Startups benefit from a wealth of options today when it comes to how they approach the way they conduct business.

With that in mind, we are going to take a closer look at how Lean Six Sigma for startups works. While this is a methodology often associated with eliminating waste, increasing profitability, and ultimately fine tuning your processes, it is certainly applicable to the volatile and uncertain world of startups. So let’s dive in and get to grips.

What Is Lean Six Sigma?

In a nutshell, Lean Six Sigma is a hybridization of Lean concepts alongside the Six Sigma methodology. Lean seeks to reduce non-value added activities, to grossly oversimplify the concept. Six Sigma is all about efficiency, refining processes, and delivering quality to your customer base. Both of these methodologies have their start in manufacturing, with Lean being pioneered by automobile superstar Toyota and Six Sigma being championed by telecom giant Motorola.

However, in the modern era, this hybrid approach takes the best of both worlds to deliver a better organization on the whole. When you adhere to the principles of Lean Six Sigma, you’re gearing your business to better its chances regardless of the competition.

Lean Six Sigma for Startups: Strategies for Fledgling Businesses

Lean Six Sigma for startups isn’t too dissimilar to the deployments seen in medium-scale businesses. Sure, you’re running against constraints in both funding and resources, but that doesn’t mean you have to skip out on some of the benefits of the methodology as a whole. When it comes to Lean Six Sigma for startups, it is all a matter of scale. As we’ve discussed in the past when considering Six Sigma for small businesses, this isn’t about grabbing all the components of the methodology and applying them right away.

Instead, where Lean Six Sigma for startups takes root is by laying a foundation that you can build upon. As with any methodology, if you’re not living and breathing the principles, it makes it that much harder to enact these sorts of changes later on when your company is growing and succeeding. As such, you’ll want to consider this handful of strategies when navigating your startup’s early victories.

Learning the Tools

There is no shortage of tools to learn when it comes to Lean Six Sigma for startups. However, rather than take on these tools on a case-by-case basis, it is a far better practice on the whole to take a closer look at where these apply to your current processes. More often than not, you’ll find applicable tools regardless of the size of your organization.

Root-cause analysis tools like the Ishikawa Diagram, Pareto charts, and other common QC tools are a great way of getting to grips with what is going wrong with processes. As such, there isn’t a wrong time to start learning the tools behind Lean Six Sigma. Further, this is a perfect time to acquaint yourself with approaches like DMADV, DFSS, and DMAIC when it comes to designing and improving new products and processes on the whole.

One of the best ways to make Lean Six Sigma part of the culture of your startup is to just start acquainting yourself with the nuts and bolts behind the methodology. It doesn’t have to be a complete transformation, but getting someone certified who can guide your teams’ efforts is a great way to get started.

Mapping Processes

Process mapping is a vital component of Lean Six Sigma and something you don’t want to neglect when it comes to your startup. There is no better time to get started with process mapping than yesterday, but getting started as soon as you can will certainly suffice. Process mapping serves a few net benefits when it comes to how you’re conducting your startup.

For starters, you’re looking at areas where non-value-added activities might be present. Additionally, you’re also pinpointing potential bottlenecks in your production, or you’ve begun to identify areas of waste that you can refine further.

Process mapping is going to be a regular part of the production cycle as you begin looking to improve them. Getting started now is going to make it second nature for the more seasoned members of your team as you begin your Lean Six Sigma journey.

A Culture of Improvement

Lean Six Sigma for startups isn’t just about embodying a few principles or utilizing a few components. Instead, it is a complete transformation for your organization in all facets. If you aren’t embodying the mindset, then your efforts are likely to falter.

As such, this is the time when you need to start building the mindset behind constant and continuous improvement. All too often with startups, there is a heavy focus on just getting a minimum viable product out the door. That’s fine and dandy, I’ve been with startups where this was the sole goal while seeking out future venture capital investments.

However, as you’ll find with Lean Six Sigma, there is always room for improvement. Getting started now is going to make transitioning to the DMAIC cycle regularly a painless process. The corporate culture needs to be built around the notion of continuous improvement, not just for the sake of the organization but also for the sake of your customers.

Using Data to Drive Decisions

Data is a huge part of the Lean Six Sigma experience. You’ll be paying attention to data constantly, and for good reason. Data is what will be driving your decisions, dictating the course of your organization for years to come.

When it comes to Lean Six Sigma for startups, you’ll want to start collating data, developing metrics, and ultimately looking into what works best for your organization. Developing good metrics takes time and effort, but having those data points on hand is going to serve your organization well in the future.

Further, this is where you can start to organize those data points for the sake of documenting your efforts. Documentation is something I’ll always champion and something that will serve as a roadmap for what has been done and where you can go next.

Centering Your Approach Around the Customer

Customers are always going to be the core part of your business. After all, you’re designing products, services, and so forth based on the needs and expectations of your customers. When approaching Lean Six Sigma for startups, the same holds true. Now, most companies are going to focus on their customers, that’s just natural.

However, centering all of your efforts around customer expectations isn’t unheard of when it comes to Lean Six Sigma. This is where you can start conducting customer surveys, gathering feedback, and doing vital market research to get a grasp on what your customers are after.

Ideally, your efforts should align with the expectations placed by your customers. Further, you’ve got plenty of avenues for gathering data on what the market is after in terms of your product or services. Social media is an invaluable resource alongside more focused efforts like the aforementioned surveys.

Making the Most of Your Resources

Being keenly aware of your constraints is part of the startup process. I’ve been in good and bad startups, and the key difference between the two is the awareness in recognizing these constraints. Thankfully, Lean Six Sigma for startups is built for this kind of thing. If you’ve been on the hunt for a methodology that makes the most of these resource constraints, this is a perfect opportunity.

Lean Six Sigma is about making the most of what you have on hand. Sure, you might not have the coffers and suppliers of a company like Toyota or Motorola, but you’ve got something. That puts you in a position to maximize your opportunities while increasing the overall efficiency of your current processes.

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

Ready to learn a little bit more? Well, you’re in the right place when it comes to solid learning material. You might want to take a closer look at how TQM operates in the digital age. TQM is a great means of targeting quality within any organization, and the advent of the digital age is making it easier to hit the mark.

Additionally, you might be interested in the common pitfalls surrounding the adoption of Scrum. Scrum is a popular approach for projects using the Agile methodology, but some organizations don’t stick the landing. Thankfully, you can avoid the fuss with our handy guide covering the subject.

Conclusion

Lean Six Sigma for startups might seem like an odd fit at first glance, but you’ve got the foundation for greatness once you’ve made the right steps. However, it is up to you and your team to embody and ultimately uphold the mindset that makes Lean Six Sigma a rousing success for businesses the world over.

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