Use Lean Six Sigma to Improve Agile Project Management

The purpose of this post is to demonstrate how lean, scrum, and agile project management practices can be used together.

In this post, I’ve included a sample of lean and agile used in practice in a project charter document. In this charter document, we have incorporated a backlog to describe some aspects of scrum backlog, sprint retrospective, and sprint planning. All of these are included in requirements management for scrum practices.

Ways this document demonstrates lean agile project management:

1. Uses sprints with progressively elaborated details of the backlog and performance
2. Shows that progress tracking is iterative and includes a section highlighting that a tracking “dashboard” tool will be used in a software program
3. Demonstrates the members of a lean team of scrum masters, developers, and product owners
4. Highlights a business case where the initiative is statement (does not include traditional project management cases for return on investment, net present value, benefit-cost ratio, or internal rate of investment calculations)
5. Highlights a measurement of success which includes reduced variation and a reduced churn rate: a major aspect of six sigma projects
6. Highlights measurement of success which includes increased growth rate and customer feedback, a major aspect of agile project management
7. Includes scrum in agile release planning in the form of sprint planning, stand-up, sprint retrospective, and  scrum sprints stories in a defect tracker

Incorporating agile in lean six sigma project management fits well in organizations where requirements for projects are prohibitively difficult to define or close to impossible to define. This model of agile in lean six sigma works well with highly skilled six sigma yellow or black belt practitioners with highly skilled scrum masters and developers with project management training.

Please feel free to comment with thoughts or questions.

Created and curated by Emi Akiode, PMP

Emi Akiode is available for consulting and private projects through her LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/emiakiode or through her instagram profiles @project_insider or @projectmanagerpro.