You know the old saying: If you don’t use it, you lose it. Well, imagine applying that concept to Six Sigma Training. You could spend endless hours and countless dollars in a training seminar or online training course and be lucky to remember anything you were told or read within a matter of a week. Vocational schools have always had a special success rate because of their hands on nature, and it seems that this is what is needed for Six Sigma Training, as well. Without actual experience, many people never even completely understand what they learn in their training, let alone know how to use it.

Taking the time to give people a Six Sigma Training course that involves a little learning and a lot of hands-on practical application can make that many more people successful in Six Sigma Projects. When you hear something or read something, it is a simple process that your brain easily forgets. However, when you actually get in there and interact with a team to practice a skill or learn about something in a hands-on fashion, the steps are complex and the brain tends to remember the process better because it had to go through the motions instead of just taking in the information.

Six Sigma Training is necessary for anyone who is going to work with the process. However, that training is often best combined with hands-on experience and actual problem solving situations so that people can understand the process and how it works firsthand, rather than trying to interpret and remember the steps that they took notes on in a classroom. There is no real way to learn the elements of Six Sigma without getting your hands into the mess. Using the tools of Six Sigma Training and actually going through a problem solving analysis will have a much bigger impact on your success with training than anything else.

This is why it is often better to outsource for team leaders or Black Belts and then add members of the organization to the actual Six Sigma team so that they can get a feel for what it’s like to be involved in the process, rather than just trying to understand something that they have never seen in action. Watching and participating are two of your best learning skills as a human being. Listening and reading are not as proven or long-lasting as actually getting involved, which is why Six Sigma Training should also include some hands-on experience.