This certification is the highest one can earn, and very few make it to this level. Master black belts are the Eagle Scouts of Six Sigma. Black belts should take an active mentoring role with individuals at lower levels in the Six Sigma certification process, and black belts should actively seek out mentorship from master black belt. This signifies that the individual has enough experience to be a Six Sigma leader, including large-scale projects like implementation and directing Six Sigma programs. Like in karate, earning a black belt in Six Sigma is a major milestone. When individuals first earn their green belts, it’s good practice to have a black belt holder as a mentor, particularly when these green belts have little experience with managing teams/running projects. Their roles as team members often focuses on instructing other members, but also includes data collection and analysis as well. Green belts have enough Six Sigma knowledge and experience to have a supervisorial their own projects. Individuals seeking green belts are usually project managers, or people hoping to follow the project management career path. This supervisor should be either a green belt or a black belt, depending on the scope, size, and magnitude of the project in question.

Yellow belts should be overseen by someone with more knowledge and experience. They are the worker bees of Six Sigma they are directly responsible for using Six Sigma methods to get tasks accomplished. Six Sigma Yellow BeltĪ person with a yellow belt will have enough knowledge to be a team member for Six Sigma projects. People with white belts are working on mastering the basic, foundational concepts of Six Sigma and should have enough information to contribute to small projects and provide information and guidance when needed. This belt is for anyone interested in completing Six Sigma certification-it’s a starting point. The white belt is a more informal designation than the other belts, since it doesn’t actually count toward actual certification.

Note: this belt isn’t actually a certification Six Sigma certifications are measured using the martial-arts inspired belt system: white, yellow, green, black, and master black.

Level of six sigma belts