Lean IT Essentials Course & Examination

Lean IT provides practical guidance that focuses on the improvement of whatever processes already exist within the organisation. Regardless of the framework or standard your IT organisation has chosen, the central focus of Lean IT is learning how to assess any business process to eliminate waste, where waste is defined as something that adds no value to a product, service, or output.

The Lean IT Essentials entry-level course is the first in the Lean IT certification scheme, and it is a mandatory requirement for taking the other two advanced courses: Lean IT Kaizen and Lean IT Leadership.

This 2-day course is held in our virtual classroom with our expert instructor, meaning you can join the class and network with your peers from anywhere with an internet connection. 

Course Overview

We strongly believe that “Lean thinking” needs to be a part of EVERY IT professional's toolkit. Already, many roles from service desk analysts through to process owners, team leads and supervisors, and department managers, as well as CIOs, have taken this course and benefited greatly from a deeper understanding of how to assess business processes to identify and eliminate waste. It is also a crucial and basic approach that can help an organisation better position itself to begin its digital transformation journey. 

Learn to create more value in your organisation by adopting the Lean IT concepts and principles you’ll acquire through your Lean IT Essentials certification. Based on the Toyota Production System that focuses on doing everything to improve value for the customer, you’ll learn how to reduce waste, apply continual improvement, and use fewer resources. Lean thinking can be successfully applied to any methodology because it evaluates existing processes. Your Lean IT Essentials certification will enable you to help your organisation to improve, overall, and to better position itself to begin a digital transformation journey. 

This course prepares you for the exam leading to the Lean IT Essentials certificate. Based on the core principles of Lean, the two-day Essentials course will help IT departments become more business-value oriented, which will result in removing waste, inflexibility, and variability. 

Learning Outcomes

Lean IT Essentials focuses on providing actionable improvements to six major components: the customer, processes, performance, the Lean organisation, behaviour and attitude, and problem-solving/kaizen. 

Upon completion, participants of this course will be able to: 

•  Describe the origin, development, and purpose of the Lean and Six Sigma philosophies – which includes their key elements and the five Lean principles 
• Understand the concept of the voice of the customer and the factors that influence customer value, etc. 
• Recognise the concept of waste – and how to reduce and/or eliminate it 
• Understand how to define, initiate, document, and implement process improvements and how they relate to value improvement, etc. 
• Understand the definition of performance measurement and how it relates to value stream maps and process cycle efficiency, as well as the requirements for key performance indicators (KPIs), etc.
• Understand the organisational requirements for a Lean IT organisation that includes the importance of customer orientation, empowering employees, implementing visual management, etc. 
• Identify the characteristics of Lean thinking, the differences between traditional management and Lean leadership, and the behaviour and attitudes required to successfully implement Lean, etc. 
• Identify and implement the key aspects of problem-solving and kaizen as forms of continuous improvement, which include being able to apply various Lean analytical tools: 
• A3 thinking – This is a visual method for structured problem-solving. 
• Deming (or Shewhart) cycle – This explains how to apply the cycle of continuous improvement: plan-do-check-act. 
• The Toyota production system – One of its basic concepts is: Go, look, and see (fact not emotion). 
• Value stream mapping – This shows how to apply Lean IT principles to a value stream. 
• The concept of kaizen, also known as continual improvement, is applied across the organisation to systems, processes, and activities. 

Who should attend

This course is designed for everyone. Lean IT Essentials is for anyone who needs to understand how to assess their current business processes to identify and eliminate waste, which results in a faster and higher-quality delivery of business value. 

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course.

Exam & Certification

The Lean IT Essentials exam is completed through Professional Designations Corp.

This is a 1 hour, closed book exam which consists of 40 multiple- choice questions - a passing score of 65% is required. The exam is completed online using a webcam and internet connection. 

Course Material & Inclusions

Material for this course will only be provided as downloadable soft copy files that can be viewed on a variety of devices. Attendees may print a hard copy of the files in whatever format best meets their needs.

Our virtual instructor-led classes include a $25 lunch voucher for each day (valued at $50), this means you can get your lunch organised whether you do it from home or the office. The voucher is provided via email on the first morning of the course. 

Lean IT Foundation online exam voucher plus a complimentary Lean IT Foundation exam re-sit if you miss out on passing your certification the first time.

A digital badge you can share with your network of your course achievement will be provided via email upon passing your certification exam. 

SFIA Skills & Industry Accreditation

After completion of this course, you may apply for self-directed learning PDU's through PMI. A certificate of attendance is available upon request. 

This course enables participants to develop their knowledge and proficiency in the following Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA®) professional skills:

• METL: Methods and Tools
• QUAS: Quality Assurance
• MEAS: Measurement
• PBMG: Problem Management

This list gives the core SFIA skills covered by the course. Elements relevant to other SFIA skills may also be included to a lesser depth. Proficiency in a SFIA skill is measured by performance assessment and is achieved through actual substantial use of that skill in a real-world situation over some time. In course assignments and exercises undertaken through a course can demonstrate elements of the relevant skills which can then be further developed back in the workplace.  Acquiring new skills and building on existing skills, ideally occurs within the context of an agreed development plan for each person that ensures that their personal circumstances, strengths and development needs are met.