IASSC Certified Lean Expert™ — Lesson 3: Lean Expert Problem Solving, Experiments, Team Engagement, and Leadership

Learning Objectives

• Explain the roles, information, criteria, dependencies, and decision points governing sustained excellence and problem solving.
• Implement or assess improvement experiments, team engagement, and leader behaviors using controlled evidence and acceptance criteria.
• Evaluate the condition where reviewers reach the wrong conclusion because leader behaviors evidence conflicts with problem solving context and the baseline was not preserved and select a proportionate corrective response.

Detailed Topics

• sustained excellence applied to the course scenario, expected behavior, stakeholders, controls, risks, and evidence.
• problem solving applied to the course scenario, expected behavior, stakeholders, controls, risks, and evidence.
• improvement experiments applied to the course scenario, expected behavior, stakeholders, controls, risks, and evidence.
• team engagement applied to the course scenario, expected behavior, stakeholders, controls, risks, and evidence.
• leader behaviors applied to the course scenario, expected behavior, stakeholders, controls, risks, and evidence.

Instructor Demonstration

The instructor traces a leadership team applying Lean Expert techniques to improve flow, reduce waste, engage people, and build a durable improvement culture. The walkthrough connects frameworks, processes, tools, decisions, and evidence captured in the Lean Expert value-stream map, waste register, improvement experiment, and sustainment plan. It also tests the exception where reviewers reach the wrong conclusion because leader behaviors evidence conflicts with problem solving context and the baseline was not preserved.

Hands-On Exercise

Complete a controlled PeopleCert-aligned exercise covering Lean Expert Problem Solving, Experiments, Team Engagement, and Leadership and preserve the verified result in the Lean Expert value-stream map, waste register, improvement experiment, and sustainment plan.

1. Confirm scope, roles, criteria, prerequisites, information sources, dependencies, and acceptance conditions.
2. Execute the service, project, portfolio, risk, Lean, or operational workflow while recording decisions and evidence.
3. Test normal behavior, one boundary condition, and the stated exception using a controlled scenario.
4. Document findings, corrections, ownership, retest criteria, communication, and operational handover.

Scenario Analysis

• Identify which role, process, objective, control, information source, or decision most strongly influences sustained excellence.
• Compare two defensible responses and explain service, project, quality, risk, operational, and business trade-offs.
• Determine how the Lean Expert value-stream map, waste register, improvement experiment, and sustainment plan should be approved, retained, reviewed, retested, and updated.

Troubleshooting Guidance

Start where expected behavior first differs from the observed result. Check scope, criteria, ownership, data quality, process sequence, policy alignment, version compatibility, dependencies, status, and evidence separately. Treat “reviewers reach the wrong conclusion because leader behaviors evidence conflicts with problem solving context and the baseline was not preserved” as a hypothesis until records, interviews, configurations, calculations, and retest outcomes confirm the cause.

Validation Checklist

• Required roles, processes, criteria, controls, information, approvals, and dependencies are present.
• The Lean Expert value-stream map, waste register, improvement experiment, and sustainment plan connects each conclusion to objective, reviewable evidence.
• Normal processing, a boundary condition, dependency behavior, and the stated exception were tested.
• Corrections, ownership, retest criteria, documentation, communication, and operational handover are complete.

Lesson Outcome

Learners can apply Lean Expert Problem Solving, Experiments, Team Engagement, and Leadership, explain the resulting service, project, quality, risk, or operational behavior, and defend the outcome through the Lean Expert value-stream map, waste register, improvement experiment, and sustainment plan.