Frequent Asked Questions

Denver Peak Academy is a process improvement team that trains and collaborates with government employees to improve the customer and employee experience. This is done through our Green Belt and Black Belt Trainings, and project facilitation. 

While we leverage many principles from these methodologies, Denver Peak Academy is not purely Lean or Six-Sigma. We utilize best practices of many different frameworks including process improvement, change management, behavioral insights, and examples from our own work to implement and track innovations. 

Fully staffed, Denver Peak Academy employs eight full-time staff. The cost of running the program is just under one million dollars, including staff salaries.

Agencies come to Denver Peak Academy and request our services. In most cases, the requestor is the agency’s executive director. Involvement with Denver Peak Academy is optional, but nearly every city agency has participated.

Check out what Peak trainees and project participants are up to on our LinkedIn page.

Visit our training page for details on how to register. 

Our trainings are open to City and County of Denver employees, government employees outside of CCD and employees of non-profit organizations.

Green Belt:

• CCD Employees: Training is free
• Non-CCD Employees: $250 per person

Black Belt:

• CCD Employees: Training is free
• Non-CCD Employees: $2,500 

Green Belt: Monthly

Green Belt for Leaders: Quarterly

Black Belt: Monthly (not offered in December). With some exceptions, it is held the first week of the month, and all courses include a Summit presentation roughly a month after training

To view the calendar of specific training dates, visit our training page. 

How do I complete my Green or Black Belt?

Anybody who attended training from an organization outside the City and County of Denver is considered certified upon completing the training. If you are a City and County of Denver employee, you are paired with a Peak Partner who coaches you through your innovation and you will need to complete the following to earn your certification:

1. Attend Green Belt/Black Belt Training
2. Implement your innovation and track using the Innovation Form (found in our Resources)
3. Submit the completed form to your Peak Partner, or to peakacademy@denvergov.org

No. While Green Belt is an excellent introduction to the process innovation tools we teach; it is not a requirement to complete Green Belt before taking Black Belt.

At Peak Academy, you are certified when you:

1. Attend and complete your training (Green Belt or Black Belt)
2. Submit one complete innovation form(DOCX, 133KB) (DOC) to your Peak Partner.
3. Once submitted you will receive your green or black lanyard, signifying that you’re certified.

People who earn their Black Belt Certification will also receive a certificate signed by the Mayor.

Once you are officially certified, you can put on your resume: “Denver Peak Academy Process Improvement Green Belt/Black Belt Certified. 

We do not currently offer a refresher course.

However, if you would like to go over any of the tools and techniques again feel free to contact your Peak Liaison or email peakacademy@denvergov.org . You can also access the workbook, PowerPoints, and tool resource guide online.

Yes, please reach out to peakacademy@denvergov.org with your specific request. 

If you are interested in having a member of the Peak Team attend a conference or facilitate training for your organization, please contact Peak Academy.

If you stay downtown, which we would recommend, you can take the RTD Light Rail train from the airport to downtown (Union Station) or you can Uber/Taxi from the airport to downtown. Once downtown, you shouldn’t need to rent a car. There is a free bus service that runs up and down 16th street downtown (known as the 16th street mall). This is also operated by RTD if you’re interested in looking up the details on their website, http://www.rtd-denver.com/.  

Please note: 

• Training will be 8am – 4:30pm (MST) Monday – Wednesday, and 8am to 12:30pm on Thursday. 
• Training takes place at the Webb Municipal Building, 201 W Colfax, Denver CO. The building is in downtown Denver, and there are numerous hotel options within walking distance.   

Some suggestions for nearby hotels include Comfort Inn Downtown, Springhill Suites Denver Downtown, The Curtis Denver, Crowne Plaza Denver, Hilton Garden Inn Denver Downtown, Hampton Inn & Suites Denver Downtown, and the Sheraton Downtown (across from the Webb Building).

A Gemba Walk is a method that promotes continuous improvement. Its value is in going to the place where the work happens. We incorporate Gemba Walks in our Black Belt training, and hosting a Gemba Walk is a great way to get additional insights on a process you’d like to improve. During a Gemba Walk, trainees will do a walkthrough of the workplace, observe your process in action, ask about tasks and metrics, then do a detailed process analysis. You can then use their insights as a jumping off point for generating solutions.

Want to host a Gemba Walk? Click Here

You can use this Excel template(XLSX, 28KB) (XLSX) that you can to track innovations, training participants, and savings. 

You need to submit one innovation for Peak certification. We recommend three submitted innovations for performance reviews. 

When somebody submits an innovation form, we enter the metrics into our database, Salesforce. We also use Microsoft PowerBI to visualize all of the data as a dashboard. The dashboard contains training and savings metrics. We track three types of savings:

• Hard Savings: Improvements that reduce budget expenses. Examples include: reducing paper usage, cutting down on water usage, or finding cheaper alternatives for materials or software.
• Soft Savings: Improvements that save people’s time (opportunity cost). Examples include: time saved reducing rework by simplifying a form or creating instructions to make processes easier and quicker to complete.
• Savings to the Customer: Soft, hard, and equitable (dollar) savings to the customer. Examples include: reducing time spent waiting in line or reducing the number of trips customers must take to a facility.

   

  
   

Peak Academy utilizes Microsoft Power BI to visualize metrics captured in our Salesforce database. These metrics include innovation savings, number of black belts and green belts trained, agencies involved, and personal training dashboards for members of the team.