You may have heard the terms "Lean Manufacturing" or "Six Sigma", and most likely they were used in the context of improving quality or reducing the cost of operations. While in fact these terms do have their roots in the manufacturing industry, the truth is that both can also be effectively applied to information age companies. Lean's major objective is to speed up processes, while Six Sigma's is to improve quality as defined by the customer. Applied together, you can achieve faster processes with a higher level of quality. The average information age worker spends 40% of the day processing information, not actually working on the underlying content. Applying Lean principles to your processes can reduce processing time, thereby improving your performance.