Six Sigma Green/Black Belt Certification - Villanova University

What is your opinion of Six Sigma Green or Black Belt certification for the IT industry?

Villanova University offers an online program. Lean Six Sigma is also offered.

Six Sigma Online | Six Sigma Certification | Lean Six Sigma

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NinjaBoy

Brain_Power wrote: »

What is your opinion of Six Sigma Green or Black Belt certification for the IT industry?

Villanova University offers an online program. Lean Six Sigma is also offered.

Six Sigma Online | Six Sigma Certification | Lean Six Sigma

Personally, while Six Sigma can be altered to fit the IT industry I believe that other best practice/good practice methodologies out there are far better (eg ITIL, FITS, MOF, etc).

Added to that there is no standard certification body for Six Sigma. So not all Black, Green or Yellow (I've seen a couple of organisations offering Yellow as an intro to Six Sigma) are the same or have had the same training and requirements. Unlike the other standardised methodologies/processes certifications.

Turgon

Brain_Power wrote: »

What is your opinion of Six Sigma Green or Black Belt certification for the IT industry?

Villanova University offers an online program. Lean Six Sigma is also offered.

Six Sigma Online | Six Sigma Certification | Lean Six Sigma

A management fad. Read a book about it by all means to get some awareness of it so you can talk about it if you are trying out for organisations that are geared for Six Sigma but I wouldn't spend any money on it. Companies that dig this stuff will put you through it on their dime. Having these things wont really help you land jobs with companies that have no interest in it.

Everyone

I'm "LEAN" certified, which is a Six Sigma thing, similar to the "Green Belt". My previous employer forced me to sit through weeks of training for it. They invested heavily, put like 800 or so of the roughly 3000 employees through it. Basically all off management + all professional level employees.

To me it felt like a huge waste of my time. I was thinking "Really? This seems like common sense, why should anyone need to be taught this?". There were some things I didn't agree with, because they were very anti-IT. For example, one instructor said you should increase the number of printers, giving everyone their own printer if possible, to increase efficiency. People can be more productive if they don't have to waste time getting up and walking 10 feet to a printer. Seriously? This in the middle of trying to go paperless for electronic medical records?! Yes let's increase cost and print more in the name of efficiency! They already had 1 printer for every 3 PCs.

Anyway, this "Fad" as Turgon put it is still spreading. It started in the Manufacturing industry (by Motorola), way back in the 80's, and has spread to many other industries. It has become pretty big in the Healthcare industry, at least in my area.

It really wasn't hard at all from an academic standpoint. Sit through hours of boring training, participate in the activities, and get a cert at the end. I suppose it varies depending on who provides the training and what industry you're in. I have seen it mentioned on a few (but very few) IT job listings. Again, depending on the industry, some management types get real excited over it, and would love for you to have it.

N2IT

NinjaBoy wrote: »

Personally, while Six Sigma can be altered to fit the IT industry I believe that other best practice/good practice methodologies out there are far better (eg ITIL, FITS, MOF, etc).

Added to that there is no standard certification body for Six Sigma. So not all Black, Green or Yellow (I've seen a couple of organisations offering Yellow as an intro to Six Sigma) are the same or have had the same training and requirements. Unlike the other standardised methodologies/processes certifications.

I agree with this. +1

Six Sigma [six standard deviation] is used to minimize defects. 1 per million

LEAN is about speeding up processes IMO this would be better geared towards IT. However I agree with what Ninja mentioned. There are much better methodologies/frameworks that can assist in IT. Now in manufacturing where you are building a product Six Sigma can be very beneficial. It allows you to measure and control your inputs, outputs, processes by using quantative and qualitative tool sets and techniques.

At one time I was going to pursue it but after reading several book [>5] I found what Turgon said to be true. Unless you are going to utilize these techniques it would be challenging to truly implement or even use Six Sigma and just like ISO 9000 it can also be extremely costly.