Incorporating Six Sigma Methodology with Branding Efforts

The Voice of the Customer (VOC) is extremely critical in understanding what your brand is and its value.  Through the DMAIC process and the Define phase, you will begin to understand the customer’s voice, and be able to define the customer’s needs, wants and expectations for your brand.

By knowing the VOC, you can develop a branding strategy that will fulfill your target customer’s expectations and requirements as well as distinguish your business from your competitors. If you don’t take care of your customers, your competitors will. By using the VOC when you begin your branding strategy, you will be able to target the right customers for your business.

Your best defense in understanding your company and developing your brand is to sign up for one of our Six Sigma courses. They are a sure-win investment in the future of your business. One course we are very proud of is our Jumpstart course, which we recommend if you are a visceral type of learner. Our Jumpstart will provide you with a vast array of knowledge to get you started in Six Sigma projects. So by learning the basics that are in our White and Yellow Belt courses, and learning the first part of the Green Belt curriculum, the Jumpstart course will provide you a strong baseline.

So go onto 6Sigma.us and sign up for one of our courses in your area! Here is to your success!

Legitimate Professionals have:

Confidence

Although some may try to use this to impair your judgment of their work, a confident professional is key to any project. As a Six Sigma professional, you have certification in the most innovative and advance business process improvement methods available. Likewise, it’s important that you not only use them but have confidence when you do. A legitimate professional will exhibit signs of confidence when carrying out a task, managing a project, or making a tough decision. Additionally, this professional will be steadfast and have a sound mind when presenting new ideas to team members and management.

Organization

Every legitimate professional will practice organization. Whether it’s a multi-variable process or just their desk, these employees should work in an organized manner. While organization comes natural to some individuals, others have to learn it. Although this takes time, prioritizing organization is key to successfully leading a team, project, or other task. Likewise, organization helps keep the project and team’s goal clear with a clear path towards success.

Thoroughness

Somewhat similar to organization, every Six Sigma professional should practice thoroughness. Whether it’s reviewing project updates, going over past notes, or revising estimation, thoroughness is an important trait for legitimate professionals. When you practice checking yourself and your data, you decrease the risk for errors and thus, delays. Additionally, thoroughness helps ensure that every project and department follows their predetermined goals and stays on track.

Up to Date Certification

There’s nothing worse than underutilizing a professional. Sometimes, it’s impossible to avoid. However, organizations should be proactive about using their employees where they fit best and are needed the most. The same goes for Six Sigma professionals. If you or your colleague has been in the same position for multiple years, it might be time to update your certification. After spending countless months in a Green Belt role, it’s natural to peruse Black Belt certification. Likewise, it’s important that you and your employees maintain their certification and handle challenges regularly. This helps freshen memory and practice skill sets.

It’s easy to get bogged down with the negative aspects of illegitimate practitioners and unprofessional employees. However, don’t let that stop you from operating your organization, team, or corporation from your maximum potential. While on the lookout for hindrances to your organization, keep an eye open for signs of legitimate employees.

Signs of a Legitimate Practitioner

Confidence & Clarity

The first most noticeable traits in noteworthy practitioners are their confidence and clarity. When considering which training program to enroll in, the courses’ syllabus, goals, and requirements should be easily seen. Likewise, the material should be put together in a manner that shows professionalism and confidence. For example, when reviewing our Six Sigma Black Belt training program, we clearly outline all relevant information. How long the course is, what topics we will cover, what you can expect to achieve from it, and more are clearly visible on the main page. If your practitioner does not offer this, it might be a sign to look elsewhere.

Excellent Communication

This is probably one of the most important traits of an excellent Six Sigma practitioner; communication. When assessing which programs to enroll in, you should be able to ask your practitioner any number of questions about the course. Whether it’s about the material, duration, price, or other, communication should always be open. Poor practitioners will usually avoid communication if it might compromise their cover as a legitimate program. If you are unable to effectively communicate with your course instructor, find a new program.

Abundance of Reviews

When you go on a vacation, out to eat, or go see a movie, you typically rely on reviews to help select your choices. Why not do the same for your Six Sigma training course? All professional practitioners should be able and willing to offer you reviews of their courses, without question. Typically, these reviews will be from other students or organization who previously took the same course. Additionally, the reviews should be original and sound different from one another. If you cannot find accurate reviews or your instructor refuses to offer them, you should find a new course.

Value for Money

Last, but not least, all legitimate practitioners will offer you a program that is affordable, effective, and suits your learning needs. While not every course can be tailored to your specific needs, you instructor should be willing to offer assistance when you need it. Likewise, your course’s price should be relatively similar to what others are offering. If you believe a price is too good to be true, or overly expensive, chances are that it is.

Start as a New Graduate

The first opportunity for Six Sigma training is if you are a recent college graduate and are having trouble finding a job that suits your degree. Depending on your career preference, one of our training courses may be a faster and more economical way to gain a leg up on your competition. Applying for positions as a new graduate with little to no experience is extremely challenging, especially in technical fields. Instead of investing thousands of dollars into another year or more of school for a second degree, enroll in our Green Belt training course. This course will introduce you to Six Sigma methodologies and fast-track you to your dream profession.

Start as a Professional

Additionally, another ideal time to gain Six Sigma certification is if you want to change career path. Sometimes, professionals feel stuck in their roles, completing the same tasks every day without new challenges. If this describes you, Six Sigma may be your answer. Unlike other certification courses or degree programs, we provide concise and highly detailed training that will gain your certification quickly. Typically, those who want to become project managers, business analysts, or assistant managers benefit from Black and Master Black Belt training. Although, usually these certifications require you to either hold a Green Belt certificate or have adequate experience.

Start as an Entrepreneur

Likewise, the third best time to enroll in Six Sigma training is if you want to become an entrepreneur. Today, organization and corporations are requesting more Six Sigma training for their employees. If you wish to become your own boss and operate your own company, certification may be right for you. Usually, Six Sigma consultants possess at least a Black Belt certificate. This proves that you have a thorough understanding of the methodologies and know how to implement them effectively. Likewise, you know how to properly lead a project team and perform comprehensive data analysis. For many, becoming an entrepreneur is an excellent way to gain time and financial freedom.

Regardless of your experience or education, you can benefit from a Six Sigma certificate. Achieving any level of certification places you above the competition and close to your dream career. If you want to become a Six Sigma professional, contact us today to see which program is right for you.

Short-Term Benefits Six Sigma Green  Belt

Above all else, the first noticeable benefit to Green Belt training is a greater understanding of the methodology. Six Sigma is founded on the principles of innovation, efficiency, and reducing waste. While you may have experience working on Six Sigma projects as a part-time assistant or lower level Belt, Green Belts are the leaders behind the workforce. Likewise, training courses, such as ours, will introduce you to new ways of data mining and analysis. Now, as a certified Green Belt, you will be able to tackle new projects with the resources your training provides.

Another common short-term benefit of Green Belt training is standing out from other applicants when applying for new roles. Whether at your current organization or another, your employer will value your training over others without it. This alone will help speed up your career progression from a part-time project assistant to a full-time manager.

Long-Term Benefits Six Sigma Green  Belt

Six Sigma Green Belt certification, while not the lowest belt, is the first at which you will notice long-term benefits. Some training programs, such as ours, are aligned with Black Belt training, which helps you achieve higher certifications, faster. In our four-week program, the first two weeks will gain your Green Belt certification. In the following two weeks, you will achieve Black Belt certification. Of course, you have the option to just enroll for Green Belt certification. However, you can expect more long-term benefits with the complete training.

Additionally, experience as a Green Belt will move you towards more dynamic and highly detailed projects. Working under the management of Black and Master Black Belt professionals, you will gain more experience to further progress your career.

Additionally, professionals with Green Belt certification will also notice a salary increase with the more hands-on experience they have. Your new certification permits you to work with highly skilled professionals on more high-profile projects. With this comes more responsibilities, and thus, a higher salary.

Illegitimate Practitioners & Six Sigma

In the past decade, Six Sigma programs have grown increasingly popular. With multiple programs available in almost every city, it’s no surprise that there are hundreds of courses to choose from. Yet, not all Six Sigma courses are alike. In our recent article, we discussed how Six Sigma suffers without the guidance of a central governing body. As a result, there are numerous illegitimate practitioners who slide past verification and offer poor certification and training programs. The best way to combat this is with due diligence.

Check the Syllabus

First, always ask your practitioner for a course syllabus. Sometimes, practitioners may be reluctant to provide you with a comprehensive list of every subject you will cover. However, every legitimate trainer will offer you a basic syllabus for your specific program. In this syllabus, you should see how many days or weeks the program is, what major topics you will discuss, and what you will gain from it. For example, here is the overview of our Six Sigma Black Belt training program. You should be able to find something similar.

Find Reviews

Next, read reviews of the course. Regardless if you’re enrolling in a certification course or a training program, there will be reviews of the courses somewhere. Sometimes, reviews will be online. Other times, you may have to request them directly from the practitioner. These reviews should be from former students and professionals, or possibly organizations who use the program for their staff. Either way, you should always be able to find reviews of legitimate Six Sigma courses. If you cannot, start looking somewhere else.

Make Comparisons

Likewise, the third way to practice due diligence is to compare your course with other well-known Six Sigma programs. Of course, there are new programs being introduced every day. However, every legitimate program will have a similar structure or outline to those of well-established ones. If you find that your course differs greatly in the duration, structure, or cost, it might be wise to find a different program.

Although not all due diligence practices are bullet proof, these tips will help protect you from illegitimate Six Sigma practitioners. Six Sigma training and certification is an excellent way to widen your skill set and learn new, innovative methodologies. However, always be wary of practitioners who will try to take advantage of your desire to learn.

Traditional Coffeehouses vs. Starbucks

When you think coffeehouse, you imagine a calm, relaxing environment. Maybe you picture yourself enjoying a flavorful coffee while catching up on some emails. While this image is common for most coffeehouses, Starbucks is slowly beginning to differ. As the corporation grows, it’s follower base forces it to adapts to the speed and accuracy that customers now expect. Similar to fast-food restaurants, customers want their ideal coffee, made fresh, within minutes. Starbucks saw this challenge as a way to implement Lean Six Sigma methodologies while staying true to its foundation.

Lean Six Sigma Methods

For Starbucks, management wanted to join the speed and efficiency of common fast-food restaurants with the human element customers expect. However, when attempting to do this, it’s easy for one to override the other. Knowing this, the coffee giant created two helpful changes; how customers order their coffees and their in-store experiences. First, Starbucks provides new training techniques for employees, specifically the baristas. While it’s common for the cash register to ring up orders, baristas proactively take customers’ orders before they pay. This decrease the wait time for receiving the coffee and paying for it. Another way Starbucks speeds up the ordering process is via their mobile app. On their app, you can preorder and pay for your drink to its specifications and pick it up when you arrive at the store. Ready to pick up drinks are available at the bar and organized by name.

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Remembering the Human Element

While these efficiencies have sped up the overall operations, Starbucks’ management is keen to keep the human interactions well present at each store. When ordering your drink in store, management encourages baristas to talk with customers. Asking how your day is going, if your order is your usual coffee, and other ways to make each transaction personal. Through the app, Starbucks has rolled out its own version of a loyalty program. Unlike traditional stamp cards, the mobile app allows you to collect “stars” which you can accumulate for free coffees. Additionally, meeting a certain number of transactions will get you different levels of loyalty status. This is just another way Starbucks both recognizes and rewards customers for shopping at their locations.

While Lean Six Sigma was originally designed for manufacturing and production organizations, service, hospitality, and numerous other industries have found ways to use the methodology for their benefit. Starbucks is an excellent case study example of an organization finding innovative ways to increase efficiency while retaining their individuality.

Defining Lean Six Sigma

What is Lean Six Sigma? Let’s break down what the term means. Firstly, it refers to a set of principles that aim to improve efficiency. Six Sigma is, of course, another similar improvement strategy used in manufacturing and other industries. They both aim to make businesses more efficient by streamlining processes, removing none-value-adding processes and promoting productivity. The difference between Lean and Six Sigma, however, is that the former aims to eliminate waste (Muda), whereas the latter focuses on minimizing variation to achieve an optimum sigma level. In Lean Six Sigma, we marry the two disciplines together, thus gaining the benefits of both. Lean Six Sigma requires a balanced approach to maintaining quality and removing process waste.

Register Today For Lean Six Sigma Training

Just as in traditional Six Sigma, Master Black Belts are responsible for facilitating Lean Six Sigma improvement techniques. MBBs, along with Black Belts and Green Belts, also handle much of the technical and analytical work involved. Beginning with a systematic analysis and measurement of your operations, they can break them down into their component stages. Lean Six Sigma project teams can then identify where efficiency needs to be improved while creating solutions to correct these problems.

Measuring Quality and Efficiency with Lean Six Sigma

Team-based Six Sigma techniques like brainstorming, Root Cause Analysis, DMAIC, and 5 Whys are all essential tools for measuring quality and efficiency. They can help you find the underlying causes of problems and help devise solutions. Analyzing your operations with Lean Six Sigma techniques allows you to gain insight into quality and efficiency. LSS enables you to measure efficiency in ways which will certainly have been unavailable to you before. For example, to improve quality, you need to isolate the factors detrimental to it. As you gradually increase your efficiency with all manner of tasks, from administrative work to the production line, you will increase your bottom line. The added flow of revenue will only benefit your company as you continue throughout the year. Maintaining Lean Six Sigma practices will help stay on top of issues affecting efficiency and quality, which is especially important during times of economic pressure.

Not all businesses are the same, and neither are their processes. But, Lean Six Sigma can help you determine your optimum processes via several universal ideas. Firstly, proper client information management is critical as it means your employees will be less likely to run into instances of missing or incorrect data. This helps avoid unwanted pauses and time-loss waste. Similarly, using LSS, you can analyze situations for factors that cause bottlenecks, i.e. where a process becomes backed up. Overcoming these obstacles allows you to maintain progress and minimize delay-based costs.

Contact us at 6Sigma.us and find out how we can positively help you plan and change the culture and operations of your organization. We offer Six Sigma Green Belt and Six Sigma Black Belt training programs, as well as a Six Sigma Master Black Belt program.

Why Do Value Driver Analytics Matter? 

Knowing and using your drivers effectively is essential to good Six Sigma practices. Value driver analytics are important because they enable you to focus on specific drivers within your business. You can then use these drivers to form strategies for how to improve value within your business. Before you can do this, you need to test hypotheses for how you think your business operations will play out. Using Design of Experiments, you can create testing parameters to help with this. Black Belts and Green Belts are useful with DoE work due to their extensive experience with analytical and practical Six Sigma work. Similarly, Six Sigma tools like DMAIC and AHP will also allow you to make predictions about how your value drivers will affect your business. It’s critical that these predictions be as accurate as possible. False data can be a major waste of time, leading to loss of revenue, efficiency, and value.

How to Use Value Drivers

Once you have identified your value drivers, we recommend applying analytics twice a year, per every six months. This enables you to glean enough data to shed light on whether or not your business is yielding the results you want. You could use cost as a value driver, assuming cost has an influence on profit and sales. To determine whether this is true, it’s best to apply hypothesis testing to answer this question. If it is correct, this allows you the freedom to continue with your current strategy, with no need to adjust your course. If the results don’t pan out as you expect, however, you will have to alter your strategy to create higher value.

Key Value Drivers

There are many key value drivers that you should look out for. Namely, these include operational drivers, financial drivers, and sustainability drivers. Operational value drivers comprise all the variables that affect cash generation. Using key value drivers effectively will boost your growth and efficiency, which in turn will positively affect revenue and costs. Financial value drivers, on the other hand, can minimize your cost of capital, which creates value by allowing for a greater cash flow. Using financial value drivers can help you increase value in the long term, but sustainability value drivers work by maintaining optimum process functions. They do this by finding ways to isolate and utilize synergies to create value for the company, either through regulatory changes, implementing green practices, or minimizing non-sustainable operations.

1. Prevent Fraudulent Practices Through Blacklisting

With no governing body to speak of, there’s no one to police Six Sigma practices and prevent fraud. One of the ways a Six Sigma governing body could prevent fraudulent practices, or at least deter them, is by blacklisting known fake practitioners and organizations. As and when clients or practitioners report suspicious activities, the Six Sigma governing body can clamp down on those responsible.

2. Actively Seek Out Fraudulent Six Sigma Practitioners / Organizations

Blacklisting isn’t ideal, as it would rely on waiting for people to be defrauded or for the fake practitioners themselves to rear their heads. Moreover, it’s important for a Six Sigma governing body to always be on the lookout for fake practitioners, actively pursuing and gathering information on them. This is the best way to deter fake practitioners, by seeking them out and putting a stop to their actions. By letting fake practitioners know there’s governing body wise to them, this will automatically deter them from further schemes.

3. Punish Fake Six Sigma Practitioners / Organizations

But once the governing body has found out the fake Six Sigma practitioners or organizations, what then? The answer is simple. When you break the rules, you get punished. Fake Six Sigma practitioners are no exception. One of the things a good Six Sigma governing body would do is administer penalties to fake Six Sigma practitioners caught in the act. As we’ve already mentioned, blacklisting these bad eggs will help protect clients and ensure Six Sigma’s reputation remains untarnished.

4. Act as an Essential Source of Knowledge

Not only is this useful for true Six Sigma practitioners, but it will also make things more difficult for the fake ones. Due to Six Sigma’s current lack of any governing body, there’s no one to police Six Sigma certification and accreditation courses. Theoretically, you could pass off just about anything as Six Sigma, and only those knowledgeable would know the difference. With a fully-fledged governing body with a core knowledge base for true practitioners to lean on, it becomes easier to rule out who’s who – good or bad, real or fake.

5. Provide Certification / Accreditation

Why would clients or true Six Sigma practitioners go anywhere else if they could be certified by the best of the best? If a Six Sigma governing body were to offer certification and accreditation, this would squeeze any fraudulent moneymakers out of the market. The less opportunity there is for fake practitioners to get ahead, the less likely they’ll be able to.