Six Sigma Belts - Certification Belts

“Six Sigma” management has several levels of certification, they are: Champion, Yellow/Green Belt, Brown/Black Belt, and Master Black Belt. Each level of certification is described below.

A Six Sigma Champion is the most basic form of Six Sigma certification. A Champion understands the theory of Six Sigma management, but does not yet have the quantitative skills to function as an active Six Sigma project team member.  However, executives in Six Sigma organizations function as champions of Six Sigma projects. As champions, executives take a very active sponsorship and leadership role in conducting and implementing Six Sigma projects. A Champion should be a member of the Executive Committee, or at least a trusted direct report of a member of the Executive Committee. She or he should have enough influence to remove obstacles or provide resources without having to go higher in the organization. They work closely with the executive committee, the project leader (called a black belt) assigned to their project, and the master black belt (supervisor of black belts) overseeing their project. Champions have the following responsibilities:

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Change Management and Continuous Improvement

The importance of change management to successful continuous improvement initiatives cannot be expressed enough. Anytime there is a change it needs to be managed. Otherwise the transformation initiative is bound to fail. Studies have shown that more than 60 percent of transformational initiatives fail, not due to the lack of technical or resources, but rather due to the lack of proper change management.

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What is lean six sigma?

Lean Six Sigma is a continuous improvement methodology that focuses on decreasing lead time by reducing waste and variation. The reduction of lead time results in lower operating costs, higher quality, and increased customer satisfaction.

Lean Six Sigma combines Six Sigma methodology and lean methodology that can be applied in all types of organizations.

In addition, the reduction of variation makes a more predictable process, which yields fewer defects and enables you to make more accurate forecasts.

By utilizing Lean and Six Sigma together, you are able to achieve more than what you could by using one alone. This approach provides a wider array of improvement tools for you to draw from and increases the probability for success.

The following table gives a quick comparison between Lean and Six Sigma, note that the last element is common to both Lean and Six Sigma. They both require a change in leadership and employee mindset in order to become a successful and sustainable program.

Six Sigma	Lean
Focuses on reducing variation	Focuses on eliminating waste and reducing cycle time
Primary goal is to reduce defects in the process output	Primary goal is to reduce non-value add or wasteful process steps
Based on statistical formula that measures the impact of root causes on the process output	Based on best practices
Data Driven	Observation driven
Change in mindset of leadership and employees(Six Sigma Thinking)	Change in mindset of leadership and employees needed (Lean Thinking)

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5 Reasons to be Lean Six Sigma Certified

Before discussing why people should be certified, first let’s ask the question why is the Lean and Six Sigma methodology important in the first place?

The methodology is important because it provides knowledge and insight into how to make your company run as smoothly as possible while also bringing in profits. Even a basic understanding of lean principles can change and increase overall value a company provides to their customers.

Now let’s discuss several reasons why it is be beneficial to be Lean Six Sigma Certified:

1. Career Advancement

The most common reason to have a certification is to advance your career. Having that certification provides validation to employers that you have a specific skill set. Competition for employment can be fierce and by having proof that you have knowledge and can apply lean six sigma can help set you apart.

2. Better Understanding

There are many people who have the skills and do the job as someone who is certified, but they themselves are not. Formal training and certification gives a better understanding of the topics and how to best apply the methodology. Many may not be familiar with lean or six sigma which can mean that they are not focusing on fixing the right issues because they do not know how to look for them. When teams are trained in lean, they can be more effective by focusing on the best way to better their processes.

3. Organizational Growth

Applying lean six sigma is a proven way to improve a company. If there is a large majority of people in the company who are trained and understand the methodology, it is easier to drive initiatives and new projects that are designed to improve processes. Team members who are trained have better analytical skills that can help to find causes and analyze them before acting on them. This way you approach problems and fix them more efficiently. Eliminating wastes and promoting innovation of processes continuously, can help to advance an organization and allow it to reach its goals.

4. Improved Company Culture

Lean Six Sigma is a proven methodology, yes, but it is also a culture. When this culture is implemented into a company, everyone, even if they are not all certified in lean or six sigma, can adapt to change and help in the advancement of the company. Having an enhancement and improvement culture is what will really benefit a company. Of course, culture starts from the top. Leaders within a company need to adopt a continuous improvement culture in order to promote it throughout the company. By having employees who are certified and truly understand how the principles and methods can be utilized, a continuous improvement culture will be better adopted and help increase change and innovation.

5. Standardization

Although there is no official organization that manages Lean Six Sigma certification process, the actual certification and training themselves help to provide a standard language for improvement and process management. Those who are familiar and trained in lean and six sigma speak a similar language and better understand what steps need to be taken in order to fix a process and eliminate wastes.

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Tips for an Effective Communications Management Plan

The foundation of successful project management is the ability to communicate effectively. A large majority of a project manager’s time is spent on communications throughout all project phases. Additionally, project team members and stakeholders also share in the responsibility of communicating. Because of its importance, great care and planning must be used when developing a project’s Communications Management Plan as it sets the framework for how all communications will occur, by whom, how often, and in what methods.

1. Determining Stakeholder Communication Requirements

Many projects fail because project managers and teams do not properly identify or manage stakeholders. Projects may have large numbers of stakeholders all with varying influence and interest. Project managers must take great care in understanding who these stakeholders are and what their requirements are for communication throughout the project. They may only want to be informed when milestones are met; or might wish to receive phone calls instead of emails; or want weekly updates until project completion. By understanding the communication requirements of every stakeholder, the project team can ensure they keep stakeholders involved with the appropriate level of detail and in the correct format (i.e. meetings, emails, phone calls).

2. Develop Guidelines for Meetings

We have all been to meetings where we sit for an hour or more and leave thinking, “I am not sure what the purpose of that meeting was but I didn’t gain anything from it”. Ineffective meetings are an unfortunate part of the business world. Every meeting should have a clear purpose and an agenda designed to meet that purpose. Project managers must make sure all meetings are structured appropriately and document these expectations in this section of the Communications Management Plan. Some guidelines include sending a detailed agenda out to all meeting participants well ahead of time, designating roles for attendees (i.e. scribe, chairperson, time keeper, etc), how meeting minutes will be published, and assigning action items.

3. Develop a Communication Matrix

Project communications can become very confusing depending on the complexity of the project. A communication matrix is a valuable tool in simplifying the intricacies of project communications. The matrix should include:

• Communication type (i.e. team meetings or project status meetings)
• Objective of the communication
• Medium (email, meeting, phone call)
• Frequency
• Audience or attendees
• Who is responsible for the communication
• Any deliverables
• Format (to include any shared drive or web site locations where data is stored)

4. Determine Communication Technologies

Often times, project teams and stakeholders are physically spread out over different areas and facilities. There is a very good chance that all of the project’s participants do not share the same technological abilities or access to the same platforms. For example, if a team publishes meeting minutes on a shared drive but others do not have access to it then it doesn’t do much good. In developing the Communications Management Plan the project manager and team must understand the technologies available to all project participants and what tools are available to communicate with them.

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5 Key Parts of a Scope Management Plan

You have stakeholders, managers, users, team members and so many others all wanting you to make seemingly minor changes to your project on almost a daily basis. They all seem to suddenly be your friend and looking out for your best interest. But they don't realize that the minor changes they want are actually scope changes to the project and will affect the schedule, cost or quality of the project. The best way to manage these requests is through a robust scope management plan. While we have an excellent scope management plan template available for free download, we would also like to highlight the five components we believe are key to the plan. The following five parts are key to an effective scope management plan:

1. Approach

The approach is an important part of the Scope Management Plan because it defines how the organization will manage the scope of a project and defines various aspects of the Scope Management Plan. Some of the information that should be contained in the approach is:

◉ Scope management responsibility and authority (i.e. project manager or other designee)
◉ How the scope of the project is defined
◉ How and when the project scope is measured and verified
◉ How changes in scope are conducted
◉ Who is responsible for final acceptance of project scope (i.e. sponsor or other designee)

2. Roles and Responsibilities

Roles and responsibilities should be defined in all component plans but this is especially true in the Scope Management Plan. This is because project scope is easy to lose track of if not managed properly and things like scope creep may occur and throw the project completely off course. If roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, the project team and stakeholders are able to understand their part of ensuring that project scope is defined and remains on track throughout the project.

3. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The WBS breaks project deliverables down into more manageable pieces which allows a better understand of the work to be performed. These manageable pieces, at their lowest levels, are called work packages. The intent here is that once all work packages have been completed, the scope of the project is satisfied. That is why the WBS is such a key component of the scope management plan. Since project scope can become complex and difficult to understand, the WBS is a tool used to ensure simplicity and understanding throughout the project lifecycle. The WBS may be included as part of the Scope Management Plan or as an Appendix to the plan.

4. Scope Verification

Scope verification is the process the project team uses to verify that the project deliverables meet the requirements established in the scope baseline and that there is a formal acceptance process in place for these deliverables. This is an extremely important part of scope management because scope verification must be done throughout the project’s lifecycle, not simply once at the end of the project. By verifying scope in this manner, the project team can help avoid added costs and schedule delays associated with performing work that doesn’t contribute to meeting the scope of the project.

5. Scope Control

Scope Control is the process of continually measuring the project’s progress against the scope baseline and determining any variances between the two as well as acting on those variances when necessary. Scope creep is possibly the greatest hazard to any project’s success as uncontrolled scope changes are proposed and added to the project and work begins to spiral out of control. Scope Control is a necessary part of the Scope Management Plan because well-planned scope control practices, along with a well-defined scope baseline, can prevent scope creep from occurring and improve the likelihood of a successful project.

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Mnemonics for PMP and CAPM Certifications

Does PMP Certification require memorization? PMP and CAPM aspirants use mnemonics heavily to memorize everything from Process Groups to Knowledge Areas, Process Names to ITTO’s, and much more. According to Dictionary.com, Mnemonics are something intended to assist the memory, as a verse or formula. Most of us have used mnemonics in some form or another, for exams, work, or other purposes. I still remember the mnemonic - B B Roy of Great Britain has a Very Good Wife - that I learned during my engineering degree program more than 15 years ago. It was used to recall color code sequence for resistors. And who doesn’t remember the acronym (a form of mnemonic) VIBGYOR for the seven colors of the rainbow.

List of Mnemonics for PMP

In this post, I’m not going to share much information with you. Instead, I’m going to invite you - the readers - to share your favorite mnemonics for PMP and CAPM certification exams. I’ll start by sharing mine that I created for my PMP certification way back in 2007. I’ve kept it secret all these years (I know it sounds selfish). It is 100% original and I bet you’ll not find any reference to it preceding this post.

Mnemonic to remember 10 Project Management Knowledge Areas

I used this mnemonic to remember the names of 9 Knowledge Areas in the correct sequence. Later with PMBOK® Guide, 5th Edition, Project Stakeholder Management was added as the 10th Knowledge Area and I updated the mnemonic accordingly. The original mnemonic was:

Saw The Charming Queen Holding Cream Rose Petals

corresponding to the 9 Knowledge Areas:

• Integration
• Scope
• Time
• Cost
• Quality
• Human Resource
• Communications
• Risk
• Procurements

With the addition of Project Stakeholder Management in PMBOK Guide, 5th Ed, I updated the mnemonic to:

Saw The Charming Queen Holding Cream Rose Petals Sexily

• Integration
• Scope
• Time
• Cost
• Quality
• Human Resource
• Communications
• Risk
• Procurements
• Stakeholder

Mnemonic to remember SPI, CPI, SV, and CV Formulas

People find it hard to remember whether EV goes in the numerator or denominator for SPI / CPI formulae, and whether it comes first or later in the SV / CV formulae. The formulae are:

SPI = EV / PV
CPI = EV / AC
SV  = EV - PV
CV  = EV - AC

The simple mnemonic that I devised to remember it to mentally associate EV with EVerest, yes Mount EVerest, which is the highest mountain in the world. EVerest is always on top (numerator) in SPI / CPI formulae and comes first in the SV / CV formulae.

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Professionalise Project Management

The following is an extract from my new book ‘How to get Fired at the C-Level: Why mismanaging change is the biggest risk of all’ in association with my friends at Tailwind Project Solutions – the extracts follow a series of 5 Challenges that I think every organisation should consider, and consider very carefully – this is the final of the five challenges:

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5 Must-Have Features in Enterprise Project Management Software

Enterprise project management exists to develop a methodology of management designed for larger, more complex projects. The need to track finances, tasks and resources, therefore, becomes even more critical than it already is for other projects.

To get the most control over these unruly projects, which are going to have a large number of users, you’re going to want an enterprise project management software that can give you strong reporting and analytical tools.

While enterprise PM is for large-scale projects, it involves much the same features that you’d use for smaller projects. That’s because, like in any project, you’re going to want a tool that can give you both an overview and detailed look at your project’s metrics.

That said, there are certain features that lend themselves to enterprise, ones that will help align business goals with the goals of the project and help with communications across teams, project professions and management.

The following are five of the essential tools you’re going to want in your enterprise project tools.

1. Program and Portfolio Management

If you’re managing one or many projects, you’re going to want metrics that give you an accurate picture of their progress. Project dashboards are the ideal tool to display the key indicators of your project, so you can track a project’s or projects’ progress and spot issues before they become problems.

An online enterprise project software provides up-to-date business intelligence gathered from your team in real-time. From the dashboard view of your software you can monitor tasks, teams, costs, health and more, in clear charts and graphs, which provide a wealth of information on project’s or program’s progress at a glance.

Now you have one screen in which all your projects or program is updated instantly, so you can see when something is not tracking to your schedule. And you can drill down to view the team’s workload, which is color-coded, and reallocate resources as needed to bring the project or program back on schedule.

2. Estimating and Scheduling

Using an online Gantt chart makes estimating and scheduling enterprise projects more efficient. A Gantt chart gives you a visual timeline on which to place your tasks, task dependencies and milestones. Once you’ve set the duration of those tasks you’re closer to estimating the scope of work necessary to complete the project on time.

Because your enterprise software is online, when team members complete their tasks, those updates are instantly reflected on the Gantt chart. If you notice that a task needs more or less time than you at first estimated, editing the Gantt chart is as simple as dragging-and-dropping the start and end dates.

The Gantt also works with your project dashboard, so when one tasks is update on the Gantt that status shows on the dashboard. Now you can track performance overall or in detail, which means keeping your project on track.

3. Team Engagement

Sticking with the Gantt chart for a moment, you can use the feature as more than a scheduling tool. It can also be used as a platform for team engagement. Both you and your team can attach comments, files and other documents right at the task level of the Gantt chart. Better still, when that task is updated an email automatically alerts everyone, so those team members working on the task are informed on its progress.

Discussions need not only regulated to the Gantt chart. You don’t want to keep jumping from your large scale project management toolsto some other app like Skype or Slack whenever your team wants to communicate. Keep them on the same program with a discussion feature that allows one-on-one chat or group discussions where you and your team can brainstorm, attach relevant files and stay in touch. This is especially important if your teams are distributed.

4. Task Management

The ability to plan, track and schedule your team’s work is another essential part of any viable enterprise PM software. It’s imperative that you have a tool that allows you to view all the work across your team on a single page. That way you can schedule ahead by knowing how evenly your resources have been allocated.

The tool makes reassigning team members simple. Whether the team members needs more or less work, just click on the date and change their tasks. This resources bottlenecks and and project blocks quickly and easily.

To make task management that much clearer, you can also color code team member’s schedules to see at a glance whether they’re allocated, over-allocated, unallocated, not working or if it’s a holiday.

Again, if your enterprise project software is online then you’re getting real-time data when viewing your team’s workload. Plus, it’s easy to export and share resource updates either through group chat pages or email.

5. Integration

While it’s ideal to get you and your team on only on software that’s not always possible. There are likely other apps that you and your team have grown used to using or can work in congress with an enterprise project management software to create more efficiencies. Therefore, you want to have a software that allows you to integrate with your favorite apps.

An enterprise PM software that can automate your data across your tools after a one-time setup is going to allow you easy access to those productivity tools that you use, such as Salesforce, QuickBooks, Dropbox and more.

Seamless integration with an online enterprise PM software keeps all your applications under one virtual roof. The last thing you want to do when in the midst of a large project is jump around from application to application, wasting time or importing spreadsheets and reformatting them to fit your main enterprise software.

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How to Prioritise Project Work

No matter how good the team is, every project needs clear priorities to achieve its potential. When you have many stakeholders with different views, this can be a challenge. On top of that, anyone familiar with risk management will tell you to expect a fair number of surprises along the way. With the right strategy, this is all manageable.

Work with the business environment

You can save a lot of time if you go into a project knowing the technology, processes and subject matter. That means research the industry broadly with training and reading materials. It also means asking team members about their work. You can use your time in the Starting Up phase to find out what stakeholders most value. With all this specific knowledge, you’ll find it much easier to prioritise work.

Create a project backlog

A project backlog is a list of features or technical tasks that the project needs. It’s best to create this as early as possible, and update it when necessary. The team maintains the backlog, which can take any form. It can be a series of post-it notes or part of the Project Initiation Document, for example. The one thing to be aware of is that items that don’t contribute to the project’s goal don’t belong in the backlog.

Manage by stages

There’s a reason this is one of PRINCE2’s core principles. To prioritise work, you have to itemise it. With the project work broken down into manageable chunks, attach finish dates to them. This will give the project a sense of direction. To make it easier for the team, make the project schedule visible to everyone. That way, everyone can understand your vision and their duties.

Distinguish urgent and important tasks

It’s tempting to always focus on the most immediate task. But remember that not every task is business-critical. So with that in mind, ask yourself if a task is urgent, important or both. If you’re not sure, refer to the Business Case and what stakeholders have told you they most value. Use this information to clarify the larger project goal. With that, you can understand how important a task is and prioritise it.

Try delegating urgent not important tasks to people who see the task as important. For example, you can delegate specialist functions like reporting. These tasks might be more important to Project Support members who have a passion for them.

Account for uncertainty

The best way to prepare for uncertainty is with effective risk management. This requires flexibility and adaptability. Know that priorities change, but stick to the business case and scope so you’re not being pushed in the wrong direction. Discuss the stages with the project team and get feedback during meetings. This will help you prioritise work all throughout the life of the project.

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Driving Change One Project at a Time

When you try to perform process improvement, whether for cost, quality or other reasons, you will often find yourself in an environment where the status quo is the status quo. You may be new, and find yourself awash in a sea of this-is-how-we-do-things. People are in their comfort zones. Management may or may not get that there will be growing pains (even for them) in the process of improving processes and culture. One approach of choice (it may not be a choice if you are simply an individual contributor such as a manufacturing or quality engineer) is to drive change one project at a time. This can be as effective in creating a climate of continuous improvement as an apprenticeship is in creating skilled workers. The message may not get out to as many people as quickly as a company-wide training program, but the impact can be deeper and more sustained if you can show success and create new change agents in multiple functions – one project at a time.

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Candidate Selection: Motivate the Best People to Choose Six Sigma

It is an old dilemma. Should we select our Black Belt candidates based on prior performance in unrelated jobs or should we allow people to self-select for Black Belt roles based upon motivation and aptitude? Unfortunately, the answer is clearly, “It depends.” There are advantages to each approach and each approach has specific perils.

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4 P’s of ITIL Service Design/Management

ITIL defines the 4 P’s of ITIL Service Design (or Service Management) as:

1. People
2. Products
3. Partners
4. Processes

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