Prince2 vs PMP

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What is PMP? PMP stands for Project Management Professional and PMP a professional certificate from PMI (Project Management Institute). PMI is a USA based non-for-profit organization focused on project management, which has developed and published a number of standards, including: ◈ A Guide to the Project Management Body...

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How to survive a zombie apocalypse with PRINCE2®

It’s the spookiest time of year and, naturally, as an accredited training organisation, we thought it was only appropriate that we had a little think about zombies. Hey now, bear with us here – there’s method to our madness or, at least, a methodology… A zombie apocalypse epitomises...

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Understanding Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

The importance of emotional intelligence (EI) in business, particularly in leadership, is well understood. Leaders with high emotional intelligence can get the most out of their employees. In so doing, they propel projects and businesses to ever greater heights. Leaders without emotional intelligence, on the other hand, often...

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5 Service-based Business Process Mapping Tips

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Business process mapping is a great method for understanding the complex processes that impact a business’s bottom line. Comparing a map of how a process is supposed to work and how a process actually works can be revealing. These methods, originally developed to understand manufacturing processes, do not...

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How to Manage Scope Creep

How many times have we initiated a project only to find that as we move forward through project planning and into project execution, more and more changes to the project are required? While change is inevitable throughout almost any project’s lifecycle, if it is not properly managed and...

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Understanding Scatter Diagrams and Correlation Analysis

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Six Sigma scatter diagrams and their correlation analyses often debunk management myths. Many times executives assume and/or presume that measures vary together when they do not. Sometimes they assume and/or presume that measures do not vary in concert with one another when they do. For better or worse,...

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The Product Manager Vs. Project Manager— What Are the Differences & Relations?

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Despite the similar names, there are some big differences between project manager and product manager. They are often used interchangeably, but are different disciplines requiring quite different skills. In a nutshell, * The product manager is to do the right thing and make sure the product be line...

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Process Owners: The Unsung Heroes of Improvement

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Look around a company that has been using Lean Six Sigma for awhile. Listen to the kinds of stories that circulate. Which people are mentioned the most? Likely it is the Black Belt who led a project that saved a million dollars or created a whole new market...

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Start with Leaner Tools to Ease Non-Belts into Six Sigma

Six Sigma offers a variety of powerful tools that help organizations make data-driven decisions. Yet most people in an organization do not hold a degree in statistics and may feel that filling out endless data forms is pointless. When first starting a deployment, it is best to make...

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Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) – Getting Oriented

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For a tool that has such broad applicability, the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is not as widely known as might be expected. AHP makes assessments, prioritization and selection among options more readily measurable. Thus it is a natural Six Sigma ally and a part of the toolkit for...

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Building Valuable Process Maps Takes Skill and Time

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Practitioners who think process mapping can be completed in a two-hour session with a group of subject matter experts, a white board and some sticky notes are likely to end up with a nice piece of paper with a bunch of squares and diamonds. This is because process...

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Estimation Method Aids in Analyzing Truncated Data Sets

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When working with data sets, practitioners sometimes encounter metrics, such as out-of-roundness and loss-of-moisture measurements, with physical limits. In these scenarios, the data distribution is truncated at the value of physical limitation, creating a distribution outside of the criteria of a normally distributed population. With non-normal data, estimates...

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Actionable Information from Soft Data

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Engineers, Six Sigma practitioners and other researchers often work with “hard” data – discrete data that can be counted and legitimately expressed as ratios. But what of “soft” data, things like opinions, attitudes and satisfaction? Can statistical process controls (SPC) be applied here? Can process variation in customer...

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Determine The Root Cause: 5 Whys

Asking “Why?” may be a favorite technique of your 3-year-old child in driving you crazy, but it could teach you a valuable Six Sigma quality lesson. The 5 Whys is a technique used in the Analyze phase of the Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) methodology....

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