Student Looking Into Possible Six Sigma Career

@delanuez – Anthony, clearly you are wise beyond your years, but that doesn’t give you the experience needed to be successful as a LSS practitioner. I personally am more on the DfSS side of things. DfSS does not design anything, but rather supplements engineering knowledge to ensure that the design provided is much better than it would have been using normal design processes.

Learn what you can about statistics (not the dice rolling, card counting type, but probability distributions and hypothesis testing type). Learn what you can about project management, as anything you do will be formulated as a project. Continue to learn, as there are new perspectives on continuous improvement methods and tools coming about all the time (do not pigeonhole yourself as Lean, or Six Sigma or … What we do is improve things, and those that can select from a large toolbox will be more successful than those trying to hammer the screw because all they know is the hammer). And most importantly, expose yourself to many different situations and environments. It will provide you context and experiences that will prove invaluable later in a LSS career.

There are various recommended reading lists in the archives here. Perhaps our friendly moderator @katiebarry will find them for you.

@MBBinWI Thank you very much for the compliment and for your advice. That all makes sense and I’ll definitely continue to keep an open mind and soak up everything I can around here. Hopefully next summer when I get placed in a Six Sigma environment it’ll be a lot more clear to me what it actually entails.
They do a great job here of instructing in project management, I have 3 projects for the summer that they have me doing, I’ve almost completed them so I have been given actual management projects. Thanks again.

@KatieBarry Thank you for the list, I’ll get to reading! :)

@delanuez – and don’t hesitate to come back here for more advice (and just comaraderie). So long as you do your own homework and aren’t looking for others to do it for you, you’ll find there are quite a few very helpful folks here. Mr. Carnell has already introduced himself, and you’ll find there’s a gent by the name of Robert Butler who knows a thing or two, and an old cranky guy goes by Darth who seems to think he knows a thing or two. Many of these folks have been part of six sigma since it was first being developed, so good resources when you get into really sticky situations.

@Darth I don’t think I have said it in this string but I have said it, basically because it is true. Everyone says it – not everyone tells you. On those rare occasions when we are discussing you when you aren’t present the first thing that gets mentioned is how cranky you are.

So if you need to be able to play well with others we could both be in trouble.

@jdog2u There are some great resources available to you here. For the stats stuff Robert Butler and Joel Smith have first class advice on the stats side. MBBinWI, Gary Cone, Chris Seider and Tom Whitney are good at the application and deployment stuff (this is not meant to be an exclusive list). Be kind to Darth @Darth – he is old and cranky – but we all pretend to listen. It makes him feel better. If you send him a good bottle of tequila he will answer questions for you for days or until the bottle runs out.

If you are going to sit for the ASQ test I would suggest getting the binder from the Quality Council of Indiana. It does a good job of preparing you for the test and is a good reference manual afterwards.

Just my opinion.

@jdog2u and @mike-carnell Thanks James and Mike for the kind thoughts. I will be glad to provide a list of my favorite tequilas along with cogent answers to well thought out and written questions. And in reading some of the threads, I can’t possibly be any older and crankier than that Whitney (sp?) guy.

@MBBinWI At the risk of being argumentative I think Whitney is more surley than cranky. When someone wears a Santa Claus beard it is difficult to be judgemental.

@Darth I am still saving the good stuff you sent for the wedding if you can drag your butt down to Texas, we can sit on the porch, sip some tequila and swap some lies.

Anthony … as MBBinWI said, you are wise beyond your years! Besides the academic offerings in a college, most universities have a “Business and Professional Center” whose mission is to support area businesses. These centers often offer Lean and Six Sigma professional development courses. As as student, you may be eligible to take those courses at a reduced rate. There are also grants available per state for workforce development that you may be eligible for. I would look for the center at your university.

I would shy away from taking a semesters worth of a Six Sigma or Lean theory course (in my opinion) because most profs only know the book version of these methodologies and have little or no practical knowledge. The Centers for Business (the name could be different in your university) use seasoned veterans of the work place that are experienced in the methodologies that are taught.

There are many great online courses as well. Call me if you have questions.

Regards,
Kevin Clay