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Heretic Articles

ROI President Steve Ouellette writes a popular monthly article for Quality Digest's InsideSixSigma online newsletter. These articles humorously (and usefully) discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of how Six Sigma is implemented. You can access those articles here.

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Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks #1

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The end is here

Repent of your wicked ways O fellow Six Sigma Heretics, or surely you shall be smitten (smoted? smited? smartied?) and turned into a pillar of out-of-spec material! The End (of the Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks countdown, anyway) is here! What could possibly be the No. 1 reason that Six Sigma fails? Can you guess? Is your business doing it? Is mine? I can hardly wait to find out!

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Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks #2

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Neglecting daily management

The end is near! Well, at least the end of the Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks (SSST) countdown. The Heretic soldiers on until his appointment with the stake. This month, we arrive at Stupid Six Sigma Trick #2: Neglecting Daily Management. In this SSST, companies get so starry-eyed over the fancy statistics that can solve big problems that they forget to do the day-to-day basics, and find out to their detriment what Carroll’s Red Queen meant.

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Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks #3

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Prurient Photographs

I had a lot of feedback from interested readers in regards to Stupid Six Sigma Tricks #5, which I jokingly called “Pop Stars Without Clothing,” and which was about the frequent misuse of statistics in the Six Sigma world. Taking heart from this response to what might have been viewed as dusty old statistics, I decided forthrightly to call this Stupid Six Sigma Trick #3, Prurient Photographs.

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Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks #4

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Overusing DMAIC

We are more than halfway through the countdown of our exploration of the kooky, and expensive, mistakes people make in implementing Six Sigma, and I want to talk about something that’s so fundamental people rarely see it—Stupid Six Sigma Trick #4: Overusing DMAIC.

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Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks #5

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Pop stars without clothing

Today marks a milestone in our countdown of the Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks. A subjective and unimportant milestone to be sure, but a milestone nonetheless—we have now reached the halfway point. Forget the New Year, this is cause for celebration.

To commemorate this trivial event, let us turn our laser focus onto more technical mistakes. So far we have been talking about systemic problems. Let’s focus now on some specific tools and how they are misapplied, leading to lost money and increased exasperation. I call this one Stupid Six Sigma Trick #5: Pop stars without clothing.

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Page 7 of 9

Testimonials

I found the Six Sigma course extremely interesting and appropriate for our times, as US companies in many industries strive to regain a competitive edge in the global economy of this century. The format and the general layout of the topics was very well designed and easy to follow. The tools introduced in this course were extremely powerful and the know-how about how to identify, assess and manage opportunities for improvement was invaluable.

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Our Economic Stimulus Package: $200 Off (click to learn more)

During this recent economic downturn, we have been contacted by a number of people who are looking to add more qualifications to their resume, either to increase their value at their current job or open some options as they seek employment after a layoff, as well as businesses looking for training with a high return on investment.  Six Sigma Online would like to do what little we can to help you out if this is your situation.

Six Sigma Online already offers one of the lowest price ways to get your Black Belt while still offering much greater depth of knowledge than you can get anywhere else.  In addition, for a limited time we will offer you a 10% discount to make it that much easier to get the skills you need to achieve your employment objectives.  Just contact us directly before ordering and let us know.

Businesses right now desperately need to find ways to improve profit and reduce the costs of quality.  Black Belts are the "edge of the blade" in this endeavor and so are in demand.  Our training will maximize the success of your projects with knowledge you will need as you encounter real-world problems to solve.  Here at Six Sigma Online, we hope that our training, and the discount above, will go some way to help individuals and businesses survive these tough times.

 

Heretic Articles

This article was originally published in InsideSixSigma, a monthly online newsletter published by Quality Digest. Subscribe to InsideSixSigma if you would like to receive these articles when they are published.

Random Heresy

The end is here

Repent of your wicked ways O fellow Six Sigma Heretics, or surely you shall be smitten (smoted? smited? smartied?) and turned into a pillar of out-of-spec material! The End (of the Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks countdown, anyway) is here! What could possibly be the No. 1 reason that Six Sigma fails? Can you guess? Is your business doing it? Is mine? I can hardly wait to find out!

Read more...

In the News

Six Sigma's lead instructor Steven Ouellette wrote an article with Dr. Jeffrey Luftig on "The Decline of Ethical Behavior in Business."

 


 

Six Sigma Online's lead instructor Steven Ouellette was profiled in the June 2008 issue of Quality Digest magazine. If you want to learn more about Steve's peculiar view of the world, as well as what he studied for a year in Europe, read the profile online.