Six Sigma

[DodgyAgent]

Do any of you know WTF this Six Sigma Black Belt stuff is all about?

In plain English please

[Chico]

Business Process methodology which originated in manufacturing industry back in the 80's. Its about minimising the defects in any process via the use of six sigma calculator (formula). There are various levels of certification eg. Green Belt and Black Belt for practitioners.

[becker]

Management consultancy methodology. Very popular in the nineties.

Largely common sense and about reducing the number of defects in any given business process/product.

As you’d expect, the Black belt refers to how much experience someone has with it.

[mcquiggd]

When I was at Motorola they were adopting Six Sigma in a big way...

I talked to one of the engineers and he said 'we just fiddle it by increasing the number of possible defects so when we calculate "Quality" the figures match our targets'.

[DodgyAgent]

When I was at Motorola they were adopting Six Sigma in a big way...

I talked to one of the engineers and he said 'we just fiddle it by increasing the number of possible defects so when we calculate "Quality" the figures match our targets'.

Thank you all very much for that, and in particular chico for not saying "God Invented it"

[malvolio]

BTW had a major row wih a senior exec once who was trying to bring it into general IT. IT's OK for bulk, repetetive manufacturing processes, probably OK (but only just) for conventional code development and then only for stuff like safety-critical and microcode, damn all use for modern RAD techniques and pointless in anything to do with Service Delivery (that's what ITIL is for).

Didn't get renewed later that year, strangely. Then again, they still have probably the most deranged large company IT shop in the country (and I've seen a few!)

[sasguru]

Agree with Malvolio. The sigma part refers to standard deviations. So it was a statistical method designed to measure an acceptable failure rate for manufacturing processes. Unfortunately the management guru industry got hold of it and persuaded uneducated managers to adopt it for all sorts of unviable purposes. In any other scenario from a quantitative process it is a waste of time.

[Gibbon]

My brother did this sh*t when doing some management course. I think the only useful tip was that you should deal with your post as it comes in and not leave it to pile up. I got very bored listening to it and proceeded to get drunk.

[Mordac]

My brother did this sh*t when doing some management course. I think the only useful tip was that you should deal with your post as it comes in and not leave it to pile up. I got very bored listening to it and proceeded to get drunk.

Of course now they've updated it to say "email" instead of post.