Personally, I believe you should consider a “train-the-trainer” program – especially if you have no prior teaching experience.  Its one thing to know the material, its quite another to teach it.  Believe me, you quickly discover how much you don’t know about a subject when you first start teaching.  You will simply be amazed at how students (new to the field of Six Sigma) are able to “spin” a question that instantly stumps a new instructor.

Of course, the appropriate reply is: “That’s a very good question – I am not sure of an appropriate response right now, but I will get back to you with an answer by tomorrow.”  When I first started teaching engineering statistics and design-of-experiments (about 22 years ago), it is likely that I wore that phrase a little thin.  I cannot begin to tell you how many times I was professionally and personally embarrassed because of my inability to answer such questions.  Well, after a few years of teaching, this problem evaporated.  In retrospect, those first few years were really dicey.

A good train-the-trainer program will help you learn how to handle difficult questions, disruptive students, and so on.  Some programs even give some compressed training on course design and development, as well as adult learning theory and practices.  Again, this advice is hard to appreciate until you come under fire in the classroom.  When this happens, you will discover its true value.

Providing high quality instruction involves a myriad of things.  Some example considerations are inclusive of, but certainly not limited to:

1) Course material that is technically sound and locally accepted.
2) Methods of content delivery have been thoroughly tested.
3) Necessary instructional hardware is present in the classroom.
4) Classroom is conducive to learning (i.e., size, temperature, etc.)
5) Instructor is aware of each participant’s background.
6) Organization’s management supports the training.
7) Instructional design is sufficient (i.e., adequate reinforcement).
8) Team teaching is available to new instructors.
9) Provisions have been made for post-training feedback.

Best of luck – you have my deepest respect and admiration for your accomplishments and forthcoming events.