Andrew Downard

I have been wrestling lately with the question of when a Six Sigma project should be considered “done”. From the perspective of the organization, it’s common to say that done means finished through the control phase or it’s equivalent, including process changes or other implemented solutions. From the financial perspective it’s tempting to say that […]

In my previous two posts, I talked about the fugue and the symphony as metaphors for Six Sigma deployment. A fugue is a musical form in which a single theme is repeated or imitated successively by different instruments until eventually the entire orchestra is involved. This strategy isn’t a bad one for Six Sigma deployment, […]

In my last blog entry, I wrote about the fugue as a model for deployment. A fugue is a musical form in which one or two themes are repeated or imitated by successively entering voices, until eventually the entire orchestra is playing the same tune. I suggested that this might not be a bad way […]

One of my favorite pieces of music is Benjamin Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” In it, Britten decomposes then reconstitutes a fugal work for orchestra based on a much older tune by Henry Purcell. The work is somewhat unusual in that at Britten’s request, a friend wrote narration that describes textually exactly […]

I was in New York City on a busy summer weekend not too long ago. Me and a whole lot of other tourists. In fact, it was the busiest I have ever seen the city in terms of tourists. Saturday night found me and my companions at one end of Times Square, fighting the crowds […]

In my opinion, one of the key questions to answer when planning a deployment is whether the Black Belt role should be full-time. While this sounds like a reasonable question to some, many experienced Six Sigma folks find it strange to even ask, because in the majority of programs the Black Belt role is automatically […]

Over the past weeks and months I have become increasingly aware that there is a grouchy counter-Six Sigma-culture out there. As indisputable proof of this, a Google search on the phrase “Six Sigma sucks” returns no less than 111,000 hits. (See for yourself here.) Even discounting bitter G.I. Joe fans, this is a big number. […]

Fixing or otherwise improving a process usually involves changing it in some way. For this reason, Six Sigma projects almost always involve some element of process engineering or re-engineering. On top of that, folks in deployment leader roles or similar are often tasked with developing brand new processes like project selection, candidate identification, certification, and […]

As I was scanning news this week, a couple of articles caught my eye. The first was a piece by Damon Darling in the New York Times about Farecast, an airfare search engine that aims to predict how much the price of an airline ticket will rise or fall before the flight actually occurs. Says […]

There’s a lot of talk about Six Sigma certification these days. I remember being asked by a talent acquisition manager at a previous employer what it meant to be a “certified” Master Black Belt. The question arose because a quick search on Google turned up programs ranging from 3 days (online) to 2 years in […]

It’s a question I hear a lot, except that 30 is sometimes another number. Like 2. Or 8. Or 156. Or 2068.

A while back I stumbled on a new part of the Google website called “Google Trends”. You can view this website for yourself here. In Google’s words, the website allows users to “compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched for on Google over […]

I am regularly asked what characterizes an ideal Black Belt candidate. Like most people in the field, I have a list of adjectives and descriptive phrases I can trot out at a moment’s notice. Mine comprises about 50 items under the following headings: 1) Aptitude For Change; 2) Education and Experience; 3) Intellectual Curiosity; 4) […]

In an earlier blog entry, I described my feelings on DMAIC and roadmaps in general. To make a long story short, I don’t believe they add much value to the core toolset of Six Sigma. A couple of folks quite rightly expressed their disagreement with my view via comments. I say quite rightly, because I […]

In a perfect world, every project would lead directly to financial gain. We’d draft a charter that, when well executed, produced savings or income that translated directly to the bottom line. And this would be good because we all like making money. We can put it in the bank, earn interest on it, add many […]

There is a strong tendency for Six Sigma programs to forge an inextricable link between project management roadmaps, notably DMAIC, and statistical tools. This has never made much sense to me. In my experience, Six Sigma programs can not only exist and survive without the use of typical roadmaps, but prosper and flourish. In the […]