Today, XGP Gaming released an interview with Stuart Scott, CIO of Microsoft. In the interview Stuart talks about his first year as CIO with Microsoft and he elaborates on wherehe sees Microsoft ITheaded in the next few years.When questioned about his goals for Microsoft IT, Stuart stated:

“…we expect to cut business complexity in half over the next three years by standardizing and simplifying our business processes, and by consolidating and eliminating redundant systems, applications and tools.”

This answer lead to a questionabout Six Sigma and what it means to him as a CIO:

PressPass: It’s said that you’re a Six Sigma “black belt.” Could you explain what that means and why it’s an asset, and tell us how you parlay that sort of expertise into success in your role as CIO?

Scott: Six Sigma is a data-driven process for making business decisions and choosing investments that help ensure a return for your business. It’s a discipline in which you use analytical tools to draw out statistically significant information. So if you’re talking to customers, for example, you want to do that in such a way that you come away with a genuine understanding of what they want, and you grasp the difference between what you could do to make those customers feel better vs. what’s critical to enabling those customers to be successful, and what’s critical to Microsoft’s growth. Using good data and analytical tools, you can invest in programs like improving the business or putting in a new information system with the confidence that you’ll achieve the desired result in terms of incremental business value. For me, that’s always measured in a ledger. Any benefit we talk about has to be quantified in a way that demonstrates increased shareholder value.