How to choose a six sigma certification?

Hi,

Choosing a Six Sigma certification provider involves finding answers to many aspects. Typically when you buy a product or service, you tend to ask many questions, similarly here too you may wish to clarify many things such as:

a. What is the credentials of the training organization? (how long they are business, how many clients/professionals advised/trained/certified, Is Six Sigma one of their main lines of business (or just an add-on service to make a quick buck - like many fly by night players do, business presence, quality, speed and transparency in providing answers to your queries and more)

b. Pricing and Value (Is the pricing fine with you / Has the program been attended by people across sectors (preferable), Talking to a few companies / colleagues who  have undergone the program and how they find it / do they provide back up / support mechanism if you have queries after training / whether they provide guidance / mentoring during the course of project etc.)

c. Service portfolio - Whether the company only offers basic level programs (or) you can upgrade with the same organization for higher level programs. Will the company's programs be acceptable to other providers in case you are enrolling with another provider for next level program. Whether they just "train" or provide a start to end road-map to also assess the project leading towards certification.

d. Trainer credentials - This is most important. At the minimum the trainer should be of next higher competency level in order to conduct the training (for eg., to train Green Belt, it is highly essential and desirable to have a Black Belt competent professional). It may be a good idea to ask for brief profile of the trainer / facilitator to review and take an informed decision.

e. Terms like International recognition are fluffy and are basically "marketing" jargon. In fact any potential employer will be less bothered about such things but really would be more interested to test and verify your depth of understanding and implementation experience so that they can judge your capability to implement Six Sigma/lean methods in real business environment

I hope this helps

Cheers!!

Sethu V

Practice Director

eXample Consulting Group

http://www.examplecg.com

Enabling Excellence!!

hello all,

i am interested in going for green belt certification and i have come to know that ISI,Dlehi offers one too.but the brochure says that the course is 3days long and i have been told by some people that the min time mandatory to award certificates according to guidelines is 5days.is this true?

besides,they are offering only CERTIFICATE OF ATTENDANCE.is this equivalant to green belt certificate,if not what do i need to achieve green belt?

i have contacted few centres in Delhi and they said that they award an internationally recognized certificates when one candidate attends their 4 days long workshop followed by a paper and pencil test on 5th day.after one passes test,he/she will awareded certificate..is this valid,will it not matter if i dont undergo any green belt project?

what's the most recommended way for green belt certificate for MBA students?

looking forward to your suggestions!!

Dear Dr. Siddharth,

Though it's been quite a while since you have posted it, still I came across it today and would like to answer.

The choice of certification depends on the course of career and type of job one intends to take up after MBA.

Suppose, one wants to get into IT security & strategy & consulting...then CISA, CISSP, CISM are the best choices.

And if telecom then..ITILv3, COBIT etc would be better

If one wants to get into Process and strategy consulting, in that case Six sigma certification would come handy...

I suggest to go to various consulting organization's website and see what they claim to be their strengths and KSP in terms of certifications of employees. It gives a fair idea what certification one should get in his choice of career.

One simple way to choose among the various certifications is to search for analyst reports on various certifications and find out which is the most sought after and what is the ROI of it. Not to forget that these certifications needs continual renewal so, even this needs to be kept in mind so that they are able to collect the required points from their job to keep it renewed.

For every certifications, there is always a global body which administers it...so i recommend to visit the site and then find the official partners from their site and then choose among them rather than trying various Indian agencies.

Hope it would help.

Regards,

Amit Tripathi

Dear Varsha,

My question regarding choosing a certification course on Six Sigma was slightly different. I wanted to know how to choose a certification course from among the several being provided in the market. So, if MBA students have to go in for a Green Belt course as Vatan as suggested, which one of the Green Belt courses should they go in for. There are so many organizations offering the course.

I think vatan has given  very appropriate answer to your question.... siddarth sir.. choice is your and as per your requirement u have to pick the six sigma certification.