I’m looking for a job and a couple of the job ads have mentioned the six sigma approach. I’m doing some research but I’m wondering if anyone has any experiences they can share about using six sigma or incorporating it into their job, especially a quality focused role?
Also if you have any resources on the approach that you love, I’d love to see them
I did an internal 3-month secondment back in 2014 and joined a process improvement team. I had the title “Business Excellent Manager”. And here’s how I describe it on LinkedIn.
On a secondment from Gumtree to (to ebay) to learn about the DMAIC project methodology. I introduced teams to Agile & Scrum and helped improve the operational capabilities of stakeholders. I ran process mapping sessions and provided project support for shipping and content management projects.
DMAIC was just one tool in the Six Sigma tool kit.
It was interesting because there were some similarities between the world of Agile & Scrum — and improving quality by testing the process. Although it was all about process and optimisation in a space which focused on not deviating from “the norm” and tracking those deviations. So in that sense, it was more predictable than software – even though for some processes there were 3rd parties involved who used software in the process.
I found DMAIC moderately interesting and useful. Although it did feel a little old-school and waterfall-like. Again, context matters. I don’t think DMAIC works that well in a software development context.