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| MoreNews about Lean Six Sigma August 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Grayscaling of Black Belts A Blur of Color When You Compare  Whether folklore or truth, the origin of the black belt is commonly referenced back to early martial artists who began their training wearing a white belt. The belief is that the pristine white belt became stained black over time from sweat, dirt, and blood. The Lean Six Sigma belt ranking system loosely follows the ancient martial arts philosophy where a practitioner's competence and skill level is marked by the color of the belt. The analogy should follow that the darker the LSS belt, the more sweat was poured forth in its achievement. However, the analogy doesn't hold true in its entirety.Since there is no centralized governing body responsible for establishing and enforcing consistent requirements for the various LSS belt levels, one can find just about every shade of gray in the "Black Belt" palette. A real project or a simulated case study? One project or two? Manual calculations or spreadsheet templates? A quick scan of several certification providers demonstrates the discrepancies in the requirements candidates must meet. Review the comparison of several well known providers. Evaluators Find More Errors With a Red Pen
The Pen is Mightier Than the Word: Object Priming of Evaluative Standards by A. M. Rutchick, M. L. Slepian, and B. D. Ferris  Results from a thought provoking set of recent studies provides evidence that the use of red pens induces harsher evaluations. Abraham Rutchick and his co-researchers found that people using red pens to correct essays marked more errors and awarded lower grades than people using blue pens.In the abstract published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, the authors claim that "the very act of picking up a red pen can bias their (teachers') evaluations." While the authors acknowledge concern over the negative connotations and the effect of red ink on students, they express greater concern about the effect of red pens on teachers.
When did finding errors become a bad thing? The studies suggest that if we put down our red pens, we'll find less errors. That would be marching to mediocrity. If we're striving for quality, we need to correct and prevent errors, not overlook them. Pick up the red pen and think about buying a couple extra ones. Read the abstract of the research studies.
RESOURCES FREE Summer MBB Webcast  Register for the final live session in MoreSteam's free continuing-education summer series for Master Black Belts, Black Belts, and all interested Lean Six Sigma practitioners. Just because it's summer doesn't mean you should take a vacation from improving your skill set.
Smita Skrivanek, MoreSteam.com
Thurs., 8/26 @ 11:00 AM (EDT)
View recordings of previous Webcasts in this series:
• "Building Discipline Around the DMAIC Methodology: Tollgate Review Best Practices" Dr. Scott Sink, The Ohio
State University
Dr. Lars Maaseidvaag,
MoreSteam.com  More Chat about Core Process Pull
 Q: What about applying the pull system to product development, where design of features and functions are the WIP?A: This may be the very best application area for Core Process Pull. Perhaps the two biggest factors in making product development processes unstable are the high task variation and status updates. High
task variation comes from the fact that the development of one feature
or product may take much longer than the development of another
feature. In a manufacturing environment, or a repetitive transactional
environment, the amount of task variation is relatively low. In
development work, this task variation can be extremely high.
 Since the time of the Ancient Greeks, philosophers have debated about how we make decisions. Some are emotional and some are rational, right? It turns out that, as modern scientists work to uncover the mysteries of the human brain, the truth is far more complex – and fascinating. In his book How We Decide, author Jonah Lehrer tackles the complex issues surrounding exactly how we make the important and the daily decisions in our lives. Lehrer begins by distilling the most recent lab research to show what scientists have learned about the brain itself. Armed with this knowledge, he then leads us through a dizzying array of scenarios – flying, sports, warfare, poker, investment, firefighting – to show how the brain makes decisions in the context of the real world. In the end, he returns to his main thesis, the most vital question of all: can we use this accumulated knowledge and experience to help us make better decisions in our own lives? How We Decide shows we can. Are You Social?
 If you're looking to join the buzz on Six Sigma and Lean, check out Social Six Sigma.
You can read a variety of blogs and are encouraged to enter your own.
Active logs of tweets from the #sixsigma and #lean streams also
appear on the site. |
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