Six Sigma For Managers

Rating:
Summary: There must be better out there
Review: Bought this as a first introduction. It's very, very, high level. Maybe to the point of useless. Six Sigma does have, at it's core, some statistics - it would be useful for anyone trying to learn the approach to understand a few of the basic statistical concepts. There are mistakes in the few numerical examples that are offered, probably creating more confusion than insight.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Introduction to Six Sigma
Review: I was asked by my CEO to find a good boot camp book to give to key employees of the company. This was a great introduction to Six Sigma. We have contacted the author to help guide our company on our six sigma journey. I would recommend this as the starter book into the six sigma world. By the way, after 6 months with the authors company (SSC) we have over $2 million in savings.

Rating:
Summary: Not credible
Review: Thought I would get a good overview of the topic, to understand what it is, so I can decide when to dive in deeper.

But after reading the first two chapters the author has lost total credibility, and I won't waste my time on the rest of the book. It talks all about the wonderful savings Six Sigma will give you, and totally ommits that there is cost involved in doing it. If done well, yes there's positive bottom-line impact, but especially as a manager I want to know what the ROI is, and not just get glory words on the upside, but also a realistic view of the downside.

What killed it for me was the side bar that assumed that if a employee costs $50K, and her activities produce $100K in revenue that the ROI of having this employee is 100%!! If the activities would have produced $100K in net profit, then this would be more accurate. So lets get the basics right, so that we have credibility to talk about the rest.