By: Paul Naysmith
06/02/2011
I greatly believe in training. I have been fortunate to work in businesses that also believed in having trained and qualified professionals in their organization. I have personally and professionally benefited from that philosophy, and I have gained new knowledge as a result.
Since graduating from university, the most time-consuming and costly training I have been asked to undertake was my lean Six Sigma Black Belt training. The training comprised nearly 50 hours of e-learning, six residential sessions over six months, and submission of two projects demonstrating all the tools and techniques that I learned. The instructors were excellent, and often I was reminded that I was going to learn more than 140 tools and techniques during the course. I used this number to brag to others about how proficient I was going to become.
I don’t think I have even 10 hand tools in my garage, but if having loads of hand tools makes an excellent garage, it follows that having lots of lean Six Sigma tools would make an excellent employee. After my training, though, I found that I favored techniques that were simple and effective. So taking a “lean” view of my skills, it could be argued that many of them were valueless since I was selecting and using only what would bring value.