Just Say No to White Belts

Where do you draw the line between certification and certi-fiction?

Sometimes it’s interesting to watch trends develop from the relatively safe perch of business media. A press release from Aveta Business Institute last week drew my attention because it wasn’t doing what 99.9 percent of all press releases do: selling something. Instead of announcing a new product, or even an old one dressed up to look like new, Aveta was offering an opinion.

The press release’s longish subhead declared: “Aveta Business Institute Announces Their Opposition to the Concept of Six Sigma White Belt Certification, Calling It Unnecessary, and Decides Firmly Against Offering It as Part of Their Coursework.”

Now that was interesting. Nothing makes a journalist sit up and pay attention like a possible scrap. “Opposition,” “unnecessary,” “firmly against”—them’s fightin’ words, or so I hoped.

The White Belt concept was new to me, so I checked online to see what I’d been missing.

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Comments

You don't need belts to improve

A number of years ago I got my Black Belt and Master Black Belt. I consider my self reformed from the whole belt program. The truth is you don't need certifications to improve in business. Other than the use of SPC and DOE, most six sigma tools provide little insight. I believe Drs. Don Wheeler and Frony Ward would support me on this.

Our biggest challenge is changing our thinking about the design and management of work. Most of the improvement efforts today address process improvement over system improvement. Evidence can be seen by the functional separation of work that still exists and other things like targets, decisions separated from the work, etc. Until we focus on these things we are doing little more than rearranging the chairs on the Tiotanic.

Tripp Babbitt

Certification serve a purpose

While I believe that the martial arts terminology is unfortunate and even a bit silly, I also believe that professional recognition serves an important purpose. If the certification is rigorous (a big if, I admit,) then it signals mastery of a well-defined body of knowledge to prospective employers. The employers can then validate the certification with interview questions, their own proctored tests, project completion requirements within their own organization, etc.. But without the initial certification credential it's difficult for the professional to describe their level of proficiency, and equally difficult for employers to assess the job candidate. I've just finished reviewing a draft ISO standard on Six Sigma which, I believe, does a good job of defining the body of knowledge and curricula for Green Belt and Black Belt training. This is an important first step, and long overdue. Of course, the questions of training, testing, project completion and certification remain to be answered. I don't think any third-party organization will ever be able to remove the responsibility of the student and the employer for carefully researching various training and certification providers and making an informed choice on their own.

Thomas Pyzdek

https://www.pyzdekinstitute.com/lean-six-sigma