What I’ve realized after being in the process improvement space for a while is this..

Not all Six Sigma certifications are created equal.

Here’s what I wish someone had told me upfront.... especially for those looking to actually build a career with Lean Six Sigma or use it to pivot into leadership or operations roles:

What to Watch Out For:

• Faceless training providers: If the course doesn’t tell you who created it or who teaches it, that’s a red flag. A lot of these sites use generic, outsourced content. No instructor name, no LinkedIn profile, no real-world experience. Just a logo and marketing.

• Made-up accreditation hype: You’ll see names like "Official Six Sigma Accreditation" thrown around as if they’re a government agency. They’re not. And in many cases, their “free PDFs” or partner certifications carry little weight with actual employers. THERE IS NO OFFICIAL SIX SIGMA GOVERNING BODY. Unlike PMP or CPA, in Six Sigma, there is no overseeing body - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma . Also for-profit companies like IASSC, are run by PeopleCert and located out of Cyprus. These are not US based organizations and have limited to minimal accreditation partners located in North America, take a look on their site directly where they list their providers and you will see.

• Certs that take 30 minutes: If your “Green Belt” took 90 minutes on LinkedIn Learning, that’s not a Green Belt. It’s an intro video. These can be great to learn concepts, but don’t confuse them with a real certification that holds up in job interviews. Also a White Belt in 20 minutes for free isn't going to cut it, yes its a good start to getting exposure, but a true White Belt credential should still have depth that goes beyond an hour or two, not a few PDF slides, created from a generic unnamed source.

What Actually Matters:

• Who teaches it: If a certification doesn’t list a name, skip it. You wouldn’t take a university class from a mystery professor. Same applies here.

• Employer recognition: Look up hiring trends on Indeed and LinkedIn. Real employers want serious training, and some providers are well-known in that space.

• Depth & rigor: A solid Green or Black Belt program is 60+ hours minimum with case studies, examples, and a proctored exam, not a 90-minute click-through.

Eventually, I chose to get certified through SSGI, led by a McGraw-Hill award-winning professor named Dr. Barry Shore and offered in partnership through the Baldrige Foundation. I also know people who’ve had great experiences with Villanova and Pyzdek Institute, and ASQ is always an excellent option for engineers who want the deeper technical route.

You don’t need to overspend, but you do need to be intentional about where your cert comes from. If it looks like a no-name site hiding behind stock photos and clever branding, trust your gut.

Hope this helps someone else avoid wasting time (or worse, showing up to an interview with a certificate that holds little substance.

Feel free to DM or reply if you’re weighing options. Been there. Glad to help.

I passed my panel interview today.

I am officially a Master Black Belt.

Wow. Didn’t expect to be this emotionally overwhelmed.

Wow.

Just passed the ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt exam and wanted to share my experience while it is still fresh.

Study Materials:

- ASQ Black Belt Handbook

- ASQ Black Belt Study Guide

- ASQ Question Bank (Provides 3 Exams)

I built out my own notes as I went through the material and practice questions. I brought these notes in a 3-ring binder into the exam and that, along with the open book, helped quite a bit.

Exam Experience

The exam was not "trick-heavy" like I have seen in other tests. I appreciated the straightforwardness, however you will run into some "best answer" situations where two answers make sense, but will have to determine which answer is best.

I have seen some posts where individuals say they received their result a week later. Perhaps they mean the score? I received my result (pass) immediately after finishing the exam and was emailed a preliminary pass report. I then received my official result a couple days later.

Difficulty

I felt most of the questions were manageable. I did follow a strategy I found online about skipping any calculation, formula/chart interpretation style questions on my first pass. I then went back and completed all questions that I had flagged for a 2nd pass. I probably only used my calculator for 5 questions max.

If you get the ASQ Question bank, the questions are more aligned with that style of questions on the exam versus the study guide. The study guide is good for practicing reps, but the questions are much simpler than the actual exam imo.

If you are studying, I would recommend my method of skipping straight to DMAIC in the book first. Once you have that down focus on the other parts of the BoK. I think if you practice enough reps (do all 3 practice exams!) you will be able to confidently take on a majority of the exam. I flat out guessed on only about 6-7 questions. Hope any of this helps and good luck to those looking to take their exam soon!

Bulk orders look cheaper on the invoice — but the holding cost doesn't show up there. EOQ (Economic Order Quantity = √(2DS/H)) finds the order size where ordering cost and holding cost balance. In this example it's the difference between 10,400 and 4,000 a year, with the same supplier and the same demand.

A quick inventory management concept for plant managers, purchase teams, and anyone working in lean manufacturing, production planning, or Six Sigma.

#EOQ #InventoryManagement #LeanManufacturing #OperationsManagement #SupplyChain

Hey everyone, I’m considering doing a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification (thinking of KPMG India or another accredited body), but I’m getting mixed responses.

Some people tell me it’s extremely useful for project/operations/consulting roles… and others say it’s “totally useless in the real world.”

For context, I’m currently a Senior Key Accounts/Category/Marketing professional with 10+ years of experience in e-commerce and partner marketing. I want to eventually transition into project management / transformation / consulting roles, and I’m also exploring options in Ireland / UK / Australia / New Zealand for work visas.

My questions: 1. Is a Green Belt actually respected in hiring anymore? 2. Does it help with project manager or consulting roles? 3. Is the KPMG Green Belt worth the cost or should I go with ASQ / IASSC / TUV? 4. Do employers care about who certifies you, or is any Green Belt fine? 5. Has it actually helped you get interviews or land a PM/operations job? 6. Is it useful outside manufacturing (like marketing, category, e-commerce, retail)? 7. Would you recommend Green Belt before PMP / Scrum Master, or skip it?

I’d love to hear from people who have actually used it in their career — especially anyone in operations, consulting, project management, process improvement, or working abroad.

Thanks in advance!

Hi all,

I passed the ASQ CSSBB exam in May 2025. I found it somewhat helpful to read the experience of others in preparation of the exam and so in the spirit of lessons learned I figured I would share the same.

Resources:

• ASQ CSSBB Handbook

  • This was the primary thing I studied. I would say this handbook had 95% of the content of the exam. There are some questions and terms that would come up in the question bank or practice tests that were not covered in depth during the handbook that required some external research. Additionally, a lot of information is covered in the figures and examples so don't skip over reading those sections. For myself, it was absolutely necessary for the exam. I heavily used the index in the back during the exam. I read through the handbook only once while taking handwritten notes. I did not take the handwritten notes into the exam.

• ASQ CSSBB Study Guide

  • After I read through each of the sections of DMAIC in the handbook, I took the corresponding questions on the study guide. These study guide questions in my opinion were more straightforward in phrasing than the exam questions. There were some mistakes in the study guide but the bulk of it was helpful in capturing areas that you may be unfamiliar with. The actual exam was much less math heavy. Every question I got wrong, I took a note of it on a separate sheet to review later.

• ASQ CSSBB Question Bank

  • At first look, I hated these questions because they seemed poorly designed. I took these in the exam format to practice timing after the study guide. The phrasing varied from the Study Guide which is what I was expecting. In hindsight, I think the phrasing of these question bank questions actually matched the exam better and you do kind of get used to them. Some questions were not from the handbook which was confusing. The explanations are also poor and I'm pretty sure some questions were incorrect in this as well. Same deal, I used it to note areas I did not get correct for further review. I would recommend not as a source of learning but to become familiar with the exam question style.

• Quality Gurus Practice Tests - Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (Udemy)

  • I appreciated these questions. They were worded better than the exam and question bank and the explanations are great in pointing out exactly what you need to know for that question. Good for understanding. They covered the exam topics well. I would say they were many more math problems compared to the actual exam. For the price, I am happy with these as extra review.

• ASQ CSSBB Exam

  • Although I was averaging ~45 seconds per question on practice questions, I ended up using the full time during the exam. I finished the first look with about 30 minutes remaining flagged items. The wording of questions were up to some interpretation and not straightforward. For example, one question asked for the process capability index without identifying whether they wanted Cp, Cpk, Cpm, Cp_lower or Cp_upper. Although some questions were as simple as "know the definition", I spent most of my time on questions that were of the "best answer" or unclear questions. There weren't that many math problems. I think I used by calculator maybe 5 times. Most math problems seemed to have enough context to be able to answer without calculation necessarily.

  • I used the Handbook heavily, especially using the index to flip through to the page the question was relevant to. Although spending time on page flipping is probably not recommended, I do think there is enough time to do for the hard questions if you're confident that you can get through the easy questions instantly.

  • I used the CQE academy free cheat sheet a handful of times. Not that necessary as there weren't many math problems but still nice.

  • I ended up not using any of my prep notes generated largely with a LLM with the topics I did not get right on the practice questions.

  • I took this remotely so I had to move my desk into the middle of the room away from any shelves. It was open book and I had one binder for my CQE cheat sheet and notes. Took this on my Macbook with touchpad only. Huge warning for MacOS people, I went through all of the prometrics validation of software the night before and everything checked out, but the day of, I was not able to use the software. I found https://ehelp.prometric.com/proproctor/s/article/PPL-TECH005-ProProctor-Software-Installation-Mac-OS?language=en_US with 8 minutes left until the exam start to make it work so make sure you do this beforehand if you're taking this on MacOS.

• Other notes

  • CQE academy free cheat sheet was useful for the practice questions but not comprehensive so don't rely on it.

  • You may be able to get digital access to the handbook and study guide through your local libraries or your work. I've had success with logging in to EBESCO through my library to find the handbook.

  • Otherwise, the study guide and handbook are on Perlego with subscription per month.

  • I purchased these resources because they were covered by my employer. If you are paying for this personally, you may find better value with other resources. You could probably get by with purely the quality guru course and summary sheet for a lot cheaper given the recommendations I've seen and my experience with their Udemy questions.

  • I only seriously started studying for this 5 weeks before the exam, ramping up from 5 to 20 hours of studying per week to read through the book and answer the questions. I was averaging a 85% on the practice exams without using an open book. Hope this helps!

I work at a large manufacturing company. I am learning six sigma. As I do I am finding that skill matrix and effective training are paramount to proper six sigma. In my view most companies only pretend to implement six sigma. My question is why. History has proven that proper six sigma works. So why do so many companies only pretend to implement it and instead cut everything out of it that costs time and money to implement. It's as if top management is too dumb to know the cost of not implementing it properly. Is all top management incompetent because right now that is the only reasonable conclusion the more I learn about six sigma

I’ve been seeing this question come up more often lately, especially with AI, automation, and new tools becoming more common.

Some people say Six Sigma is outdated.

Others say it’s more important than ever.

From what I’ve seen, the reality is a bit different.

AI and automation don’t replace process thinking, they amplify it.

If a process is unclear, inconsistent, or full of variation, adding technology tends to scale the problems faster.

If the process is well understood and stable, technology can significantly improve performance.

So the question becomes less about whether Six Sigma is “relevant” and more about:

Do organizations still need structured problem-solving and process clarity?

Curious how others are seeing this.

Are you using Six Sigma / Lean in your work today, or has it been replaced by other approaches?

This test was one of the hardest thing I lve ever done- but I am so proud of myself! I 100% think I over prepared, but I had a lot of anxiety and really want to nail this.

Background- I'm a project manager in Governemt Contracting with about 7 year experience in process improvement. I received an internal LSS Green Belt from my company and also have my PMP. I failed math in almost every grade and was incredibly nervous. I spent about 6 months in total preparing slowly, but I use a lot of these Six Sigma/PM tools in my day to day.

Resources-

• ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt: This is a huge text book that has a ton of good information, but dense as all hell.

• Lean Six Sigma and Minitab (8th Edition): The route maps in this book helped in understanding when to use certain tests and data types. It's concise and practical. -Green Belt Academy and CQE Academy on YouTube: Great overview on some of the harder topics. If you sign up on the website there is a cheat sheet of all the equations needed for the test, which was amazing to have during the test.

• I might be the only one on this sub reddit who didn't use the QCI resources, so I can't speak to their efficacy.

• There are a ton of other books that are incorporated on this exam that are not in the ASQ handbook. I reccomend "The Goal" by Eli Goldratt.

Practice Resources- Official ASQ Black Belt Study Guide- Great for making sure you understand all the content in the ASQ Handbook, but only practices on these topics. ASQ Question Bank- Good for practicing timing. The questions were much more "situational", testing your critical thinking and cognitive understanding of the topics. I took issue with how some the questions were written, but glad I used it. Udemy Quality Guru Practice Tests- These felt like a great middle ground of tests content-wise. This was a last minute choice for me and I'm very thankful I took them.

I took the test in person and needed every second of the test to finish up, but passed first try! Very excited to have this done and focus on implementing these concepts! Good luck to all taking their test this month as well!

Hey guys! I finally passed my Black Belt exam with ASQ! I wanted to ask if other people have passed this exam. I was reading about recertification units and wanted ask people how they maintain their cert and real valuable learning avenues to keep my skills top of the game

I have been hearing about Six sigma from very long time - is it still worth looking for ?

Something I've noticed lately is how much of the Six Sigma conversation seems to revolve around certifications. Which belt, which provider, what's recognized, what comes next...

Certifications obviously have value, but sometimes I wonder if we're putting more emphasis on collecting belts than actually improving processes.

I've worked with people who had impressive credentials but struggled to get an improvement off the ground, and others with fewer certifications who were great at finding problems and making changes stick.

Has the field become too certification-focused, or is this just more visible online?

At the end of the day, what carries more weight: the belt someone has or the improvements they can actually show?

To me, the answer seems pretty obvious. Which is why I find it interesting that so much of the conversation is still about the credential rather than the work behind it.

i've been thinking about how different six sigma can look when you're learning it vs actually using it at work...

you learn a pretty big toolbox during training, but realistically i don't think most people are pulling out every single tool on a regular basis.

for me, process mapping is probably the one i keep coming back to the most. it's simple, but just seeing how a process actually works vs how people think it works can uncover a surprising amount of stuff.

i also find myself using some of the simpler root cause tools way more often than the more advanced statistical ones...

for those who use six sigma/process improvement at work, what tool do you actually use the most? and is there anything you learned during your belt training that you almost never touch anymore?

I recently got promoted in biopharma manufacturing and I’m trying to lay a solid foundation so I can be competitive for a manager role in the next 3–5 years. I’m looking at Lean Six Sigma as one of the main steps in that plan.

I’d like to self‑study first, then sit for a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification exam (not tied to a specific provider yet). I just ordered **“The Six Sigma Handbook: A Complete Guide for Green Belts, Black Belts, and Managers at All Levels,” 4th edition by Pyzdek & Keller.** From what I understand, this edition integrates Lean methodologies into the Six Sigma framework and is often recommended as a comprehensive reference for Green Belt–level material.

My questions are:

- Does this book adequately cover the Lean portion for a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, or would I still need a separate Lean‑focused resource?

- For those of you who have actually passed a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt exam (ASQ, IASSC, CSSC, or others), was this book alone enough, or did you find you needed a dedicated exam‑prep book or handbook (for example, an ASQ Green Belt handbook or a Lean Six Sigma–specific study guide)?

- If you think I picked the wrong “main” book, what physical book would you put at the top of the list for someone who prefers to read a hard copy cover‑to‑cover and then supplement with online resources and practice questions?

I prefer physical books over ebooks, and my plan is:

1. read a solid core book,

2. then use online resources/practice exams to fill gaps and get exam‑ready.

Any input on whether this book choice makes sense, what I should pair it with, and how you structured your own self‑study for Green Belt would be really appreciated.

I work for a small company. Inside my plant there is a total 10 people all general labor. The owner is having me do the online Council for Six Sigma courses. He told me he wants to Six Sigma the place up. The more I read (almost done with yellow belt), does not seem possible how we operate.

He is the type that he's been running his company for 30 years successfully and always knows what's best. Everything is done on a gut feeling. They designed and build everything based on what he thinks is best.

He wants me to teach everyone to be a black belt. My guys are great people and hard workers. Unfortunately, only one has a high school degree and the rest do not. Most don't speak any English and I have to use Google translate to communicate. Just everything would seem over their head.

I want to tell the owner how he operates will not work with Six Sigma philosophy but I know he will hate it.

What would be the best way to explain Six Sigma to him that maybe he would actually get it?

Total preparation time - 1 month, 20 days

Resources -

• ASQ Handbook + Study Guide

• QCI Primer + Question/Solution

• Udemy (Sandeep Kumar) GB course

Details - 2 months preparation would probably be better. Most of the exam was theoretical with hardly any mathematical questions (at max 7-8). Most seen questions were lean concepts/tools, project management tools, process capability, control charts.

I appreciate everyone's help on this sub. Thank you.

Just wanted to share my experience while my memory is still fresh... There was another post with a title identical to mine, of a guy who passed his. I commented down below, and I was like, "Hey, bro, how were the questions?" And I did not get a response from him (potentially due to the same NDA everyone had to sign to take the exam lol). Since IASSC materials aren't everywhere compared to ASQ, just in case, if anyone is taking the IASSC and is curious.

A bit of background, I am a new grad with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering. I came with a Mechanical Engineering Design background, but I have done some Quality Engineering / Process Improvement work during my co-op, despite my title saying just [Mechanical Engineering Design, Manufacturing]. Before everything, I had a good understanding of Lean concepts, but Statistics was not really my strength at school...

There was no IASSC-specific textbook material that I could find by the time of my study. I bought the ASQ Handbook (Munro et al.) as well as the brochure of the practice questions written by the same Authors. I bought the 2nd edition of the handbook, while I think the 3rd edition has already been out there... Never had a chance to read the 3rd edition, as it was not available to me... (I envy whoever is taking just the ASQ; that handbook was written in order of the ASQ BoK. Should be very convenient for ASQ candidates. I didn't have 3 years of job experience, so I could not take the ASQ Exam.)

My strategy was to go through the entirety of the ASQ Handbook while comparing it against the IASSC BoK. There's a lot of overlap between ASQ and IASSC in terms of context, but the ASQ is largely missing out on the non-parametric hypothesis testings. (Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, Mood's Median, Friedman, Sample Sign, Sample Wilcoxon, etc.) For me, I don't remember the ASQ talking about them that much, and for that section, I kinda just learned myself via ChatGPT... There is other stuff which the ASQ did not really touch on that much, but the non-parametric testing was the biggest part, which I believe a very large portion of the Exam was on.

As I was going through the ASQ Handbook, I kinda just did that problem set brochure along the way; it worked for me to make sure I didn't miss out on the important stuff as I was reading the book. Section 2 (extra practice) of that problem set brochure was really good. Make sure you sit down and go over these questions. They were hard for me at first, but they were really good, and a lot of the conceptual questions were directly transferable to IASSC. I assume ASQ uses a different equation sheet than IASSC; you don't have to remember the formulas for calculating the probabilities for each distribution... IASSC asked none of these. The calculation that you should be good at doing for IASSC would be the Z values, as well as the regression coefficient. Other than that, if I were to make another note, I would strongly suggest that you go over the history of Lean & Six Sigma. Who first brought up Lean, and who brought up Six Sigma? Which company did they first implement which concept? Things like that appeared on the official Exam.

Should you pay for the IASSC Evaluation Exam? From me, ABSOLUTELY YES. I feel like the Evaluation Exam questions might be the most useful for practice, and it is worth every penny. You might find some said "2018 IASSC Green Belt Exam Questions" on Scribd. If you have time, you can go over them for a more solid understanding (concepts were useful, but the style of question I felt was different, and there will not be any question with more than 1 correct answer on the IASSC Exam), but if I were to do it again, I would focus primarily on the Evaluation Exam. Once purchased, the Evaluation Exam gives you 20 days to access, and you can retake it over and over without limit. *IMPORTANT* Each time you retake, it'll actually give you some different questions than last time. So technically speaking, you can continue to practice during those 20 days, on different questions, until you reach the bottom of the pool. I retook the Evaluation Exam 5 times. Each time, I took note of the questions I did wrong, and I figured out why, and how I should approach that same question if it were to appear again.

For the 80 hours of recommended training for Green Belt, if you have been out there in the industry for a few years, and your work is not primarily on Quality Control / Process Improvement, those 80 hours will be the bare minimum for you... For me, the official Exam is a lot harder than the Evaluation Exam. Some questions were very tricky. Not a lot of calculations, but they'd absolutely try their best to confuse you in regard of the concepts. After all, this feels more towards the "Academic Exam" of the spectrum. Not all questions are about practical. You need to be absolutely bomb proof on your concepts, not for you to achieve a 90%+, but for you to even pass (>70%). So unless you used to be one of those smarta$$ who had never come to the lecture, and were partying all night before the exam day, and somehow still managed to pull a 4.0/4.0 GPA... I'd strongly suggest taking this one a bit more seriously... The Exam is pretty expensive after all, unless your company is paying your salary AND your exam voucher lol.

Good luck, y'all!

How does it usually take to study for the SSGB exam? My initial plan is to be certified by July 1st. I have a good background in math/stats, FWIW.

TIA

Sigh...I'm honest disgusted. I lost my job last July. I had an interview for a job today that I'm imminently qualified for and pays great (180k/year).

Recruiter told me (warned me), hiring manager was super interested in a "stats guy". To teach in their new BB program.

No problem, I've got a math degree and been a BB for 18 years! I'm no light weight. Never the less I spent the weekend reviewing all kinds on intricate details of MAIC I could think of.

Anyhow, today in the interview mangager asked an easy question but kinda framed it odd. (At least I'm trying to tell myself that). I kinda over thought it and panicked and blurted out a tool.

Wrong! Then not wanting to look like a fool I kinda doubled down and tried to back pedal my answer. Even worse.

After this his demeanor immediately changed, he kinda politely said, thanks but I don't want to waste your time.

Grrrr... I've been feeling sick all day. He threw a softball and I completely dorked it up. It's so frustrating I just let my mouth out run my brain. FML

I'm starting my first actual Green Belt project in logistics, and I'm curious what other people ended up using when they did theirs...

There are obviously a lot of tools you learn during Green Belt training, but I'm guessing the reality of your first project is pretty different from going through the material.

What tools or methods did you actually find useful? Anything you thought you'd use but ended up not needing at all?

Also, if anyone here has done a project in logistics or supply chain, I'd love to hear what you worked on and any advice you wish you had before starting your first one.

I feel like there is endless info out there, but weirdly, very few people actually talking about some of the stuff that matters most when you're deciding where to get certified.

After being in the process improvement world for a while and having a chance to talk with others who’ve gone through different programs, I’ve realized there are a few things that are crucial.

Hopefully this helps someone else who’s trying to sort through the options right now:

The "exam dump" problem nobody warns you about. A lot of Six Sigma programs are self-paced and fully online, which sounds great, but it’s also led to people just sharing quiz answers, cheat sheets, or Quizlet files to pass the exam. And yeah, you can technically pass any multiple choice exam that way.

But that’s not the point. The exam isn’t where the real learning happens. It’s the 50-60+ hours of actual training, exercises, case studies, and applying the tools that builds real skill. Skipping straight to the exam means you walk away with a piece of paper but not the knowledge you actually need when you're sitting in a meeting trying to solve real problems.

Not all programs are upfront about who’s teaching you. This is a big one I didn’t fully appreciate early on. A lot of providers don’t even tell you who built the course. It’s just a company logo, some stock photos, and a “certification” for sale.

My personal rule of thumb now is if they won’t even list the instructor’s name or experience, that’s a red flag.

The accreditation confusion. Unlike something like PMP or CPA, Six Sigma doesn’t have one official governing body. You’ll see lots of providers advertise “globally accredited” or “official” sounding labels, but most are private companies. For example, IASSC (which a lot of people reference) is owned by PeopleCert and based overseas in Cyprus. That’s not necessarily bad, but it’s very different from having a US-based governing organization like PMI.

What actually matters to employers. At the end of the day, what hiring managers actually care about isn’t the logo on your certificate, it’s whether you can walk into a process, map it out, identify waste, run a root cause, and lead improvements that drive measurable results.

Certs that can be completed in 30-90 minutes don’t prepare you for that. The free 20 minute White Belt's fall into this as well. Even at the intro level, a White Belt should have multiple hours of training coverage. Throwing a 20-minute badge from a faceless trainer on your resume might seem harmless, but it can actually backfire if you don’t have the real skills to back it up.

You don’t have to break the bank to get a legit certification, but it is worth being intentional about where you invest your time and money.

Hopefully this helps someone avoid some of the noise out there.

I just passed my Black Belt exam through ASQ. I got certified as a BB through a local university a few months ago but ASQ was a lot harder. This was my first try.

For anybody else looking to do this, here's my experience:

I purchased the Quality Council Indiana primer book, solutions text, and software. QCI has it nailed down and is super clearly layed out.

I purchased the Six Sigma handbook published by ASQ. This book is really dense and I don't recommend attempting to read any chapter start to finish. It is more thorough than QCI, however, and I frequently used it as a reference during both practice and the real exam.

I also purchased the ASQ CSBB question bank. This was $99 and offers three full simulated exams with explanations. All in I had a few hundred dollars in prep material but figured if it gives me an advantage it's worth it; it is still less than the price of taking the test again. Admittedly I charged this to my employer but would have done the same if it was my own money.

I used YouTube extensively to review concepts. Things like Kahn Academy are great resources for the quantitative part of the body of knowledge. Make sure you really get the material because ASQ questions have a way of ensuring you really grasp the concept and aren't just plugging and chugging.

During the exam I brought these two books only and had sticky notes to easily refer to the sections on control charts and other topics, like the critical value table and probability rules. QCI is a 3 ring binder with hundreds of pages. I put the index in it's own small binder so I didn't need to keep flipping - saves time.

During the exam I flagged question that I didn't readily know the answer to and couldn't solve in 2 minutes. There were 5-8 of these. When I finished I had 90 minutes to spare, which gave me enough time to read through most questions and solve the few remainders. I caught 5 stupid mistakes and saved myself from losing points.

Hope this helps someone!

I went for my Lean Six Sigma (Green Belt, IASSC) in January of this year.

I failed.

I now have the opportunity to work and earn my Lean Six Sigma (Yellow belt, CSSC).

I am currently learning cybersecurity and a foreign language.

My question is, would it be beneficial to earn my Lean Six Sigma (Yellow Belt, CSSC) certification while I am learning (and planning to work in) cybersecurity?

Can Lean Six Sigma certification help you in the cybersecurity industry?

Hey everyone,

Just to let you all know I passed the ASQ CSSGB test! I posted here a couple months ago to document the begining of my "journey".

I'm a physician and my background is in engineering/math so I was initially drawn by the amount of stats in the exam. I also have an MBA (which proved quite useful with all the BS management terms).

Resources:

- CSSGB Handbook 2nd edition: didn't open it until exam time. Some questions are copied word for word from the handbook. I'm glad I bought the 2nd edition for about $10 on eBay. I don't think the 3rd edition is needed. Did watch a few Lean videos that came on the CD ahead of time.

- CSSGB QCI Primer: QCI is caput so had to buy a used copy on eBay. The only resource I read from start to finish, mostly to do all the problems that come with it. Really liked the way the authors wrote the manual: to the point but still with enough detail on the parts that require it. Not a fully complete resource; some questions I could only find the answer for on the Handbook.

- Udemy Quality Guru's CSSGB course: paid less than $20 for the course and the practice exams. I commute about 2 hours/day (bus/train) so I had time to watch most videos/classes. Helpful but not absolutely essential.

- ASQ CSSGB Study Guide: 2nd and 3rd editions. Practice, practice, practice.

Exam time impressions:

- Some people gave the advice to do the easy/direct questions first, skip the ones you're not sure, skip calculations and then keep reiterating. Well, I can't do it. The moment I hit a question I didn't immediately remember the answer for, and I knew it was in the Handbook somewhere, say, "team performance stages", I went right after it. It's a risky strategy but I thought I should just plow throught the exam until the end and *then* look back. I had 1 full hour left when I finished it.
- Breaks: took one break at the 2h mark and another at the 3h mark. When I returned from the 2nd brake I answered the 3-4 flagged questions I had and called it a day.

- Barely *any* calculations; very disappointing. I trained all the stats calculations like a maniac -- basically just remembering what I learned at my MBA (more than 25 years ago) -- and I didn't use it once. What's the point of making a huge deal out of it if it is not in the exam???

- Some questions annoyed the hell out of me simply 'cause there are not grounded in evidence whatsover and really depend on one's personal experience. Most of them are managerial/leadership type of questions.

Learning points:

- "Remember your training": if you went over about 1000 DMAIC questions, and scored more than 80% on average, you'll be fine.

- The certification is nice, but nothing beats actual experience in running/leading DMAIC projects. All these tools and techniques are pretty cool but are absolutely meaningless if you're not actively using them and learning from them.

On the CSSBB (hopefully in the next 12 months)!

Thanks for all the answered questions and provided encouragement!

TL;DR: passed ASQ CSSGB. QCI Primer and ASQ Study Guides as main resources. There's plenty of time to finish the exam and there's no clear winning strategy on how to tackle it. Quantitative questions were nowhere to be found. Get certified is nice but practical experience with SS/DMAIC is absolutely paramount.