Today I’d like to cover a third in a series of showing how other Six Sigma Green Belt candidates prepared for and passed their exam. If you missed Jon’s and Dana’s examples, be sure to check them out, too.
Let’s hear from Bryan;
Subject: Exam passed!
Hey Ted,
Thanks for the discount for your program. I passed my OSU cert today. The areas I had most trouble with (SPC, MSA, etc.) were clarified with your program.
Bryan H
Thanks again!
Congratulations, Bryan!
Bryan was able to complete his Six Sigma Green Belt certification in just a few short months. After congratulating Bryan, I asked him about what worked well for him and what he would tell others pursuing the same goal. I also asked if he could go back in time, what would he tell himself as he prepared.
Let’s walk through what he had to say:
I think the thing that I’d tell myself is the quote you sent out that said don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough. I was so caught up in trying to know every detail for every topic it inhibited me from focusing on the larger concepts. Once I started your course it provided very detailed information but the quizzes kept it high level, which made me shift in my thinking of how to prepare.
I think if I started out with the idea of understand the concept first and then delve deeper into topics, I would have saved myself a lot of time. I tried every single studying method from rereading notes to notecards to all of it.
The one thing that worked for me was the Feynman technique or basically explain it in your own words how it works or explain like you’re telling a 5 year old what it was. I wasn’t able to do that bc I got caught up in details rather than concepts. I knew the name of the thing but didn’t understand it.
Thanks!
Bryan H
What Can We Learn From Bryan?
There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s dive in.
Passing a Certification Exam is About Getting a High Enough Score
I know. That sentence is so obvious, why am I even mentioning it??
I call it out because something happens to us when we see certification exams. We tie so much of our hopes and dreams and needs for passing the certification that we step away from the basics.
And the basics are simple; you need to score enough points to pass.
It doesn’t matter where the points come from.
It doesn’t mean scoring perfectly.
It means leveraging the time and resources you have now to pass that exam so you can spend that time and resources doing the next thing once this is out of your way.
An excellent way to do this is to have a good understanding of the overall material and how all of the larger parts tie together before you dive down into the specifics.
Speaking of diving down into the specifics….
Segment Your Studying
Once you have a strong understanding of the basics, it’s time to figure out how to get more points on your your exam grade.
A great way to do this is to take an assessment exam and see how you’re performing. Chances are that you’ll be strong in some areas, weak in some areas.
If there’s one secret I would impart it’s this: you can score more points by increasing your weak areas that you can by learning every last item in your strong areas.
My Pass Your Six Sigma Green Belt program is all about enabling this. I provide a way to take a baseline assessment and the system grades you and automatically tells you which areas you are weakest in.
With the results of a baseline exam in hand, start to look at your biggest areas of opportunity. For example, if you scored poorly in the Measure Phase, it’s unlikely you were terrible at all of it – so why devote your precious study hours to all of it? Why not focus in on parts that you need the most help with?
That’s the next part of the Pass Your Six Sigma Green Belt program; you can study the specific areas you need help with the most. With dozens of topic and sub-topic quizzes you can tailor your studying to exactly what you need.
The Easiest Ways to Improve Your Weak Areas
I cover the Feyman technique in my 6 week Green Belt Review course. If you missed that, not to worry, I’ll have a way to go through it again shortly.
For now, let’s focus on a cycle you can use to improve your understanding on anything:
- Learn
- Describe
- Validate
Learn
Let’s assume you’ve taken a Six Sigma training course or have learned the material on your own.
Describe
Sit down with a blank sheet of paper and write everything you know as if you wanted to explain it to a colleague or a friend.
That technique of simply trying to write what you know in order to learn is exactly how I built the entire site. The SixSigmaStudyGuide.com website began as me trying to organize and elaborate / cross-link my own study notes in order to gain some kind of comprehension. Worked well!!
Validate
Chances are that when you sit to write down everything you know on a topic you’ll discover that you have holes in your understanding. That’s great! You’ve just discovered what you need to learn! That’s your validation of how prepared you are.
Another way to validate your understanding is to have people ask you questions on that material.
In terms of preparing for a Six Sigma certification exam this means taking a lot of practice questions, practice quizzes, and practice exams.
How You Can Pass Your Six Sigma Green Belt Certification
Sign up for my studying program called Pass Your Six Sigma Green Belt.
Inside there you get access to 1000 questions, dozens of mock quizzes, full walkthroughs of all questions, access to instructors, and several full-length mock exams. Plus a bunch of other things.
Sale Ends This Week!
We’re in the last week of my End of Summer sale so you can get 20% off if you buy now. There’s a 100% refund guarantee inside the first 30 days if you don’t like what you see in there, so you’re protected.
You Don’t Pass, You Don’t Pay!
Also, on 2 of the tiers there’s a 100% guarantee that if you do all of the assignments and pass the practice quizzes and mock exams with high enough grades, I’ll fully guarantee that you’ll pass your exam.
If you do all of the work, and you still don’t pass, that’s on me – at that point I’m happy to refund you the entire cost.
I hope this helps. Let me know if there are any questions I can answer.