The most rewarding experience I have running SixSigmaStudyGuide.com is when people pass their exams. I love to see people’s hard work rewarded. Here’s a note that shows how Jon Strein passed the ASQ Six Sigma Green Belt Exam on his first try.
Jon’s Note
Dear Ted,
I took and passed the ASQ CSSGB exam earlier today (Aug. 10) on the first try. I’ve used your six sigma study guide study program for about 6 months now, to prepare. The articles, videos, study quizzes and mock exams have been top notch, and were well worth the time, effort, and subscription fee (the past 6 weeks) to prepare for the exam.
I have recommended your study guide program to others, as it is a helpful resource. Thank you for putting this study guide together…I will be on board again I when it is time to prepare for the black belt exam.
Jon Strein. PMP, CSSGB
Best Regards,
Isn’t that awesome?!?!
After thanking Jon for his kind words I asked him to share his thoughts, tips, and practices. And boy did he deliver!
Jon’s Background:
I have 12 years practical, hands on experience after achieving a Master’s Degree in Analytial Chemistry performing Lean Six Sigma improvement projects, performing data analysis via Excel and Minitab, and writing end-user customer reports summarizing outcomes and recommending follow-up steps and projects.
This experience has facilitated learning the Six Sigma BOK and the Sixsigmastudyguide.com (the web site) content.
Jon Strein
Jon’s ASQ Six Sigma Green Belt Exam Preparation:
Below is a list summarizing (Jon’s) exam preparation steps:
- “Completed a two week LSSGB (4 hours per class, 10 days) boot camp in Feb, then waited until after passing the PMP exam on June 26.
- www.eCGmn.com, the Director of Training is Ms. Violin Hughes 312-804-0772.
- They were helpful in answering questions and helped me to keep on schedule by reviewing and approving my study plan for both courses before taking the exam.
- Reviewed all free lessons from “StatStuff” (published by Matt Hansen) in February to complement the boot camp materials.
- Editor’s note: Will be including Matt’s videos in many of the pages on this site.
- Subscribed to the Six Sigma Study Guide website, which he used to browse and read LSSGB content in his spare time from Feb through July.
- “With 6 weeks of full time studying to follow your program, scheduled the exam within the August testing window to ensure completion before the end of summer. Devoted 30-40 hours a week during this 6 week period of intensive study.”
- “Read the assignments from your website, and the CSSGB Primer BOK (State of Indiana) and Lean Six Sigma Minitab reference materials from cover to cover.
- Editor’s note: the Minitab reference can be found when signing up for their’ 30 day free trial here.
As you can see, Jon is an accomplished professional and applied that professionalism to pursuing his Six Sigma Green belt certification.
Jon’s Feedback on preparing for the ASQ Six Sigma Green Belt Exam:
Reflecting on the journey, below are some lessons learned: (text from Jon, commentary from me.)
Deadlines enforce discipline
There’s a litany of popular business phrases surrounding the idea of committing to a deadline to make things happen. “Burn the boats.” “Jump and the net will appear.” While not applicable to all situations I’ve certainly seen that committing to a deadline helps make things happen.
Scheduling the LSSGB exam as a milestone 6 weeks after the PMP exam kept me on-track to complete the study plan, and focused on learning the material.
Jon Strein
Note that Jon followed the study plan laid out in my Pass Your Six Sigma course.
Seek additional sources
One of the biggest and most unfortunate mistakes that I’ve seen people make on taking their certification exam is that assuming that the training you took was enough.
I get it. You or your company has likely paid thousands of dollars on Six Sigma green belt training. However, even the best instructors can’t teach everything to everybody. And the exams can be quite extensive.
The best path is to cast a wide net, as Jon did.
The articles, links and videos from the website are a good complement to the offline reading material. I encourage others to seek additional articles, experiment summaries, etc. to better understand the practical use of the various tools.
Jon Strein
For some of the math problems (25% or so), I went online to Lean Six Sigma discussion threads and articles to see some example problems worked out, and to make sure I was using the right formulas for the question.
Jon Strein
Editor’s note: That’s why I’ve included full walkthroughs of across all 1000 questions in the Pass Your Six Sigma Green Belt course. When you’re practicing and learning it’s not enough to know if you’re right. You need to know why the other questions are wrong, especially for those tricky questions where you need to pick between two right answers, or even select from several that don’t quite match.
And the math and statistical problems often scare exam candidates because there are hundreds of combinations of the problems that can be asked on the exam. If you haven’t seen the problem asked in that way before, your chance of working the problem correctly is much lower. For anyone looking for additional practice on statistics and math problems I strongly suggest enrolling in my Pass Your Six Sigma Green belt course where you get full walkthroughs of 1000 questions and access to excellent instructors who will carefully explain all rationale behind
Take lots of practice exams
Another similar issue I see with people who fail their exam is simply not taking enough practice exams.
Here’s how Jon made sure that his studying was time well-spent.
I was pleased with the volume of practice quiz and mock exam questions available on the study site. Also, the math problem sets in particular presented questions at a wide range of difficulty. I will definitely use these problem sets (and some others) in preparation for the Black Belt exam.
Jon Strein
Completed practice exams and quizzes as much as possible without looking back in the book.
Jon Strein
After the exams and quizzes, I looked back at the answer key for each wrong response, and re-read / re-worked each missed problem until comfortable with the process to answer correctly.
Leverage other resources
I listed how important external resources were in both my How I Passed My ASQ Six Sigma Black Belt on the first try article and How I Passed My Villanova Six Sigma Black Belt on the first try article.
This advice stands for Green Belts and for any other organization like the IASSC, too. Here’s Jon’s notes:
Studying for and passing the PMP exam just prior to taking the LSSGB exam was very helpful. The Quality section of the PMBOK is borrowed almost entirely aligned with the Green Belt Primer (Book of Knowledge)-level toolkits and processes. Likewise, the project management section of the Green Belt Primer was well aligned with the PMBOK version.
Jon S.
Make practical use of the Six Sigma Green Belt material
One common point of failure I find among Six Sigma exam candidates who fail is that they are pursuing the exam simply for a point on a resume instead of wanting to dive in and make use of the material.
That’s a shame because:
- The results you get from applying Six Sigma will super charge your resume, provide you excellent examples in your next interview, and enhance your professional network.
- It’s simply easier to pass the exam if you try to put the principles to work.
This is actually easier than it sounds. You don’t have to run a full project. Just try to envision how you could make use of the tools. Here’s how Jon did it.
It is recommended for Green Belt candidates to work through some training data sets and to become familiar with the tools within Excel, Minitab, or software with similar capabilities. The reading materials can be abstract; working through Lean Six Sigma tools within software facilitates engagement of the candidate with the tasks of the practical applications, data analysis, and study reports.
Jon Strein
With previous experience using Minitab Software for 15 years+, I found it to be a great way to learn Lean and Six Sigma; to make the applicable graphs and stats summaries, design experiments, etc, and to provide training of these tools within my work-teams.
Jon Strein
General Study Tips
Everyone has their own specific study tips. Here’s what Jon shared with me:
My strategy was to seek the solutions to the practice exam and problem set questions independently, to use this study time to learn the tools and their applications well, and to determine an approach to teach/train others having less Lean and Six Sigma experience.
Jon S.
The primary advice for the LSSGB exam is to study consistently for short, set times every day, to prevent burnout and from being overwhelmed. Use the study plan and a checklist to tick off completed tasks. It is a marathon, not a sprint. There are no shortcuts.
Jon S.
Pick the level of coaching that works for you
Since creating this website in 2014 I’ve interacted with tens of thousands Six Sigma exam candidates. I’ve learned 2 things:
- Everyone learns a different way. Sure, there are similarities, but there is no one-size-fits-all.
- Everyone needs help from time to time in different ways.
That’s why I built out several different programs at different price points.
Per Jon.
I was pleased with the availability of several different price points for the program; allowing the customer to decide which level works best for their needs and schedule. Some candidates need more coaching than others; this program has that well-covered.
Jon Strein
Ted’s note: You can find out more about the different levels of the programs that I offer here.
Summary
If you want to Pass your Six Sigma Green belt like Jon did, then you’re going to have to work like he did.
He spent 6 weeks working through materials and was aided by my Pass Your Six Sigma Green Belt course – which is on sale now for 20% off. Sign up today here.
