Due to my GI Bill money not resetting until August 1 and the module starting first week of July, it appears I'll be off from school for a few months.

Was seeing who on Sig Forum had gone through those programs.

Was it worth it?

How did they impact your professional career?

The PMP seems very interesting. It's not expensive, either. The LSS has various levels with increased time/cost for each as well as prerequisites for the higher levels or belts (as they refer to them).

I was thinking of seeing if military tuition assistance would pay for PMP or I would pay out of pocket. Paying out of pocket for graduate school doesn't make sense as I have the GI Bill and each credit hour is $1,600. One class would be $4,800 plus the cost of text/materials. I can wait a few months for that.

PMP, yes, but read the requirement for project management hours carefully.

LSS, not so much, unless you are a manufacturing process engineer.

I attained the PMP certification.

My employer paid for a boot camp (4 day) and the test.

I am still trying to understand what if any impact on my career it will have where I am. There was a pay increase negotiated prior to beginning down the path.

I believe the process offered me new knowledge. I also find that to some degree it could be viewed as theory as applying some of the methods real world can be difficult.

I am hoping it will help offset what might be seen as a lack/negative as in theory, it shows one has experience if not the degree.

It seems to me that right now Agile is the "hot" methodolgy. As with anything, there are many views. Some are better than others when faced with specifics. Build the toolbox, not the tool and know which tool to use for the job.

I have neither....but I can see the direction of American corporations and it will be worth it.

Corporations are under a lot of quasi-political-correct pressure to have documented qualifications for everyone and everything. It will only get worse ("better" for those who get the qualifications, artificial as they may be)

I got a green belt in lean six sigma. It really changed how I look at every thing as a process. It was one of the most valuable courses I have taken, out of 5 degrees I have, especially considering how short the course is.

But it probably depends on if you have a need to work on process improvement or not. To me, now everything is a process.

PMP is good, companies always have projects. Lean isn't that desirable nowadays, IMO; companies expect that "lean" is in everybody's blood and doesn't need to be learned. That's not my opinion, just what I gather.

On your GI Bill, I'm not sure how it works now but a key learning I got was to say you're going for a PhD. That way, any change you do will still be acceptable instead of having to justify it.

My company has hired a couple; one being a Sigma Six Black Belt. When I first heard that I wondered why we were hiring a marshal arts expert

Anyway, we are a real state development company that doesn’t build cookie cutter buildings. We spent a long time looking at the process on how we develop a building and all we found is that we are doing what we do very well but our biggest constraint is ourselves. Every project involves recreating the wheel and once we are done, we don’t like how it rolls so we recreate another one.

Maybe the process improvements are helping our accounting process or how we order toilet paper for the public restrooms, but it’s not a big help construction.

When I was the big 3 I got an expense paid ride through many classes dealing with process, and took all the required tests. I didn’t really use it to advance my career,but I must say it was a real eye opener, and helped me in every way in the manufacturing biz. I insisted my son take it, and he found it useful in the financial field. Go for it.

I have been a PMP since 2005. I have also been with the same company since them. From a Project Management perspective going through the whole PMP process has made me a much better PM. From my observations having a PMP is pretty near a must for being in a good position to get a PM job, it does mean a lot, again in my opinion.

I'm certified as a Green Belt & Black Belt. Green Belt is geared towards project leaders and Black Belt towards project managers. The corporation I worked for looked at a Black Belt as a project management certification, sort of similar to a lawyer passing the bar (as was explained to me by my boss). Six Sigma was used in Operations, R&D, Finance, Sourcing (Purchasing); pretty much everywhere that had procedures (processes). It's good at looking at an existing process and analyzing it to see if you can make it better (faster/easier to understand, geared more towards the customer, etc.). Where some get into trouble is trying to apply Lean and expect cost savings (usually to impress management). Sometimes the savings just aren't there, or could be there if one spends a lot of money, which really upsets the bean counters/management. The outcome to all this is 'change can be good.'

Project Management is essentially monitoring a set of processes predetermined to occur at coordinated sequences. Essentially, you're riding herd. In Project Management 'change is bad.' Your job is to make something happen within its projected cost within the time of the project plan. Though I'm not PMP certified, I've been doing project management for 40 years. My current job title is Engineering Project Manager. People whine and complain about just about anything when things are going well, then the poop hits the fan and they come running to you to make things right. Awful lonely when things aren't going well, then, when things are great and towards the end of the project, people pop out of the woodwork to let others how great they are and how they made a difference. I used to hope it was a one-time thing, but, nope. Human nature I guess. I don't want to sound negative, but it's not for those with little patience. It's a great feeling making something happen on time and within budget, but there are days when you're hoping it's sooner than later.

Good luck in whatever you do.

So how normal is it for city governments to desire LSS? It has been pushed very hard lately and I am curious as to the application that it has in city government?

LSS isn't really a good methodology for government. It's geared towards saving money by eliminating waste.

DMAIC (improving an existing process) or DMADV (creating a new process using an existing process as a base) would be better.

Thanks, from the little reading I have done it didn’t make much sense. Then again it’s a city government so that’s not terribly surprising.

LSS has been promoted at my agency (state government inmate health care). There have been several projects within it that have found significant ways to improve delivery of care and reduce costs.