Book Reviews

Who Moved My Cheese
Fish
Straight From the Gut, Jack Welch
One Minute Apology - Ken Blanchard
One Minute Manager - Ken Blanchard
Maverick - Ricardo Semler
Six Sigma - Choudry
The Goal - Eliyahu M Goldratt
The Fred Factor - Mark Sanborn

The Power of Six Sigma
Subir Chowdhury

Book review/summary Reviewed by: Dave Wiseman, Team-wise. ISBN - 0793144345 Rating - 4*

Awesome. What a great introduction to Six Sigma.

Using the style of business fable and the framework of a conversation between friends, Subir Chowdhury explains the thinking behind Six Sigma in a way that inspires you to want to put it into practice in your own workplace.

If I was bringing this approach to any company I would give a copy of this book to all the key people right at the start.

The book starts with the basics, explains the concepts and faces the potential difficulties of introducing 'the next quality initiative' head on. The book is realistic in what does and doesn't work and for me really hit the nail on the head when it said, 'if the senior management is not 100% behind the approach, then you are wasting your time.'

Six Sigma is about seeking to improve the bottom line, by improving the service/product to customers, by reducing errors and waste.

It takes the approach of defining the problem, measuring what is happening, analysing to find out why it is happening, improving the situation then controlling afterwards to maintain the changes. It sounds a bit dry when you say it like that but this book brings it to life through the words of the key characters, Larry and Joe and American Pizza.