stevex's review
1.0
A real curate's egg of a book. On one hand, very enthusiastically proposes Lean & Six Sigma concepts without a lot of the wall of complexity that can deter people from using either.
On the other hand, the book is horribly badly organised - concepts are used before they are every introduced (sometimes long before), and are rarely explained adequately. The features on the author's downloadable macros are introduced in chapter 3, along with many references to the different types of charts is supports, but before any of these have been introduced in the text - so a reader unfamiliar with 6 Sigma would have no idea what the author was talking about.
The "just do it" approach is fine provided that the techniques are defined so that readers know when they are appropriate - but instead the book just says "use this kind of chart in (the set of macros the book is promoting)" without saying why. For example, LCL & UCL are used in a diagram on page 93, but are not discussed at all until page 203, and then not actually explained.
The author also repeatedly uses acronyms without explaining or introducing them, and also the bizarre part capitalisation of "DeMYSTiFied", which is never explained, and isn't even applied consistently.
Large parts of the book read much more like an extended advert for the QA macros product that the author sells than an examination of Lean & Six Sigma illustrated by that product. Some of the examples are really crowbarred in - I guess you can draw process charts and fishbone diagrams in Excel, but I can't imagine why on earth you would want to.
The book might have some value as a lightweight summary of Lean & 6S tools, but I really wouldn't recommend it without some further background, understanding or experiece of the concepts from another source.
On the other hand, the book is horribly badly organised - concepts are used before they are every introduced (sometimes long before), and are rarely explained adequately. The features on the author's downloadable macros are introduced in chapter 3, along with many references to the different types of charts is supports, but before any of these have been introduced in the text - so a reader unfamiliar with 6 Sigma would have no idea what the author was talking about.
The "just do it" approach is fine provided that the techniques are defined so that readers know when they are appropriate - but instead the book just says "use this kind of chart in (the set of macros the book is promoting)" without saying why. For example, LCL & UCL are used in a diagram on page 93, but are not discussed at all until page 203, and then not actually explained.
The author also repeatedly uses acronyms without explaining or introducing them, and also the bizarre part capitalisation of "DeMYSTiFied", which is never explained, and isn't even applied consistently.
Large parts of the book read much more like an extended advert for the QA macros product that the author sells than an examination of Lean & Six Sigma illustrated by that product. Some of the examples are really crowbarred in - I guess you can draw process charts and fishbone diagrams in Excel, but I can't imagine why on earth you would want to.
The book might have some value as a lightweight summary of Lean & 6S tools, but I really wouldn't recommend it without some further background, understanding or experiece of the concepts from another source.
More...