Six Sigma Certification

The Body of Knowledge for a Six Sigma Green Belt Certification

The American Society for Quality (ASQ) devises a Body of Knowledge for every Six Sigma certification examination. A Body of Knowledge is a comprehensive outline that consists of explanations of every topic and concept that serves as the overview or guidelines of what to expect in the examination.

In a certain Body of Knowledge, every main topic has its own subtopics and other specific content. Every main topic represents the sequence of the examination. The whole outline makes use of the cognitive levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, which represents the level of complexity.

An example of a specific outline that can be picked out from the whole outline for the Body of Knowledge for the Six Sigma certification of Green Belt is the first one, which is the “Overview: Six Sigma and the Organization”. It is further divided into three subtopics, and every subtopic has ideas.

The first subtopic, to use as an example, is the “Six sigma and organizational goals”. Underneath it are three ideas, each with either a cognitive level of “understand”, which is the second least complex of all the levels in the Bloom’s Taxonomy paradigm. The other two subtopics are “lean principles in the organization” and “design for Six Sigma (DFFS) in the organization”.

Progressing down the outline, one will notice that the cognitive level of every main topic in the outline increases. For instance, the second main topic is “Six Sigma – Definition”. It has five subtopics, and every subtopic’s ideas are either “apply” or “analyze” which are the third and the fourth cognitive level.

In all, there are five main topics that are outlined for the Six Sigma certification of Green Belt. The sequence of the examination follows the cognitive paradigm or Bloom’s Taxonomy. The examination is open-book, and for the Green Belt, it is a hundred-item test.