Hi everyone, I've just landed my first job after graduating from uni. I'm working for Axa Insurance in their Change Management team.. AKA 'Axa Way' department. I'm just wondering whether my experience with them will enable me to progress in to consultancy, or will it just pigeonhole me in six sigma/process change type organisations?? I'm only working as project support currently, but am looking to progress into green belt and then hopefully black belt level roles!! I've heard from my collegues that six sigma isn't just a fad.. but will working in this way impact on my chances of progressing into a management consultancy role later on? Any help appreciated!! Many thanks.

The role is a decent start towards working in consulting. I'd expect you have the opportunity to develop skills that you transfer into a consulting role. That might be of more help to you than the Six Sigma detail knowledge, unless you want to become a Six Sigma specialist. Of course, if you do, then this is also an option open to you but not normally you'd pursue as a specialism until you have some years of experience working with the toolkit and several implementions.Personally, I don't think Six Sigma will be more than a niche operations toolkit - it is currently on a peak but that may not last the years it takes to develop into Black Belt roles and gain significant experience. However, the general process mapping, project management, etc. experience that you gain in project support can be transferred to other operations improvement work.

I'd echo the previous comments, there are skills around the project support role and the process of implementation which are very generic. in the role that you're talking about think of it as two different things; Six Sigma specialist knowledge and the process of supporting a business change programme. The latter is of more use to you in the market.And a word of caution, none of these fads are considered fads by their advocates. but the nature of the consluting industry is such that it needs to keep coming up with new fads as the old ones are commoditised and the margins are squeezed. I'd also say that it is quite production oriented, it can be applied in other areas but it can become a bit tenuous.