Steven Ouellette

Steve Ouellette started his career as a metallurgical engineer. It was during this time that his eyes were opened to find that business was not a random series of happenings, but that it could be a knowable enterprise. This continues to fascinate him to this day.

He started consulting in 1996 and has worked in heavy and light industry, service, aerospace, higher education, government, and non-profits. He is the President of The ROI Alliance, LLC. He is the author of Galileo's Telescope, which teaches how to create meaningful metrics and strategic plans, and Data-Driven Leadership, or how to integrate data into management decisions. His author website can be found at steveouellette.com.

Steve has a black belt in aikido, a non-violent martial art, and spent a year in Europe on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship studying the “Evolution, Fabrication, and Social Impact of the European Sword."

Thu, 04/03/2025 - 12:03
Shifty Sigma Measurements, part 1
Tue, 06/19/2007 - 22:00
Now that we have talked about defining Six Sigma and 10 stupid Six Sigma tricks, I’ll move on to the measure phase and discuss some things that work and don’t work in measuring the effect of Six Sigma. The new metric that Six Sigma…
Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks, #1 The end is here
Tue, 05/15/2007 - 22:00
Repent of your wicked ways O fellow Six Sigma Heretics, or surely you shall be smitten (smoted? smited? smartied?) and turned into a pillar of out-of-spec material! The End (of the Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks countdown, anyway) is here…
Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks: #2 Neglecting daily management
Tue, 04/17/2007 - 22:00
The end is near! Well, at least the end of the Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks (SSST) countdown. The Heretic soldiers on until his appointment with the stake. This month, we arrive at Stupid Six Sigma Trick #2: Neglecting Daily Management. In this…
Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks: #3 Prurient Photographs
Tue, 03/20/2007 - 22:00
I had a lot of feedback from interested readers in regards to Stupid Six Sigma Tricks #5, which I jokingly called “Pop Stars Without Clothing,” and which was about the frequent misuse of statistics in the Six Sigma world. Taking heart from this…
Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks: #4 Overusing DMAIC
Tue, 02/20/2007 - 22:00
We are more than halfway through the countdown of our exploration of the kooky, and expensive, mistakes people make in implementing Six Sigma, and I want to talk about something that’s so fundamental people rarely see it—Stupid Six Sigma Trick #4:…
Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks: #5 Pop stars without clothing
Wed, 01/17/2007 - 22:00
Today marks a milestone in our countdown of the Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks. A subjective and unimportant milestone to be sure, but a milestone nonetheless—we have now reached the halfway point. Forget the New Year, this is cause for celebration…
Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks: #6 Constraining your improvement activities to manufacturing processes
Tue, 12/19/2006 - 22:00
In this installment of my arbitrary and capricious list of the Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks (SSST), let’s talk about an error that is perhaps less frequently made now than it has been, but is still common. I call this error SSST No.6,…
Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks: #7 Inadequate infrastructure
Tue, 11/14/2006 - 22:00
The Stupid Six Sigma Tricks countdown continues this month with an increasingly common error: “Inadequate Infrastructure.” By infrastructure, I mean those systems and processes that need to be in place in order to support the objectives…
Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks: #8 Optimizing processes that lose money
Tue, 10/17/2006 - 22:00
So far, we’ve discussed Stupid Six Sigma Tricks #10: Conflating systems, methods and tools and #9: Confusing breakthrough with continuous improvement. This month, I’ll spend some time on a more subtle, and no less costly mistake that, in its…
Top Ten Stupid Six Sigma Tricks: #9 Confusing breakthrough with continuous improvement
Tue, 09/19/2006 - 22:00
This month let’s examine another common mistake that some people (not my loyal, intelligent, heretical and, let’s face it, downright attractive readers) make when they use Six Sigma. I expect to seriously annoy some practitioners when I say…