Chapter 8 - Quality Management Flashcards
What to do if a team member has created their own process for doing something?
Investigate the Quality Management Plan to determine if a standard process should’ve been followed
What is quality?
The degree to which the project fulfills requirements
Grade
A general category or classification of a deliverable or resource that indicates common function, but varying technical specifications
Quality management
- Creating and following policies and procedures and tailoring them to ensure the project meets the needs of the customer
- In other words: ensuring a project is completed in compliance with the project requirements
Gold plating
- Giving the customer extras (functionality, scope, performance, etc.)
- Gold plating is NOT recommended, and the team should stick to the project objectives
Quality must be ____ in, not ____ in!
Quality must be planned in, NOT inspected in
Total quality management
Encourages companies and their employees to focus on finding ways to continuously improve the quality of their products and their business practices at every level of the organization
Six Sigma
- A methodology for achieving organizational process improvement and high levels of correctness with extremely reduced variances
- Level of quality required by an organization is usually represented by 3 or 6 sigma (standard deviation)
Who is ultimately responsible for the quality of the product/project?
- PM is responsible for product/project quality
- Team members must inspect their own work
- SM is responsible for promoting an organizational approach that supports quality efforts, i.e., establishment of a quality department
Plan quality management
Defining quality for the project, product, and project management, and planning how it will be acheived
Manage quality
- Purpose is to ensure the team is following organizational policies, standards, and processes as planned to produce the project’s deliverables
- PM also evaluates whether QM plan needs to be improved or modified
Control quality
- Examining the actual deliverables produced on the project to ensure they are correct and meet the planned level of quality
- Evaluating variances
- Findingthesource of problems
- Recommending ways to address problems
Plan Quality Management process
- Identify all relevant organizational or industry practices, standards, and requirements for the quality of the project, the product of the project, and the project management efforts
- Plan how to meet those quality standards and requirements
What allows the PM to maintain the proper perspective and plan quality to the appropriate level?
The scope baseline, i.e.,:
- Project scope statement
- WBS
- WBS dictionary
Tools and techniques used in Plan Quality Management process
- Interviews
- brainstorming
- Benchmarking
- Decision-making (selecting the most critical metrics or prioritizing quality requirements)
- Cost-benefit analysis
If you have poor quality, you might also have…
- Increased costs
- Decreased profits
- Low morale
- Low customer satisfaction
- Increased risk
- Rework
Cost of quality
- Making sure the project is not spending too much to achieve a particular level of quality
- Involves looking at what the costs of conformance and nonconformance to quality will be on the project, and creating an appropriate balance
What should be lower - the costs of conformance or the costs of nonconformance?
The costs of conformance should be lower than the costs of nonconformance
Marginal analysis
Focused on finding the point at which benefits or revnue to be received from improving quality equals the incremental cost to achieve that quality
Logical data model
- Contains a description of the quality needs of the project, and is used to understand the requirements, clarify business rules, and define processes
- Can be presented using an entity relationship diagram
Matrix diagram
- A visual representation of the relationship between two or more sets of items
- Used to sort quality requirements and identify the requirements that are most critical to the project
- A prioritization matrix is useful for decision analysis about quality management plan components that may need to change
Flowchart benefits to Plan Quality Management process
- Can help determine the cost of quality by mapping the expected monetary value of pursing paths of conformance and nonconformance of quality
- Defining and communicating processes that will be used on the project
- Visualize a process and find potential quality problems or quality control issues
Outputs of Plan Quality Management process
- Quality management plan
- Quality metrics
- PMP and project document updates
What do quality management plans include?
- Quality practices, standards, and processes
- Who will be involved in managing quality, when, and what their duties will be
- A review of earlier decisions to make sure decisions are correct
- Meetings that will be held regarding quality
- Reports that will address quality
- What metrics will be used to measure quality
- What parts of the project will be measured and when
Who handles/leads the Manage Quality process?
Typically, a group outside of the project team, such as a quality department, often handles this work
Tools and techniques for Manage Quality process
- Checklists
- Cuase-and-effect diagrams (Fishbone, Ishikawa, or Why-Why)
- Histograms
- Scatter diagrams
- Document analysis
- Alternatives analysis
- Process analysis
- Root cause analysis
- Multicriteria decision analysis
- Flowcharts
- Affinity diagrams
- Audits
- Design for X
- Problem solving
Design of experiments (DOE)
- Technique that can be used to analyze alternatives
- Experimentation is performed to determine statistically what variables will improve quality
- Fast and accurate
- Allows you to systematically change the important factors in a process and see which combinations have an optimal impact on the deliverables
Process analysis
- Lessons learned on the first few installations/activities are used to improve the process for the remaining installations/activities
- Should be planned in at specific points in the project (e.g., every 10 installations)
What type of tool/technique is the prioritization matrix tagged to?
A prioritization matrix is a type of multicriteria decision analysis
Design for X
- Another way of analyzing variables to evaluate both the effectiveness of the quality management plan and the team’s ability to meet objectives
- “X” can represent an attribute of quality
- If the plan is not delivering the intended results in the relation to “X”, Design for X can help determine what chanegs or adjustments are needed
Outputs of Manage Quality
- Test and evaluatino documents
- Quality reports
- Change requests and PMP updates
- Project document updates
What is the major function of the Control Quality process?
- To MEASURE, i.e., aspects are measured to determine whether they meet the quality standards
- Helps ensure customer acceptance
What is the difference between the Manage Quality and Control Quality processes?
- Manage quality = addressing effectiveness of QM plans, processes, and procedures, and determining whether we’re on track to meet quality objectives
- Control quality = addressing the quality of the product, and correcting issues
Who is in charge/leads Control Quality efforts?
- Although a PM must be involved and concerned, a quality department may complete much of this work
- The quality department then informs the PM about quality issues through change requests
Mutual exclusivity
- Two events that cannot both occur in a single trial
- E.g., flipping a coin once cannot result in both heads and tails
Normal distribution
- The most common probability density distribution chart
- Bell curve used to measure variations
Statistical independence
- The probability of one events occurring does not affect the probability of another event occuring
- E.g., the probably of rolling a 5 on a die is statistically independent from the probability of getting a 5 on the next roll
How are checklists used in the Control Quality process?
Checklists are used to determine that all required features and functions are included, and that they meet acceptance criteria
Checksheets
A type of checklist that can be used to keep track of data as well as to document how often a particular defect occurs
Statistical sampling
- Technique used to verify quality by taking a sample of the population and inspecting it
- Best if you believe there are not many defects
- Also best if studying entire population would:
- Take too long
- Cost too much
- Be too destructivd
Control charts
- Used to help determine if the results of a process are within acceptable limits
- Parameters such as the mean, specification limits, and cotrol limits are defined in control charts
- Limits are shown as two dashed lines
Upper and lower control limits of control chart
- Represent the performing organization’s standards for quality
- Indicate what is stable versus unstable (out of control) in the process
- Data points within this range are generally thought of as “in control”, excluding the rule of seven
Specification limits
- Represent the customer’s expectations (contractual requirements) for performance and quality
- NOT calculated based on the control chart, and are instead inputs from the customer
- Therefore, they can appear either inside or outside of the control limits…but for the exam, assume they are OUTSIDE the control limits
What needs to be stricter - control or specification limits?
To meet the customer’s specification limits, the performing organizationstandards for quality, i.e., control limits’s , must be stricter than those of the customer
Out of control
Lack of consistency and predictability in the process or its results
In what circumstances is a process out of control?
- A data point falls outside of the upper or lower limit
- There are nonrandom data points, such as rule of seven
Rule of seven
Refers to a group or series of nonrandom data points that total seven on one side of the mean
Tells you that, although none of these points are outside of the control limits, they are not random and the process is out of control
Assignable cause/special cause variation
- A data point, or series of data points, requires investigation to determine the cause of variation
- Signifies that a process is out of control
Cause and effect (Fishbone, Ishikawa, or Why-Why) diagrams
Used to look backward at what may have contributed to quality problems on the project, as well as to analyze the impact of defects on the quality and acceptability of a deliverable
Is it better to fix a defect, or get to the root cause?
- BOTH
- A cause and effect diagram can help achieve this
Examples on the exam of phrasing for cause and effect diagrams
- A creative way to look at the causes of the problem
- Helps stimulate thinking, organize thoughts, and generate discussions
Histograms
- Presents data, via bars or columns, in no particular order and without reference to time
- Results are displayed to determine the problems that need the most immediate attention or that are most likely to prevent the project from achieving its quality requirements
Pareto charts
Arranges results from most frequent to least frequent to help identify which root causes are resulting in the most problems
80/20 principle (Pareto Principle)
80% of problems are due to 20% of the root causes
Scatter diagrams
- Used to determine the relationship between variables and the quality of results
- Positive correlations = line going from 7 to 2
- Negative correlations = line going from 10 to 5
- No correlation = no line
Outputs of Control Quality process
- Measurements
- Work performance information
- PMP updates
- Change requests
- Verified deliverables
Trick for understanding if a situation is a part of plan, manage, or control quality
Plan = forwards in time
Manage = backwards in time on policies/procedures
Control = backwards in time on results
