Measurement and Quality Flashcards
Cycle time chart
average cycle time of the work items completed, measuring the period from the time a team starts a task until the time it is completed
Throughput chart
A throughput chart shows the accepted deliverables over time. It is when a Scrum Master tracks the number of completed work items per iteration to measure team performance.
Velocity chart
A Velocity chart tracks the rate at which the deliverables are produced; validated; and accepted. It is when a team evaluates how much work is delivered per sprint to measure progress and planning accuracy.
Cycle Time
Cycle Time refers to the period from the time a team starts a task until the time it is completed
(not measuring from the time from when task is requested/ordered)
Lead Time
In work completion/flow measurement, Lead Time refers to the period from the time the team places a task on the board until delivery. Because the order of the items in the Ready column can be changed, this can be unpredictable
Lag
In dependencies, Lag refers to the amount of time whereby a successor activity will be delayed with respect to a preceding activity on the critical path.
Lead
In dependencies, Lead refers to the amount of time whereby a successor activity can be advanced (started) with respect to predecessor activity.
Story points
Story points are a common unitless measure used in relative estimating
Appraisal costs
Appraisal costs are the costs incurred to determine the degree of conformance to quality requirements.
[PMBOK7 p88] (Domain: Process, Task 7)
Multipoint estimating
Multipoint estimating is an estimating technique that assesses cost or duration by applying an average or weighted average of optimistic or pessimistic, and most likely estimates when there is uncertainty with the individual activity estimates.
[PMBOK7 p178] (Domain: Process, Task 5)
Cost of Conformance
Cost of Conformance is the money spent during a project to avoid failures.
Cost of Conformance includes: prevention costs that build a quality product, and appraisal costs that assess the quality.
Cost of Non-Conformance
Cost of Non-Conformance is the money spent after a project is complete because of failures. This includes internal and external failure costs.
Cost of Quality (CoQ)
Cost of Quality (CoQ) is all costs incurred over the life of the product by investment in, 1) preventing nonconformance to requirements, 2) appraisal of the product or service for conformance to requirements, and, 3) costs associated with failure to meet requirements.
[PMBOK7 p175] (Domain: Process, Task 7)
Prevention
Prevention is a concept in quality management that indicates that quality cannot be inspected into a product but should be planned for from the start to avoid problems. Prevention costs include investments in training and equipment.
Appraisal costs
Appraisal costs are the part of the Cost of Conformance to achieve quality by planning it into the process. Appraisal costs include effort for testing, losses due to destructive testing, and inspections.
Appraisal costs are incurred to determine the degree of conformance to quality requirements.
[PMBOK7 p88] (Domain: Process, Task 7)
What are the 8 project performance domains in PMBOK7?
Stakeholders
Team
Development Approach and Life Cycle
Planning
Project Work
Delivery
Measurement
Uncertainty
A project manager in a seller organization discovered that certain deliverables had been delivered to the buyer without undergoing proper testing. Recalling the deliverables will result in a cost overrun on the project. What should the project manager do in such a case?
Recall the deliverables even though there will be a cost overrun. It is the project manager’s primary responsibility to ensure that deliverables are tested and have gone through the process outlined in the project management plan.
Control Charts
Control Charts are a graphic display of process data over time and against established control limits, which has a centerline that assists in detecting a trend of plotted values toward either control limit. These charts are often associated with control limits, specification limits, means, and standard deviation. Control charts are used to analyze and communicate the variability of a process or project activity over time and are also called “Variability Control Charts”.
Variability Control Charts
Variability Control Charts are used to analyze and communicate the variability of a process or project activity over time.
During the course of a project, as you review a quality control statistics chart that examines every item produced for the month, you notice several cases where a component is falling outside the upper control limit. Which type of Quality Control tool are you most likely using? Explain the type of chart and its use.
A Control Chart.
Control charts graphically display the interaction of process variables on a process. Control charts have three lines: a center line which gives the average of the process, an upper line designating the upper control limit (UCL) and showing the upper range of acceptable values, and a lower line designating the lower control limit (LCL) and showing the lower range of acceptable values. Points that fall outside of this range are evidence that the process may be out of control. [PMBOK7 p237] (Domain: Process, Task 7)
Control charts are commonly used to detect variations within the project and alert when the values go beyond preset control limits, with specific criteria like 7+ points above the centerline, 5+ points in one direction, or any point beyond the limits.
Burndown/Burnup Chart
A Burndown/Burnup Chart is how an Agile team uses a graph to track completed work overtime to forecast when the remaining tasks will be completed.
Your project team has recently completed the 3rd iteration on the project. So far 45 story points have been successfully delivered to the customer. For this project, the iteration size is fixed at three weeks. The team (six team members) is dedicated to working five days per week. Looking at the backlog, you have 150 story points remaining to be delivered. What is the project’s cycle time?
Cycle time = 1
NOT 15, 30, or 10
Cycle time = number of days per delivered story. Since the team has successfully delivered 45 stories in 3 iterations, the velocity is 15 stories per iteration. Each iteration is 3 weeks; the team delivers on average five stories per week or one story per day (team works five days per week). [PMI Agile p61] (Domain: Process, Task 6)
You are leading a project. During the first product testing session, the project team finds out that a component in the product is not responding to commands as documented in the specifications causing integration testing to fail. This has caused a major embarrassment for the project team in front of the customer. What should you do to resolve this defect?
Conduct a root cause analysis; issue a change request if any baseline needs to be changed; and fix the issue.
NOT Conduct a root cause analysis; identify and fix the issue.
If the product doesn’t meet the specifications, it needs to be rejected and fixed. However, if this requires any of the project baselines to change, a change request needs to be issued before making the updates to the baselines. [PMBOK7 p77] (Domain: Process, Task 10)
The paint on the exotic cars that are manufactured in your plant is bubbling about a year after application. What would be the best tool for your team to use to find potential causes of the peeling paint?
Cause-and-effect diagrams
NOT Control Chart
All the choices are tools and techniques in quality control; however, the best choice would be the Ishikawa or cause-and-effect diagram. [PMBOK7 p188] (Domain: Process, Task 7)
