Quality Management Exam Flashcards
Define Quality
Quality is the fitness for purpose or the degree of conformance of the outputs of a process or the process itself to requirements.
What three things does quality apply to?
Products
Processes
Procedures
What is the acceptance criteria?
Where is this documented?
Certain aspects a product must meet or conform to in order to be deemed quality and acceptable.
Quality plan and individual work package descriptions
What other functions / PM areas do Quality engage/rely on?
Configuration Management (is the configuration up to date) Change Control (have stakeholders been engaged & can we do things better) Requirements Management (stakeholder engagement & are the latest requirements being worked to?
What are the four sub-sections of Quality?
Quality Planning
Quality Assurance
Quality Control
Continuous Improvement
What is Quality Planning?
It describes how the project will produce quality products and how it will manage itself.
It is created as a plan within the PMP.
What should the Quality Plan define/include?
Roles & Responsibilities Processes that will be followed How continuous improvement will be carried out Project assurance techniques Quality control techniques Interaction with other processes
What considerations should be made when writing the Quality plan?
Existing processes and procedures within the organisation External influences Six Sigma ISO (9000) Industry standards Total Quality Management (TQM)
What are some project assurance techniques?
Audits, supplier vetting, specification writing
Who owns the Quality plan?
Project Manager
What is Quality Assurance & what does it provide?
The process associated with demonstrating and providing confidence to stakeholders that the quality requirements will be achieved.
Provides stakeholders with satisfaction that plans are being followed and that a quality product will be produced.
What are some Quality Assurance techniques?
Training - SQEP team? Suitably trained? Training records in place?
Audit - Done either internally/externally/formally/informally to ensure processes, principles and techniques are being followed as stated in the quality plan.
LFE - Ensure LFE is documented and implemented.
Supplier Accreditation - Assess suppliers to ensure competence and stability against set criteria.
What is Quality Control?
Quality control refers to the application of techniques to ensure products are produced to quality expectations and meet success criteria. These techniques aim to prevent re-work.
Quality control must be undertaken using an objective mechanism comparing the finished product against a specification to conform acceptability.
What are some Quality Control techniques?
Inspection and Measurement - visually inspecting the finished product to ensure it meets requirements.
Walk-throughs - More in-depth and will look at the parts of a product, how it was made etc.
Pareto - Process of understanding the nature of the observable faults and the root cause of them. 80% of faults are caused by 20% of the root causes
Process Control charts - Plots measurements/samples as they’re produced to monitor quality over time.
What is Continuous Improvement?
Involves the correct use of feedback and using the lessons of the past to drive actions of the future.
Process of improving efficiencies, productivity and practicalities of PM.
An on-going process. Informs the quality planning process before and during the project but it refines the plan rather than replaces it.
Name some examples & the benefits of how aspects of PM / Quality might use continuous improvement?
Highlight inefficiencies Develop processes Evolve principles, procedures and techniques Maturity Identify root causes and recommendations
Benefits of CI:
Improve accuracy Reduce defects Become more mature Conformance to requirements Become more efficient
What are the benefits of a quality management process?
Help eradicate problems
Reduce the need for re-work
Provides confidence to stakeholders that they will receive a quality product
Provides assurance over safety-critical products
Improve efficiency, effectiveness and motivation
What is Crosby’s view?
Crosby - The Cost of Quality, 1979
As prevention costs rise, the failure and prevention costs will fall.
The organisation becomes more mature, makes less faulty goods and requires less re-work.
What is PDCA?
Plan, Do, Check, Act. Four step management process which helps support continuous improvement of processes, procedures and products.
Plan - establish objectives, what is the problem, what’s trying to be achieved.
Do - Implement new process and actions
Check - Monitor and measure progress against policies, objectives, requirements and KPIs?
Act - Take actions to continually improve aims. Adopt change and improvement.
What % of projects fail to be completed?
What percentage of projects that are completed experience cost overruns?
What % of projects are delivered late or over budget?
What % of projects don’t meet the business goals or objectives?
18%
33%
43%
33%
What is the role of a Quality Assurance Manager?
Ensure products meet level of quality required to meet acceptance criteria
Plan, direct and coordinate quality assurance programmes and create quality control processes.
Work to improve organisational efficiency, profitability and helps reduce waste.
They also: Oversee processes Manage teams Train employees Manage inputs Analyse data
Define Quality Management
QM is a discipline for ensuring outputs, benefits and processes by which they’re delivered meet stakeholder requirements, standards, specifications and are fit for purpose.
Why is it important to manage quality on a project?
Reduce costs
Reduce re-works
Maintain the company’s reputation
Become more mature
Continuous improvement
Meet industry standards
Why does quality need to be measured?
In all quality control activities, decisions need to be made about the degree of conformance of the output tested to the specification and acceptance criteria and what action needs to be taken.
Measure quality against a quantitative baseline/figure and the end-product.
Measure and track the quality/progress of a project throughout the life cycle to ensure quality is maintained and aligned with objectives.
