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Historically, quality management questions have been difficult for some exam takers for
two major reasons: 1) over-reliance on their previous training and personal experience
(rather than carefully reviewing PMI® terminology) and 2) mathematical concepts such
as process control and standard deviation have caused difficulty for some people. See
course slide #6-1 for an overview of quality management.
Major Processes
8.1 Plan Quality Management (identifying quality requirements and standards and
how to demonstrate compliance)
8.2 Perform Quality Assurance (auditing quality requirements and quality control
measurements to ensure appropriate quality standards are used)
8.3 Control Quality (monitoring results to assess performance and recommend
necessary changes)
The PMBOK® Guide defines quality management as the processes required to ensure
that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken. PMI indicates that
their approach to quality management is intended to be compatible with the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as well as other well-known
approaches associated with Deming, Crosby, TQM, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, and
Continuous Improvement.
PMI defines quality as the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills
requirements (PMBOK® Guide, p. 228). A critical part of the process is to identify
stakeholder needs and turn them into requirements. Needs may be explicitly stated or
implied.
Quality and grade are not the same thing. Grade is measured by features and functions
and a project team can choose a lower grade because it saves money and still meets
requirements (for example, a BMW would be nice but a Ford Focus may meet your
needs at a lower cost). However, low quality is always a problem because it means that
needs and requirements are not being met.
Although not specifically mentioned in the PMBOK® Guide, a related concept that often
appears on the exam is that of gold-plating. Gold-plating is providing a solution that
exceeds the original requirement and is bad to the extent that it may cause the project
to cost more and take longer. If the requirements are accurate, there is no reason to
exceed them (especially if doing so results in lost profits for the contractor).
Finally, PMI contends that achieving ISO compatibility means that quality management
must recognize the importance of:
Six Key Inputs for Plan Quality Management (PMBOK® Guide, p. 233):
c) Cost baseline: Documents planned costs and the time intervals for
measuring and reporting actual cost performance.
3. Risk Register: May contain information on threats and opportunities that may
affect quality (Section 11.2.3.1).
Eight Key Tools for Plan Quality Management (PMBOK® Guide, p. 235):
• Less rework
• Higher productivity
2. Cost of Quality (COQ): The total cost of efforts to achieve quality, which
includes the costs of conformance (preventing defects and assessing quality)
and non-conformance (fixing defects). Three specific categories of costs are
prevention, appraisal, and failure. Preventing defects is believed to reduce
overall costs and is preferred over costs of non-conformance.
3. Seven Basic Quality Tools: Also known as 7QC, the seven basic quality
tools include (also see course slides #6-2 through #6-8 for examples):
a) Cause and effect diagrams: You must know that cause and effect
diagrams are also called Ishikawa or Fishbone diagrams. They are used to
illustrate the possible factors that may be causing or influencing certain
problems. The problem statement is displayed at the “head of the fishbone” and
selected stakeholders ask “why” until an actionable root cause has been
identified. One possible use of fishbone diagrams is to investigate the special
variations known as “special causes” in control charts (covered below in item 3f).
PMI also emphasizes that they may be used to stimulate thinking and discussion.
The tool was named after an Italian economist who discovered that 80% of the
wealth in a particular region in Europe was held by only 20% of the population.
This discovery eventually was dubbed the 80/20 rule, indicating the importance
of focusing efforts toward improvement on the “significant few.”
Key points about control charts (read the following details as part of
your self-study):
• Upper and lower control limits (UCL/LCL) must not be confused with
specification limits (USL/LSL). Control limits describe the natural
variation of a process; observations (process results) that fall within the
limits usually indicate normal, expected variations. Points outside the
limits mean that something has occurred that needs investigation and
The PMBOK® Guide states that control limits are generally set at plus or
minus three sigma from the mean.
• Effect of standard deviation: Recall the concept of six sigma that was
mentioned in the time management section.
Six Sigma: You should know that PMI has observed that numerous
“modern” companies have adopted Six Sigma as the standard for
measuring quality. The more traditional approach was three sigma. The
difference is that six sigma captures about 99.9997% of outcomes
whereas three sigma only captures about 99.7%. That means that
defects would occur only about 3.4 times in a million under six sigma but
they would occur three times in a thousand under three sigma. In other
words, six sigma is a much more stringent quality control requirement.
standard deviations, which in turn mean more narrow control limits. The
converse is also true, i.e., smaller sample sizes tend toward larger
standard deviations and wider control limits.
PMI suggests that DOE is especially useful for determining how much testing is
needed and for optimizing the performance of processes and/or products.
7. Additional Quality Planning Tools: There are other techniques that can
assist in defining quality requirements, including:
• Brainstorming
• Force field analysis
• Nominal group technique
• Quality management and control tools (defined in Section 8.2.2.1)
Five Key Outputs for Plan Quality Management (PMBOK® Guide, p. 241):
1. Quality Management Plan: Describes how the project team will implement
its quality policy. The quality plan is an input to the overall project management
plan and describes the approaches for quality assurance, continuous process
improvement, and quality control. The plan should focus on efforts early in the
project that will reduce cost and schedule problems caused by rework.
2. Process Improvement Plan: A plan that details the steps for improving
existing processes. May include activities such as:
4. Quality Checklists: A structured tool to verify that all steps in a process have
been performed. Checklists are often used in the quality management process,
especially for complex tasks or for tasks performed frequently.
Quality assurance involves auditing quality requirements and results from quality control
measurements to ensure the project will use appropriate quality standards and
processes.
Five Key Inputs for Perform Quality Assurance (PMBOK® Guide, p. 244):
4. Quality Control Measurements: The results of quality control that are in turn
fed back to Quality Assurance to consider any potential changes in the
organization’s quality standards and processes. These measurements provide
Three Key Tools for Perform Quality Assurance (PMBOK® Guide, p. 245):
1. Quality Management and Control Tools: The tools for quality planning
(Section 8.1.2) and quality control (Section 8.3.2) may also be used for quality
assurance. Other relevant tools include (see PMBOK® Guide, Figure 8-10, p.
246):
• Affinity diagrams (a kind of brainstorming tool used by a team to organize
large amounts of detailed data into logical categories)
• Activity network diagrams (used to plan the appropriate sequence for a set
of activities or tasks; examples include arrow and precedence diagrams covered
previously in the time management chapter)
• Matrix diagrams (a chart with rows, columns, and cells [problems, factors,
objectives respectively; the diagram attempts to show the strength of
relationships among these factors)
Four Key Outputs for Perform Quality Assurance (PMBOK® Guide, p. 247):
• Auditing
• Feedback
• Correction
Quality evaluation: There are two kinds of evaluation you should know for the
exam. They are similar to the mid-project and post-project evaluations in the
integration management chapter, and they come from the literature on education:
• Formative (also called a quality audit): Done during the project for the
purpose of making corrections.
Quality responsibility: Responsibility for quality can be viewed two ways (be
careful of the exact wording on this topic):
Quality control involves monitoring and recording specific project results to assess
performance and recommend necessary changes. Project results include both product
deliverables and project performance measures such as cost and schedule.
The primary differences between quality assurance and quality control are as follows:
• Quality assurance is used during planning and executing to provide
confidence that stakeholders’ requirements will be met.
• Quality control is used during executing and closing to provide formal
documentation that acceptance criteria have been met.
• Prevention (keeping errors out of the process) and inspection (keeping errors
away from the customer).
• Attribute sampling (the result conforms or it does not; an item is dented or not
dented) and variables sampling (results are measured to determine the degree
of conformity).
• Tolerances (the result is acceptable if it’s within the range specified by the
tolerance) and control limits (the process is under control if the result falls within
the control limits).
Control Quality
1. Project management plan 1. Seven basic quality tools 1. Quality control measurements
2. Quality metrics 2. Statistical sampling 2. Validated changes
3. Quality checklists 3. Inspection 3. Verified deliverables
4. Work performance data 4. Approved change requests 4. Work performance information
5. Approved change requests review 5. Change requests
6. Deliverables 6. Project management plan
7. Project documents updates
8. Organizational process assets 7. Project documents updates
8. OPA updates
1. Seven Basic Quality Tools: Described in Section 8.1.2.3, the 7QC also
apply to quality control. As shown previously, see course slides #6-2 through
#6-8 for examples.
For the exam, you should know the conditions under which sampling is most
appropriate:
Other Topics:
• Histograms, also called bar charts (grouping data and rank ordering, e.g.,
Pareto diagram)
Priority of Quality, Cost, and Schedule: Historically, quality received “lip service”
in many companies but was actually subservient to cost and schedule goals.
Modern thinking emphasizes that quality should share equal priority with cost and
schedule goals.
• The primary responsibility for developing design specifications rests with the
project engineers.
back on. Zero work-in-process inventory forces a company to find and fix quality
problems or they will constantly miss their schedule commitments.
Motivation and quality: PMI advocates the belief that increased quality is the
likely result when team members display pride, commitment, and an interest in
workmanship. One way to harm such a culture is by allowing frequent turnover of
the people assigned to the project.
Marginal analysis: Optimal quality is reached at the point where the incremental
revenue from improvement equals the incremental cost to secure it.
Sample: Because populations can be quite large, we often examine only some
of the items hoping to get an accurate picture of the entire group at a lower
cost.
By comparison, +/- 6 sigma is the more modern, and also more stringent,
approach to setting quality standards. If processes are designed to a
standard of six sigma, you will only experience defects of approximately
three per million.
TQM (Total Quality Management): Know the following statement about TQM
(p. 229, PMBOK® Guide): TQM is an approach for implementing a quality
improvement program and for achieving continuous improvement
ISO 9000: This entry is provided to clarify the references on pp. 6-1 and 6-2 at
the beginning of the chapter. ISO 9000 is one aspect of the overall International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) program. Specifically, ISO 9000
describes a recommended quality system that complies with international
standards.
Run Chart: Trend analysis is performed using a run chart, which is a line graph
that plots data points in the order in which they occur (i.e., on a time scale). The
data may show:
• Variation
• Declines or improvements over time
• Trends
Self-Study
Drill Practice: Quality Management
Question Answer
1. Who is responsible for project quality? 1. The PM (the word project is the key)
Note: All page numbers in this drill practice refer to (p. 6-13).
the study guide unless otherwise indicated.
9. What is the best way to improve the 9. Good design practices (designing in
reliability and maintainability of a product? reliability and maintainability), i.e., quality
should be designed in, not inspected in (p.
6-17).
12. What quality control tool provides a 12. Pareto chart (or diagram) (p. 6-6)
bar chart that shows the greatest source of
defects or variances on the left and the
fewest defects on the right?
17. When compared to cost and schedule, 17. Quality should be of equal importance
what priority should quality have? (p. 6-17).
18. What is the Rule of Seven? 18. When using control charts, if 7
consecutive observations fall above the
midpoint, below the midpoint, or trend in
the same direction they should be
investigated as if they had a special or
assignable cause.
It is extremely unlikely that 7 outcomes in
a row would be on the same side of the
mean if the process is operating normally
(p. 6-7).
19. JIT (Just in Time) attempts to reduce 19. zero stock (pp. 6-17/18).
work-in-process inventory to ______.
20. What does the process Perform 20. Auditing quality requirements and
Quality Assurance involve? results from QC measurements to ensure
appropriate quality standards are used
(p. 6-10).
21. What is the difference between 21. Prevention is keeping errors out of the
prevention and inspection? process. Inspection is keeping errors out
of the hands of the customer
(p. 6-13).
22. What is the difference between 22. Attribute sampling checks whether a
attribute and variable sampling? result conforms or not. Attributes can be
objective or subjective. Variable sampling
measures the result on a continuous scale
(measures the degree of conformity)
(p. 6-13).
23. What is the difference between 23. Special causes are unusual events
special causes and random causes? that may signal a problem that needs
correction. Random causes are simply
normal process variations, i.e., nothing is
wrong (pp. 6-6/7).
24. Which quality control tool would help 24. Checksheets (p. 6-6)
you count the number of defects and
determine their location?
26. What is the difference between control 26. Specification limits are the
limits and specification limits? contractual tolerances agreed to by the
project participants. Control limits
describe the capability of a particular
process (pp. 6-6/7).
27. What does the term inspection mean 27. Examination of a work product to
and what are other names for the same determine whether it conforms to
thing? requirements. Inspection often involves
measurements. Also called audits, walk-
throughs, and reviews (pp. 6-15/16).
30. What are the three major types of 30. Prevention, appraisal, and failure (p. 6-
costs associated with conformance and 5, Cost of Quality).
nonconformance?
32. Three standard deviations either side 32. 99.7% (p. 6-19)
of the mean of a normal distribution
contains what percent of the population?
33. What are control charts? 33. A graphic display of process results
taken over a period of time. They help
determine if a process is under control
(pp. 6-6/7).
35. What is the difference between grade 35. Grade is a category or rank given to
and quality? entities having the same functional use but
different features and functions (a high-
end luxury item or a simpler, cheaper
version).
Quality is conformance to requirements.
Low quality is always a problem but low
grade may not be (i.e., customer chose a
cheaper solution) (p. 6-1).
36. What tool would help stimulate 36. Cause and effect diagram. Note: you
thinking and generate discussion about MUST know the alternate names
potential causes of a problem? (Ishikawa Diagram and Fishbone
Diagram)
(p. 6-5)