Points in Quality Management

Quality is "the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements."

Decisions made about quality can have a significant impact on other decisions such as scope, time, cost, and risk. Most Project Management Practitioners view SCOPE and QUALITY as NSEPARABLE. If Quality Policy doesn't exist, the Project Team should write one for this project. "Determine WHAT the quality standards for the project will be and document and HOW the project will be measured for compliance".

Cost benefit Looking at how much your quality activities will cost.
Benchmarking means using the results of quality planning on other projects to set goals for your own.
Design of experiments is the list of all the kinds of tests you are going to run on your product.
Attribute Sampling is binary, it either conforms to quality or it doesn’t (YES or NO).
Variable Sampling measures how well something conforms to quality (RANGES).

Special Causes: considered unusual and preventable by process improvement. Common Causes are generally acceptable.

Tolerances deal with the limits your project has set for product acceptance.
Control Limits are set at three standard deviations above and below the mean. As long as your results fall within the control limits, your process is considered to be in control.
Tolerances focus on whether the product is acceptable, while Control Limits focus on whether the process itself is acceptable.
Control Charts is The upper and lower control limits are set at THREE STANDARD DEVIATIONS ABOVE and BELOW MEAN.

Rule of Seven:If seven or more consecutive data points fall on one side of the mean, they should be investigated. This is true even if the seven data points are within control limits.

Imp Point: Perform Quality Assurance is primarily concerned with overall PROCESS MPROVEMENT. It is not about inspecting the product for quality or measuring defects. Instead, Performance Quality Assurance is focused on steadily improving the activities and processes undertaken to achieve quality.

Proactive steps taken by PM and the mgmt team to insure the quality standards are being help and monitored.
Cause and Effect Diagram (Ishikawa/Fishbone) is used to show how different factors relate together and might be tied to potential problems. It improves quality by identifying quality problems and trying to

UNCOVER THE UNDERLYING CAUSE.

Flow Chart Shows HOW PROCESSES INTERRELATE.

Histogram (Column Chart) It shows HOW OFTEN something occurs, or its FREQUENCY (no Ranking).

Pareto Chart (80-20 rule) is a Histogram showing defects RANKED from GREATEST to LEAST. This rule states that 80% of the problems come from 20% of the causes. It is used to help determine the FEW ROOT CAUSES behind the MAJORITY OF THE PROBLEMS on a project. Run Chart tells about TRENDS in the project. It Shows the HISTORY and PATTERN.

Scatter Diagram: It is powerful tool for SPOTTING TRENDS in Data. Scatter Diagrams are made using two variables (a dependent variable and an independent variable).
Statistical Sampling is a powerful tool where a RANDOM sample is selected instead of measuring the entire population.

Philip Crosby developed 14 Steps to improving quality.

Joran: Fitness-for-use
Investment in Quality is usually born by the Organization (not by the project).
Plan-Do-Check-Act has been defined by SHEWHARD and modified by DEMING in ASQ Handbook.

Total Quality Management (TQM): Everyone in the company is responsible for quality and is able to make a difference in the ultimate quality of the product. TQM shifts the primary quality focus away from the product that is produced and looks instead at the underlying process of how it was produced.

Continuous Improvement Process (CIP)/KAIZEN: Aphilosophy that stresses constant process improvement, in the form of small changes in products or services.

Just-In-Time (JIT): A manufacturing method that brings inventory down to Zero (or near Zero) levels. It forces a focus on quality, since there is no excess inventory on hand to waste.

ISO 9000: Ensures Companies document what they do and do what they document. It may be an important component of Performance Quality Assurance, since it ensures that an organization follows their processes.

Mutually Exclusive:one choice excludes the other.

Statistical Independence: When the outcomes of two processes are not linked together or dependent upon each other, they are statistically independent.