The Project Quality Management questions on the PMP® certification exam are straightforward—especially if you know definitions of terms and understand statistical process control. You are not required to solve quantitative problems, but there are questions on statistical methods of measuring and controlling quality.
The exam is likely to reflect a heavy emphasis on customer satisfaction and continuous improvement through the use of quality tools such as Pareto analysis and cause-and-effect diagrams. You must also know the differences among plan quality management, perform quality assurance, and perform quality control.
The PMBOK® Guide includes all quality-related activities under the term Project Quality Management, which comprises the three quality processes mentioned above. Review PMBOK® Guide Figure 8-1 for an overview of the Project Quality Management structure before taking the practice test. Know this chart thoroughly.
Following is a list of the major Project Quality Management topics. Use it to help focus your study efforts on the areas most likely to appear on the exam.
Key PMBOK® Guide concepts
Quality defined
Quality management
Quality policy
Quality and grade
Accuracy and precision
Customer satisfaction
Prevention over inspection
Continuous improvement
SIPOC model
Management responsibility
Seven basic quality tools
Plan quality management tools
Key quality planning documents
Quality control measurements
Quality management and control tools
Quality audits
Process analysis
Quality control
Approved change requests review
Impact of motivation on quality
Priority of quality versus cost and schedule
Design and quality
INSTRUCTIONS: Note the most suitable answer for each multiple-choice question in the appropriate space on the answer sheet.
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Quality assurance increases project effectiveness and efficiency and provides added benefits to project stakeholders. It includes all the planned and systematic quality activities to ensure that the project uses all the processes to meet requirements. Quality assurance should be performed throughout the project. [Executing]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 227, 242–244
Benchmarking involves comparing actual or planned practices to those practices of comparable projects to identify best practices, to note ideas for improvement, and to provide a way to measure performance. [Planning]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 239
Rework is a frequent cause of project overruns. The project team must make every reasonable effort to control and minimize rework so that defective or nonconforming components are brought into compliance with requirements or specifications. [Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 559
Quality function deployment helps a design team to define, design, manufacture, and deliver a product or service to meet or exceed customer needs. Its main features are to capture the customer’s requirements, ensure cross-functional teamwork, and link the main phases of product development—product planning, part deployment, process planning, and production planning. [Planning]
Evans and Lindsay 2005, 568–569
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 556
If a company has paid $100,000 to gain 98% quality and it would cost an additional $25,000 to gain the other 2%, this is known as the law of diminishing returns. [Monitoring and Controlling]
Ward 2008, 240
This technique is used to identify which variables have the most influence. It is a statistical method to identify the factors that may influence specific variables of a product or process under development or in production. For example, roller blade designers might want to determine which combination of number of wheels and titanium ball bearings would produce the most desirable “ride” characteristics at a reasonable cost. This technique, however, can be applied to project management issues such as cost and schedule trade-offs. An appropriately designed “experiment” often will help project managers to find an optimal solution from a relatively limited number of options, and often it help to determine the number and type of tests to use and their impact on quality. [Planning]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 239–240
The Taguchi method is used to estimate the loss associated with controlling or failing to control process variability. It is based on the principle that by carefully selecting design parameters to produce robust designs, an organization can produce products that are more forgiving and tolerant. The tool helps determine the value or break-even point of improving a process to reduce variability. [Monitoring and Controlling]
Ward 2008, 432
Quality improvement includes action taken to increase project effectiveness and efficiency in order to provide added benefits to stakeholders. A breakthrough attacks chronic losses, or in Deming’s terminology, common causes of variation. [Executing]
Evans and Lindsay 2005, 486
Attribute sampling determines whether a result does or does not conform. Variables sampling rates a result on a continuous scale to measure the degree of conformity. [Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 250
Prevention costs include any expenditure directed toward ensuring that quality is achieved the first time. [Planning]
Rose 2005 8–9
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 235
Processes should be changed only through established change procedures. If the process is outside acceptable limits, it should be adjusted. [Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 238, 252–253
Sampling and probability form the basis of statistical process control, which helps the team monitor project results for compliance with relevant quality standards so that methods can be identified to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory results. [Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 240, 252
Pareto diagrams are histograms, ordered by frequency of occurrence, that show how many results were generated by type or category of identified cause. The project team should take action to fix the problems that are causing the greatest number of defects first. Pareto diagrams are based on Pareto’s Law, which holds that a relatively small number of causes will typically produce a large majority of defects, also called the “solzo rule.” [Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 237,252
Quality concerns all levels of management and staff. Its success requires participation from all members of the project team with management providing the needed resources to succeed. [Planning, Executing, and Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 227–229
In perform quality assurance, the interrelationship diagraph can be used as a quality management and control tool. It may be developed from data generated by other quality tools such as the affinity diagram, the tree diagram, or the cause-and-effect diagram. It is an adoption of relationship diagrams. [Executing]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 245
The information obtained from a quality audit can be used to improve quality systems and performance. In most cases, implementing quality improvements requires preparation of change requests. [Executing]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 247
When the results of a sample of items measured falls within three standard deviations and that sample is representative of the entire population, you can assume that more than 99% of all items fall within that range. This generally accepted range of results has been used by quality control professionals through the years. Six sigma is a program started by Motorola that, from a statistical standpoint, indicates a quality +standard of only 3.4 defects per million. [Planning and Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 238, 252
Kerzner, 2009, 902
Statistical sampling uses part of a population to draw conclusions about the total population. It is a well-proven technique that can significantly reduce the cost of quality control. [Monitoring and Controlling]+
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 240, 252
Deming is known as a quality pioneer. His approach to quality is not only statistically based but focuses on what management’s responsibilities should be with respect to quality. His Fourteen Points for management are goals of quality for transforming business. [Executing]
Rose 2005, 28–29
Inspections comprise an examination of a work product to determine if it conforms to standards. Additional names for inspections are audits, reviews, or peer reviews (in some application areas, these terms may have narrow and specific meanings). [Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 252
Quality assurance is a managerial function that establishes processes or procedures in an organization or project to assist in determining whether quality standards and operational definitions are being met. It is the application of planned, systematic quality activities to ensure that the project will use all processes needed to meet requirements and is performed throughout the life of the project. Quality audits are a tool and technique to use. [Executing]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 242–243
The quality policy includes the overall intentions and direction of the organization with regard to quality, as formally expressed by top management. If the performing organization lacks a formal quality policy or if the project involves multiple performing organizations, as in a joint venture, the project management team must develop a quality policy for the project. The quality management plan then describes how the quality policies will be implemented. [Planning]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 234, 241
This technique is a method of analyzing design reliability. A list of potential failure modes is developed for each element, and then each mode is given a numeric rating for frequency of occurrence, criticality, and probability of detection. These data are used to assign a risk priority number for prioritizing problems and guiding the design effort. [Monitoring and Controlling]
Evans and Lindsay 2005, 582–594
Consecutive points on a control chart that are above or below the mean or if a point exceeds a control limit indicate an abnormal trend in the process and must be investigated. [Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 228, 252
Vendors that have long-term relationships with buyers are generally more inclined to invest in process and quality improvement, because they have a higher probability of recovering their costs. The stability provided through longer-term contracts permits better planning and encourages better communication and partnering between the buyer and the seller. Long-term contracting with fewer vendors also reduces buyer-related costs by simplifying accounting, collections, and other administrative tasks. [Planning]
Rose 2005, 87–88
Imai, a Japanese engineer, coined the word kaizen to describe an approach to quality that means making small improvements every time a process is repeated. [Executing]
Evans and Lindsay 2005, 347—348
Quality control activities result in measurements that are used as inputs to the QA process. Such quality control measurements are used to evaluate and analyze the quality of the processes of the project against the organization’s standards or specific requirements. They also compare processes used to create the measurements and validate actual measurements to determine their level of correctness. [Executing]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 244
Used to monitor process variation and to detect and correct changes in process performance, the control chart helps people understand and control their processes and work. It enables the project manager, along with appropriate stakeholders, to identify points where corrective action can be taken to prevent unnatural performance. [Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 238, 252
Quality assurance is the management section of quality management. It is the collective term for the formal activities and managerial processes that attempt to ensure that products and services meet the required quality level. The project manager should establish administrative processes and procedures necessary to ensure and often prove that the scope statement conforms to the customer’s actual requirements, to determine which processes will be used to ensure that stakeholders have confidence that the quality activities will be properly performed, and to ensure that all legal and regulatory requirements will be met. [Executing]
Kerzner 2009, 888
During the plan quality management process, the project management team must consider any application area-specific standards, regulations, rules, and guidelines that may affect the project as part of the enterprise environmental factors. Building codes are an example of regulations. [Planning]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 28–29 and 234
Cause-and-effect diagrams, also called Ishikawa diagrams or fishbone diagrams, are used to illustrate how various causes and subcauses interact to create a special effect. It is named for its developer, Kaoru Ishikawa. These diagrams are useful in linking the undesirable effects seen as special variation to the assigned cause, enabling project teams to implement corrective actions to eliminate the special variation shown in a control chart. [Monitoring and Controlling]
Ward 2008, 226
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 236, 252
ISO 9000 provides a basic set of requirements for a quality system, without specifying the particulars for implementation. [Planning]
Evans and Lindsay 2005, 128–132
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 228–229
The purpose of the quality audit is to determine if project activities comply with organizational policies, procedures, and processes. The quality audit has a number of objectives associated with it, but root cause analysis is part of process analysis to identify needed improvements in the process improvement plan. [Executing]
Kerzner 2009, 479
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 247
The weighted Pareto analysis gives a measure of significance to factors that may not appear significant at first, using such additional factors as cost, time, and criticality. A basic Pareto analysis identifies the vital few contributors that account for most quality problems, and the comparative Pareto analysis focuses on any number of program options or actions. [Monitoring and Controlling]
Kerzner 2009, 897–898
Top management should provide constancy of purpose so that it can be infused throughout the organization. Constancy of purpose also requires a shared belief among organization members that management’s behavior clearly signals its commitment to and support of achievement of the vision. Quality assurance and control are functions that must be performed by everyone, not just those assigned to specific departments. [Executing]
Rose 2005, 29
The quality management plan describes how the team will implement the quality policy, which describes the objectives of the project regarding quality management. [Planning]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 241, 557
Pareto analysis focuses on what Joseph Juran called the vital few. Named after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist whose studies showed that 80 percent of the wealth was held by 20 percent of the population, quality analysis typically shows that 80 percent of the all problems (defects) are found in 20 percent of the items or areas studied.
Rose 2005, 86–87
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 237, 548
The first and most important is to identify the problem as a gap to be closed or as an objective to be achieved. Causes then are found by looking at the problem statement and asking why until a root cause has been identified for which action can be taken or the reasonable possibilities on the diagram have been exhausted. [Monitoring and Controlling]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 236, 252
Kerzner 2009, 895–898
There are two types of control charts: variable charts, which are used with continuous data, and attribute charts, for use with discrete data. Attribute data have only two values (conforming/nonconforming, pass/fail, go/no-go, or present/absent). In this situation, you are looking for the presence of the required food label. [Monitoring and Controlling]
Kerzner 2009, 905
A part of the overall project management plan, the quality management plan should address all aspects of how quality management will be implemented on the project and how the project team will implement the quality policy. Trade-off analyses are business judgments and, as such, are not procedural steps to be included in the quality management plan. [Planning]
PMI®, PMBOK® Guide, 2013, 241