PMP Exam Flashcards: Quality Management, Continuous Improvement, Audits, Tools

Quality assurance, or QA, focuses on the process and is proactive. It involves auditing quality requirements and the results of quality control measurements to ensure appropriate quality standards and operational processes are being used. QA prevents defects by improving processes. Quality control, or QC, focuses on the product and is reactive. It involves monitoring and recording results of executing quality activities to assess performance and ensure project deliverables meet requirements. QC detects defects through inspection and testing.

The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, also called the Deming cycle or PDCA, is a continuous improvement framework. Plan establishes objectives, identifies problems, and develops improvement strategies. Do implements the planned changes on a small scale. Check measures and evaluates the results against the expected outcomes. Act either standardizes the improvement if successful or revises the approach and repeats the cycle if not. PDCA emphasizes that quality improvement is an ongoing, iterative process rather than a one-time effort.

A cause-and-effect diagram, also called a fishbone diagram or Ishikawa diagram, is a quality tool that visually maps all potential causes of a problem or defect. The problem is placed at the head of the fish, and major cause categories form the bones, typically organized as manpower, methods, machines, materials, measurements, and environment. Sub-causes branch off each major category. The team brainstorms possible causes and plots them on the diagram to identify root causes rather than symptoms.

A Pareto chart is a special type of bar chart that displays defect categories in descending order of frequency with a cumulative percentage line, based on the Pareto principle that roughly 80 percent of problems come from 20 percent of causes. It helps teams focus on the vital few causes that produce the most defects. A histogram is a bar chart showing the frequency distribution of a variable, such as how many measurements fall within specific ranges, revealing patterns like normal distribution or skewness.

A control chart plots process measurements over time against statistically calculated upper and lower control limits, typically set at three standard deviations from the mean. Points within the control limits indicate normal process variation. A point outside the control limits signals that the process is out of control and requires investigation. The rule of seven states that seven consecutive points on one side of the mean, even within control limits, indicate a non-random trend that should be investigated.

Prevention focuses on keeping errors out of the process by designing quality into the product and process from the beginning, such as training, checklists, templates, and process standardization. Inspection focuses on keeping errors out of the deliverable by examining and measuring outputs to determine whether they conform to requirements. Philip Crosby's principle states that the cost of prevention is always less than the cost of inspection and correction. PMI advocates a prevention-over-inspection approach because it is more cost-effective to prevent defects than to find and fix them. ---