Deck 7: Project Quality and Communications Planning

Question 1

List at least seven of the Juran's 10 steps to quality improvement.

Answer 1

Juran's 10 steps to quality improvement (Juran, 1998):
1. Build awareness of the need and opportunity for improvement.
2. Set goals for improvement.
3. Organize to reach the goals (establish a quality council, identify problems, select projects, appoint teams, and designate facilitators).
4. Provide training.
5. Carry out projects to solve problems.
6. Report progress.
7. Give recognition.
8. Communicate results.
9. Keep score.
10. Maintain momentum by making annual improvement part of the regular systems and processes of the company.

Question 2

Cost of nonconformance is the total cost incurred by an organization to prevent a faulty product or development of a system that does not meet system requirements.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

List at least 5 of Crosby's 14 steps to quality improvement.

Answer 3

Crosby also developed the following 14 steps to quality improvement: (Crosby, 1979)
1. Make it clear that management is committed to quality.
2. Form quality improvement teams with representatives from each department.
3. Determine where current and potential quality problems lie.
4. Evaluate the cost of quality and explain its use as a management tool.
5. Raise the quality awareness and personal concern of all employees.
6. Take actions to correct problems identified through previous steps.
7. Establish a committee for the zero-defects program.
8. Train supervisors to actively carry out their part of the quality improvement program.
9. Hold a "zero-defects day" to let all employees realize that there has been a change.
10. Encourage individuals to establish improvement goals for themselves and their groups.
11. Encourage employee communication with management about obstacles to quality.
12. Recognize participants' efforts.
13. Establish quality councils to communicate on a regular basis.
14. Do it all over again to emphasize that the quality improvement program never ends.

Question 4

What are Crosby's four absolutes of quality?

Question 5

Maintainability is the probability of a product performing as specified without failure over a set period of time.

Question 6

Six Sigma is a quality management process that helps in setting standards for quality and in monitoring the process.

Question 7

The definition of quality cannot vary.

Question 8

What is DMAIC, and what does the acronym stand for?

Question 9

As organizations mature in their project management processes, one of the keys is learning from previous projects and reusing the best parts.

Question 10

Describe at least three key principles of TQM.

Question 11

Describe at least five of Deming's 14 points of quality.

Question 12

What is a maturity model, and what does it provide (according to SEI)?

Question 13

Name the five levels of process maturity in CMMI.

Question 14

Cost of nonconformance is the total cost incurred by an organization because the product does not meet user requirements (for example, rework, poor user productivity).

Question 15

External failure costs are the costs associated with system defects before a system is fully deployed (for example, scrap, rework).

Question 16

Fitness for use means the product needs to be usable as it was originally intended.

Question 17

Why must quality be a continuous process from the beginning of the project until the end?

Question 18

External failure costs are the costs associated with system defects after the system is fully deployed (for example, scrap, rework, returns, market share, lawsuits).

Question 19

What are the four perspectives viewed by the scorecard approach?

Question 20

Explain the Pareto principle.

Question 21

The key issue with implementing a balanced scorecard is to make sure you pick the right metrics.

Question 22

Quality management planning is so important that many authors add it to the triple constraint of projects (scope, time, cost).

Question 23

The U.S. government has mandated that all technology vendors who aspire to perform work for the U.S. government must be CMMI certified.

Question 24

CMM seeks to create a framework within which organizations can reexamine their pursuit of strategic objectives via best practices in organizational project management.

Question 25

The OPM3 maturity model has three levels of maturity, and each level can exist at a different domain of project management.

Question 26

The Communications Management knowledge area in the PMBOK contains four processes: identify stakeholders, plan communications, distribute information, and manage stakeholder expectations.

Question 27

Total quality describes the culture, attitude, and organization of a company that strives to provide customers (internal and external) with products and services that satisfy their needs.

Question 28

An affinity diagram is a group decision-making technique designed to sort a large number of ideas, concepts, and opinions into a set of organized groups.

Question 29

Communication can include several definitions: an exchange of information, a verbal or written message, a technique for expressing ideas effectively, and a process by which meanings are exchanged between persons through a common system of symbols and/or sounds.

Question 30

The Ishikawa diagram is commonly referred to as a skull diagram because of its resemblance to the skeleton of a skeleton.

Question 31

Deming estimated that as much as 85 percent of all quality problems could be corrected by making changes in the process and only 15 percent could be controlled by the workers on the line.

Question 32

A project schedule management plan includes information on when and how to prepare and distribute written reports to team members and stakeholders.

Question 33

Reliability is the time and expense needed to restore the product to an acceptable level of performance after it has failed or begun a trend toward failure.

Question 34

A program is generally a collection of related projects that are being managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually.

Question 35

Pareto is a rigorous and disciplined methodology that uses data and statistical analysis to measure and improve a company's operational performance by identifying and eliminating defects in manufacturing and service-related processes.

Question 36

In Six Sigma methodology, a normal distribution is a bell-shaped curve that is symmetrical about the mean.

Question 37

A quality management plan consists of metrics, missed requirements, system response time, failure rates, checklists, improvement plan, and finally a baseline of where the organization is currently operating.

Question 38

Much of the information contained in a communications management plan is taken from the stakeholder analysis.

Question 39

The OPM3 cycle consists of four steps: prepare for assessment; perform assessment; plan for improvements; implement improvements.

Question 40

Juran Trilogy focuses on the three areas of quality: planning, quality improvement, and quality control.

Question 41

To obtain the ISO certification, an organization must develop and adopt a quality ________ system.

A) control
B) assurance
C) testing
D) management

Question 42

This is the total cost incurred by an organization because the product does not meet user requirements (for example, rework, poor user productivity).

A) External failure cost
B) Internal failure cost
C) Cost of nonconformance
D) Cost of quality

Question 43

Which of the following is NOT one of Crosby's four absolutes or quality?

A) Make it clear that management is committed to quality
B) Quality is conformance to requirements
C) The standard should be "zero defects"
D) Quality is measured by the cost of nonconformance

Question 44

The communications management plan should include description of known oral exchanges of information, as well, such as when and where status meetings will occur.

Question 45

This is the time and expense needed to restore the product to an acceptable level of performance after it has failed or begun a trend toward failure.

A) Conformance to requirements
B) Maintainability
C) Reliability
D) Fitness for use

Question 46

This is the probability of a product performing as specified without failure over a set period of time.

A) Conformance to requirements
B) Maintainability
C) Reliability
D) Fitness for use

Question 47

This cost is the total cost incurred by an organization to prevent a faulty product or development of a system that does not meet system requirements.

A) External failure cost
B) Internal failure cost
C) Cost of nonconformance
D) Cost of quality

Question 48

The computer industry, more so than some others, uses its own language, often referred to as techeze.

Question 49

________ means the product needs to be usable as it was originally intended.

A) Quality
B) Usability
C) Regulated
D) Fitness for use

Question 50

These are the costs associated with system defects after the system is fully deployed (for example, scrap, rework, returns, market share, lawsuits).

A) External failure costs
B) Internal failure costs
C) Cost of nonconformance
D) Cost of quality

Question 51

Project managers must make sure that both stated and ________ needs are met to ensure a successful project.

A) implied
B) documented
C) requested
D) indirect

Question 52

The ________ diagram is a cause-and-effect tool that helps workers discover the true root cause of quality issues.

A) Pareto
B) network
C) WBS
D) fishbone

Question 53

These are the costs associated with system defects before a system is fully deployed (for example, scrap, rework).

A) External failure costs
B) Internal failure costs
C) Cost of nonconformance
D) Cost of quality

Question 54

A cost and time disparity estimate exists that it's ________ times more expensive to find an error after the system is deployed than to find that error during requirements discovery.

A) 10 to 50
B) 50 to 200
C) 200 to 500
D) 500 to 1000

Question 55

Benchmarking is a technique that allows for a statistical framework to be used to change multiple factors that are important to a specific project and review the results instead of changing just one parameter at a time and having to wait for the results before proceeding with another change.

Question 56

Noise is anything that interferes with the transmission and understanding of the message.

Question 57

________ design methods, the modern name given to the Taguchi methods, continually stress the importance of monitoring manufacturing "noise factors"-environmental variation during the product's usage (machine wear), manufacturing variation, and component deterioration.

A) Quality
B) Robust
C) Variation
D) Process

Question 58

________ focuses on the three areas of quality: planning, quality improvement, and quality control.

A) Juran Trilogy
B) Pareto principle
C) The 80/20 rule
D) PDSA

Question 59

________ circles are led by nonmanagers within a single department or as a step in the overall process of producing a product.

A) Management
B) Process
C) Quality
D) Unit

Question 60

Useful metrics should be expensive to use.

Question 61

________ created the OPM3 maturity model to aid organizations in their maturity progress specifically in terms of project management.

A) The U.S. government
B) ISO
C) The Project Management Institute (PMI)
D) General Electric

Question 62

Brainstorming can be conducted with or without ________ diagrams.

A) network
B) Pareto
C) fishbone
D) affinity

Question 63

________ seeks to create a framework within which organizations can reexamine their pursuit of strategic objectives via best practices in organizational project management.

A) CMMI
B) CMM
C) PMBOK
D) OPM3

Question 64

Which of the following is NOT a domain of project management?

A) Element
B) Portfolio
C) Program
D) Project

Question 65

In Six Sigma methodology, a(n) ________ distribution is a bell-shaped curve that is symmetrical about the mean.

A) normal
B) abnormal
C) skewed
D) required

Question 66

Which of the following is NOT a benefit of achieving CMMI-defined maturity?

A) Improved cycle time
B) Guaranteed quality product
C) Increased team productivity
D) Increased ROI

Question 67

A program is generally a collection of related projects that are being managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually.

A) program
B) portfolio
C) project
D) process

Question 68

It has been estimated that as much as 90 percent of a project manager's time is spent in some form of communication.

A) 50
B) 30
C) 90
D) 10

Question 69

The purpose of the ________ quality methodology is to reduce variation, thus reducing the number of product or service defects.

A) Pareto
B) CPM
C) Six Sigma
D) balanced scorecard

Question 70

A project communications management plan includes information on when and how to prepare and distribute written reports to team members and stakeholders.

A) information
B) communications
C) human resources
D) distribution

Question 71

To aid organizations in the improvement of their IT systems projects and to aid the U.S. government in selecting qualified vendors, a framework was developed to assess and evaluate an organization's processes, and this framework evolved into the ________.

A) Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3)
B) Six Sigma
C) Capability Maturity Model (CMM)
D) Total Quality Management (TQM)

Question 72

________ is the study of a competitor's product, service, or business practice for the purpose of improving an organization's own performance.

A) Benchmarking
B) Cost-benefit analysis
C) Brainstorming
D) Design of experiments

Question 73

The first step in the process used to build the communications management plan is:

A) Review the stakeholder analysis and complete the stakeholder communications matrix.
B) Define content for status reports and timing.
C) Establish who is responsible for collecting data.
D) Establish key project team contacts.

Question 74

Which of the following is NOT a stage of maturity in OPM3?

A) Standardize
B) Measure
C) Execute
D) Control

Question 75

Six Sigma for IT projects is calculated based on the number of ________ per million opportunities.

A) requirements
B) defects
C) outputs
D) inputs

Question 76

Which of the following is NOT one of the processes of the Communications Management knowledge area in the PMBOK?

A) Choose communication medium.
B) Identify stakeholders.
C) Distribute information.
D) Report performance.

Question 77

This is a statistical method to help identify the factors that have influence on the quality of a product or process.

A) Benchmarking
B) Cost-benefit analysis
C) Brainstorming
D) Design of experiments

Question 78

This method is used to determine the trade-off between the costs of building a quality product or service and the benefits obtained from a product that meets defined quality standards.

A) Brainstorming
B) Cost-benefit analysis
C) Benchmarking
D) Design of experiments

Question 79

The first step in the process used to build the quality management plan is to:

A) Build checklists to aid in collecting and monitoring.
B) Conduct training on the organization's quality initiative.
C) Obtain commitment and shared understanding from stakeholders on the quality standards.
D) Determine how each metric result will be collected.

Question 80

A ________ model is a structured collection of elements that describe characteristics of effective processes.

A) maturity
B) quality
C) standards
D) process