Seven quality tools

SEVEN QUALITY TOOLS

SEVEN QUALITY TOOLSPMBOK lists Seven quality tools that are important towards creating the quality management plan. They are:

▪ Cause-and-effect diagrams (fishbone, Ishikawa)

▪ Flowcharts

▪ Checksheets

▪ Pareto diagrams

▪ Histogram

▪ Control charts

▪ Scatter diagrams

CAUSE-AND-EFFECT DIAGRAMS (FISHBONE, ISHIKAWA)

▪ PMBOK definition – a decomposition technique that helps trace an undesirable effect back to its root cause.

FLOWCHARTS▪ PMBOK definition – show the activities, decision points, branching

loops, parallel paths, and the overall order of processing.

CHECKSHEETS▪ PMBOK definition- used to organizer facts in a manner that will

facilitate the effective collection of useful data about a potential quality problem. Checksheets are especially useful for gathering attributes data while performing inspection to identify defects.

PARETO DIAGRAMS▪ PMBOK definition – a histogram, ordered by frequency of occurrence,

that shows how many results were generated by each identified cause.

HISTOGRAM▪ PMBOK definition – used to describe the central tendency, dispersion

and shape of a statistical distribution. A histogram does not consider the influence of time on the variation that exists within a distribution.

CONTROL CHARTS▪ PMBOK definition- used to determine whether or not a process is stable or has

predictable performance.

▪ Upper and lower specification limits – based on requirements of the agreement. The upper specification limit represents the maximum. The lower specification limit represents the minimum.

▪ Upper and lower control limits - using standard statistical calculations and principles to ultimately establish the natural capability for a stable process. The upper control limit represents the maximum. The lower control limit represents the minimum.

▪ A process is considered out of control when:

1. A data point exceeds a control limit

2. Seven consecutive plot points are above the mean or

3. Seven consecutive plot points are below the mean.

CONTROL CHARTS

SCATTER DIAGRAMS▪ PMBOK definition – plot ordered pairs (X,Y). Diagrams seek to explain a

change in Y, the dependent variable, in regards to a change in X, the independent variable.

▪ If correlation between X and Y exists, a regression line can be calculated and used to eliminate to a change in X will influence Y.

CONTACT INFORMATION▪ Carla R Jenkins is the CEO of Phenomena Corporation, a project

management consultancy. She is a Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Scrum Master (CSM).

▪ Visit http://www.pm.expert/ , project management blog, for all things project management.

▪ Phenomena offers project management courses on the Teachable platform. Visit http://carlarjenkins.teachable.com/

▪ LinkedIn Profile: www.linkedin.com/carlarjenkins

▪ Visit http://carlarjenkins.com/ to contact me.