Chapter 11 – Project Quality Planning and Project Kick-off
TRUE/FALSE
1. W. Edwards Deming asserted that managers need to understand both serial variation and sequential
variation and then work to reduce both.
2. W. Edwards Deming argued that managers must understand cause and effect relationships to predict
future behavior.
3. Joseph Juran is credited for developing the Quality Trilogy that includes quality planning, quality
control, and quality improvement.
4. Crosby, a well known quality management thought leader, asserts that quality is meeting requirements,
not exceeding them.
5. The International Organization for Standardization developed a quality management standard that
relies upon several quality management areas including management, resources and realization.
6. Six Sigma is a quality improvement approach that is particularly suited for many service processes that
people had previously said were too difficult if not impossible to measure.
7. DMAIC is typically used as a method of implementing continuous improvement and can thus be
practiced repeatedly.
8. Stakeholder satisfaction requires an understanding of the ultimate quality goals with respect to
stakeholders.
9. Project stakeholders will judge the quality of project work processes as well as project deliverables.
10. Project quality is defined as the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements.
11. The purpose of process control is to be able to have confidence that outputs are predictable.
12. Fact-based management requires an understanding of variation, deciding what to measure, working
correctly with data, and using the resulting information appropriately.
13. The goal of empowered performance is to improve performance results each and every period.
14. The quality management plan describes how an organization’s quality policies will be implemented.
15. On many small, simple projects the quality planning is performed concurrently with other planning
and the quality plan is seamlessly incorporated into the project plan.
16. If necessary, the quality policy on a specific project may violate either the quality policies of the parent
organization or of a major customer.
17. Perform Quality Assurance is the process of auditing the quality requirements, and the results from
quality control measurements to ensure appropriate quality standards and operational definitions are
used.
18. Perform Quality Assurance is monitoring specific results to determine whether they comply with
relevant quality standards.
19. The outputs of Control Quality may include recommended preventive actions designed to ensure the
future performance of project work is aligned with the project management plan.
20. A high level view of processes and stakeholders, that starts with suppliers and ends with customers, is
sometimes referred to as a “Plan–Do-Check-Act” (PDCA) model.
21. The formality of a kick-off meeting can vary considerably depending on the size and type of project.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Which of the following statements is consistent with the ideas that W. Edwards Deming promoted
regarding quality management?
a.
Understanding variation is essential to improving quality.
b.
Statistical concepts rather than behavioral considerations should govern quality
improvement efforts.
c.
A key to quality improvement is to ensure that each part of the system functions
effectively, independent from the others.
d.
The burden of quality falls on those that do the work
2. Joseph Juran provided guidance regarding how to conduct quality planning. All of the following
items are consistent with his quality planning guidance EXCEPT:
a.
identify all customers and their needs
b.
quality must be inspected into the process
c.
develop methods to satisfy customer requirements
d.
develop requirements based on customer needs
3. Joseph Juran provided guidance regarding how to control quality. Which of the following items is
consistent with his quality control guidance?
a.
identify all team members and their needs
b.
establish measurement systems
c.
prove effects
d.
expend necessary efforts to exceed requirements
4. Which of the following quality management thought leaders is generally credited with contributing the
insight that team learning is necessary to improve quality?
a.
Ishikawa
b.
Senge
c.
Taguchi
d.
Harrington
5. All of the following items are among the key areas covered by the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award EXCEPT:
a.
Leadership
b.
Strategic planning
c.
Team Learning
d.
Customer focus
6. DMAIC is a disciplined process that includes five phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and
Control. DMAIC is most typically associated with which of the following quality improvement
approaches?
a.
Malcolm Baldrige
b.
Total Quality Management (TQM)
c.
Six Sigma
d.
ISO 9001:2008
7. The four core project quality concepts include which of the following?
a.
assumption-based management
b.
stakeholder satisfaction
c.
benchmarking
d.
earned value management
8. The decision process for developing relevant quality standards on a project includes all of the
following activities EXCEPT:
a.
identify all stakeholders
b.
understand the prioritized stakeholders’ requirements
c.
design work systems
d.
make tradeoff decisions
9. All of the following reasons explain why it is better to design quality into processes than to find
problems through inspections EXCEPT:
a.
The cost of rework can be expensive.
b.
The time spent on rework aggravates time pressures that already exist on projects.
c.
Some mistakes are likely to reach the customer.
d.
The best inspectors should find every variation and defect
10. Which quality tool provides a crisp definition of what and how to measure specific performance?
a.
voice of the customer
b.
root cause analysis
c.
quality metrics
d.
benchmarking
11. Fact-based management includes four key ideas. Which of the following is among the key ideas
associated with fact-based management?
a.
the need to understand variation
b.
reliance on historical research
c.
routine use of interrogations
d.
use of analogous estimating
12. A source of variation that is inherent in a system and predictable is typically known as:
a.
special cause variation.
b.
common cause variation.
c.
systemic variation.
d.
life cycle variation
13. All of the following statements accurately describe special cause variation EXCEPT:
a.
It is not inherent in the system
b.
It comes from external sources
c.
It is inherent in the system and is predictable
d.
It can be quite unpredictable
14. All of the following items contribute to developing empowered performance in an organization
EXCEPT:
a.
setting an expectation for managers to encourage associates to treat risk events as learning
opportunities
b.
accepting the fact that the project manager has total decision making authority
c.
training and equipping workers so that they’re willing to take risks
d.
helping develop specialists who can aid anyone in the organization
15. Which of the following documents describes how the project team will implement the performing
organization’s quality policy?
a.
quality benchmarking plan
b.
quality control plan
c.
quality management plan
d.
quality audit plan
16. The project manager is responsible for selecting appropriate quality standards for the project.
Typically, these standards apply to all of the following EXCEPT:
a.
team selection criteria
b.
documentation created during the project
c.
deliverables created by the project
d.
materials and related inputs used by the project
17. During which DMAIC phase would you find the objectives of identify possible root causes, collect
data, and confirm root causes through data analysis?
a.
Define
b.
Measure
c.
Analyze
d.
Improve
18. After completing detailed planning for a project, it is often helpful for the project manager and team to
apply a sanity test to the project plan. Which of the following accurately describes the application of
a sanity test?
a.
It is based largely on the expectations of supervisors and sponsors.
b.
It is primarily focused on the team members.
c.
It should include questions to ensure budgets, schedules and resource plans are reasonable
and achievable.
d.
It focuses on whether the project charter should be changed
19. Which of the following serves as a pre-condition that must be met in order for a project kick-off
meeting to be successful?
a.
An atmosphere of trust and relationship building should be set by all.
b.
Project performance results should be calculated and made available to team members.
c.
Compensation packages and benefits plans should be shared with all team members.
d.
The meeting location should always be off-site
20. All of the following items are valid reasons to conduct a project kick-off meeting EXCEPT:
a.
to give team members a chance to see how all the parts fit together
b.
to convince stakeholders that the project leaders will be good stewards of the customer’s
and organization’s assets
c.
to help involved workers to understand the touch points where work exchanges hands
d.
to emphasize that all decisions will be made exclusively by the project manager
21. Which of the following activities are typically included in a project kick-off meeting?
a.
The project manager evaluates team member performance.
b.
The project team collects lessons learned for use on future projects.
c.
The project manager outlines the project goals.
d.
The project sponsor brings in a facilitator to conduct a brainstorming exercise
ESSAY
1. Deming, Juran, Crosby and Taguchi are among the thought leaders who introduced ideas that fueled
the quality revolution. Briefly identify and describe important ideas and concepts that each of these
thought leaders contributed.
2. The quality revolution introduced many tools that can be used to improve the quality of project related
processes and outcomes. Identify three quality tools and briefly describe how you would use them to
improve project related processes and outcomes.
3. Assume you have been selected to lead your team in the development of a quality management plan.
Identify and describe several components that a quality management plan should contain.