Chapter 8 Quality Management Chapter 8

22. Reduced quality on a project would MOST likely lead to which of the following? A. Rework and increased cost risk B. Absenteeism and decreased cost C. Increased inspections and decreased cost D. Reduced quality limits

A Rework and increased cost and risk are likely outcomes of low quality. 'B' and 'C' are incorrect since decreased cost is not related to low quality. 'D' is incorrect, because you would not lower the quality limits or specifications just because the quality is bad.

19. A customer is concerned that the quality process is not being followed as laid out in the quality management plan. The best way to see if this claim is accurate is: A. Random sampling B. Kaizen C. Personally participate in the quality inspections D. Audits

D Audits, part of the Perform Quality Assurance process, review the process and make sure that the process is being followed.

1. You are a project manager, and your manager wants to meet with you to evaluate your project's performance in order to see how it is meeting the quality standards supplied by the company. In what process is your boss engaged? A. Total Quality Management B. Perform Quality Control C. Plan Quality D. Perform Quality Assurance

D In this example your boss is auditing you to see if you are following the process. Remember that audits are a tool of Perform Quality Assurance.

14. Which of these quality standards is the highest? A. It is impossible to determine without further information B. 99% quality C. Three sigma quality D. Six sigma quality

D Six sigma represents that 99.99966% of all work results will be of acceptable quality in the manufacturing process. This is higher than 99% or 3 sigma, which represents a 99.73% quality rate.

21. Your organization practices just-in-time management. Which of the following would be the highest concern for a project manager operating in this company? A. Absenteeism B. Lower quality of parts C. Conflicting quality processes D. Inventory arriving late

D The PMP Exam has several questions structured like this one. You could have any of the problems listed here, but the one you would be most concerned with is parts arriving late. An organization that practices just-in-time (JIT) does not keep spare inventory on hand. Instead, the inventory is ordered so that the parts arrive only slightly before they are needed.

23. An organization had a defective unit of product returned. They have asked the team that designed the product to investigate the cause of failure. After a careful review , the team determines that the product failure is unusual and is related to poor raw materials. They have sampled products from the same batch and have determined that it was not affected by the same problem. The project manager has to report to the Vice President of Quality . How should she describe this problem? A. A process problem B. A quality assurance issue. C. A Special Cause. D. A common Cause.

D. A common Cause.

12. You are performing a project that has a lot in common with a project completed by your company two years ago. You want to use the previous project to help you determine quality standards for your project. Which of the following tools would be the BEST one to help you with this? A. Benchmarking B. Control chart C. ISO 9000 D. Total Quality Management

A Benchmarking takes results from previous projects and uses them to help measure quality on your project. Benchmarks give you something against which you can measure.

9. You are a project manager with limited resources on the project. Several quality defects have been discovered, causing the stakeholders concern. You wish to begin by attacking the causes that have the highest number of defects associated with them. Which tool shows defects by volume from greatest to least? A. Pareto chart B. Control chart C. Ishikawa diagram D. Cause and effect diagram

A Pareto charts rank defects from greatest to least, showing you what should get the most attention.

15. Which quality process is performed first? A. Plan Quality B. Perform Quality Assurance C. Perform Quality Control D. Quality Definition

A Plan Quality should always happen first. Perform Quality Assurance and Perform Quality Control would come after the quality management plan is in place. 'D' is not a PMI process. Keep in mind that the quality processes do run in a cycle, but planning should always happen first.

16. If a project team is drawing a tree diagram on the board, which of the following would most likely be used? A. An organizational breakdown structure. B. A cause-and-effect diagram. C. Afinite branch diagram. D. A network diagram.

A. The WBS,RBS,and OBS are examples of tree diagrams.

3. Plan Quality includes all of the following outputs EXCEPT: A. Quality management plan B. Accepted deliverables C. Operational definitions D. Checklists

B Accepted deliverables is not an output of Plan Quality. It is an output of Verify Scope.

24. Which of the following is NOT a part of the Plan Quality process? A. Benchmarking B. Audits C. Cost-benefit analysis D. Design of experiments

B Audits are part of Perform Quality Assurance. Choices 'A', 'C', and 'D' are all part of Plan Quality.

17. A project team is having their first quality meeting and plans to review the organization's quality policy when it is discovered that the company has never developed an organizational quality policy. The project manager is very concerned about this discovery. What would be the BEST course of action? A. Document the absence of a quality policy in the quality management plan and take corrective action B. Write a quality policy just for this project C. Substitute benchmark data for the quality policy D. Suspend execution until the organization provides a quality policy

B If no organizational quality policy exists, you should develop one for this project. 'A' and 'C' are incorrect since you should not proceed without a quality policy. 'D' would be a good way to lose your job! You should try to fix this problem yourself rather than force your organization to write a quality policy.

7. If the results of activity A have no bearing on the results of activity B, the two activities would he considered: A. Statistically unique B. Statistically independent C. Correlated, but not causal D. Mutually exclusive

B If two events have no bearing on each other, they are statistically independent. Choice 'D' is when two events cannot both happen at the same time.

8. The BEST tool to use to look for results that are out of control is: A. Pareto chart B. Control chart C. Ishikawa diagram D. Statistical sampling

B That is how a control chart is used. It visually depicts whether a process is in or out of control. Choice 'A' is used in Perform Quality Control to rank problems by frequency. 'C' is used in Perform Quality Control to anticipate problems in advance. Choice 'D' is used in Perform Quality Control to pick random samples to inspect.

4. In a control chart, the mean is represented as a horizontal line. This represents: A. The average of the control limits B. The average of all data points C. The average of all data points that are within control limits D. A means of identifying assignable cause

B The mean represents the average of all of the data points shown on the chart, calculated simply by adding the values together and dividing by the number of values. 'C' is not correct because the mean includes everything. If only the values that were within the control limits were used, it could make the mean look better than it should.

13. Which of the following is most representative of the Total Quality Management philosophy? A. Decreasing inventory to zero or near zero levels B. Everyone can contribute to quality C. Zero defects D. Continuous improvement is preferred over disruptive change

B Total Quality Management stresses, among other things, that everyone contributes to the quality of the product and process.

20. Mind mapping techniques are most closely related to: A. lateral Diagrams. B. Affinity Diagrams. C. Seven Basic Quality Tools. D. Plan Quality Management.

B. Affinity Diagrams are closely related to mind mapping.

6. Quality audits are an important part of quality management because: A. They allow for quantification of the risk B. They randomly audit product results to see if they are meeting quality standards C. They check to see if the quality process is being followed D. They are conducted without prior notice and do not allow team members time to cover up defects

C . Audits are a tool of Perform Quality Assurance that checks to see if the process is being followed. Choices 'A' and 'D' are incorrect, and choice 'B' is referring to inspection, which is a tool of Perform Quality Control.

11. In the process of managing a construction project, you discover a very serious defect in the way one particular section has been built. Your engineers analyze the section of the building and decide that the problem is actually relatively minor. In which process are you involved? A. Plan Quality B. Perform Quality Assurance C. Perform Quality Control D. Project Quality Management

C Perform Quality Control is the best choice here. Your clue here was the fact that your engineers had inspected something specific. This wasn't related to planning or process - it was a physical inspection of a work result, and that is what happens during the Perform Quality Control process.

2. If you were using a fishbone diagram to determine root causes of problems, you would be involved in: A. Perform Quality Inspection B. Perform Quality Prevention C. Perform Quality Control D. Perform Quality Audits

C Perform Quality Control is the correct answer here.

25. A project manager wants to perform a code review, but over two million lines of code have already been written for this project, and more are being produced every day. Rather than reviewing each line of code, the manager should consider: A. Automated testing tools B. Trend analysis C. Statistical sampling D. Regression analysis

C Statistical sampling (may appear as random sampling) is the best choice. If the overall population is too large, accurate sampling can give you the same statistical results as measuring the entire population. 'A' might be a good choice in the real world, but you should focus on the inputs, tools, and outputs contained in the PMBOK Guide for the exam, and automated testing tools is not apart of quality management.

18. On a control chart, the customer's acceptable quality limits are represented as: A. Control limits B. Mean C. Specification D. Normal distribution

C The quality specification is the customer's quality requirements. 'A' represents the limits for what is in and out of statistical control, typically set at three standard deviations from the mean. 'B' is the average of all of the data points. 'D' is a statistical term relating to the way the data points are scattered.

5. The quality team is meeting to discuss quality as it pertains to a new building product. The group is having some difference of opinion as to the Cost of Quality (COQ). Which of the four statements made by the team is true regarding the cost of quality? A. COQ does not include testing, destructive tests, and inspections in the calculations. B. COQ should categorize all product failures as preventable or non-preventable. C. COQ should include all costs to prevent nonconformance over the life of the product. D. All other things being equal, a lower overall COQ is indicative of a higher-quality product.

C. The Cost of Quality (COQ)

10. The process improvement plan looks at which of the following? A. The quality of the product. B. The quality of the team. C. The project management and product development. D. The phases of the project.

C. The process improvement plan is all about the quality of the project and the quality of the product development processes.