Basic Tools of Quality

Reply to the following:

Identify when and why you would use these tools on an information technology project.
In my opinion all these tools should be used for every project especially IT projects because they use testing extensively to ensure quality (Schwalbe, 2014). Each tool provides a great way to ensure the project provide the right quality everyone was expecting. The cause-and-effect diagrams allow you to find the source of problems. The control, flow and pareto charts helps us indentify weather they have a good handle on the things that are going on with the project. Different types of diagrams helps take all the information currently going on with a project and allow us to see a bigger picture and hopefully notice a trend of problems before they occur or even after they have occurred.

Explain, giving two examples, how the use of these tools can improve the quality of an information technology project.
1. Using a pareto chart can help the project team see the overall results from the customers on their satisfaction of the product. My documenting them in a chart broken up in different categories will show where the strengths and weaknesses are. By doing this allows the team to shift some of their focus to provide a better balanced overall product.

2. A check sheet is a perfect tool to help prove that a product has been completed properly regardless of what the customers come back and say. These checkout sheets could also provide means to finding other issues when trying to follow a specific procedure and the tech is having a hard time doing something. If a tech is having a hard time following procedures then I can imagine the customers are going to be even worst off.

Identify one difficulty of using each of these of these tools in an information
The problem that I see overall with a big in depth quality control program is the costs associated with it. There is already many unforeseen circumstances that can arise especially in bigger more complex projects. With IT type projects the quality needs to be delivered at is highest as if its not is can cost the customer lots of money if people cannot conduct their work on their computers for example.

As you are answering this week's questions concerning the various tools available for managing quality, I want you to discuss how Six Sigma can be used to improve project quality. Considering that Six Sigma has its roots in improving the quality of manufacturing processes, how does this translate to improving the quality of IT projects?
Six Sigma is a sophisticated process built to improve quality, decrease costs and provide the best possible customer satisfaction. Any program that can help fine tune processes from start to finish is a bonus especially one like the six sigma because it will help keep the teams on a very strict path and set of rules to abide by with key goals to provide a finished and successful project with minimal to almost no errors.