a technique where you repeatedly ask the question "Why?" (five is a good rule of thumb) to help peel away the layers of symptoms that can lead to the rood cause of a problem
acceptance decisions
decisions that determine if the products or services produced as part of the project will be accepted or rejected
appraisal cost
the cost of evaluating processes and their outputs to ensure that a project is error-free or within an acceptable error range
benchmarking
a technique used to generate ideas for quality improvements by comparing specific project practices or product characteristics to those of other projects or products within or outside the performing organization
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes
cause-and-effect diagram
diagram that traces complaints about quality problems back to the responsible production operations to help find the root cause; also knosn as fishbone diagram or Ishikawa diagram
conformance
delivering products that meet requirements and fitness for use