Skip to main content

Critical to Quality Tree 101

 

Quality is easily the make or break element of any product, service, or project. Organizations push to deliver prime quality for two significant reasons, first to satisfy their clients and second to stand out from the competitors.

In layman terms, Critical to Quality requirements relate to customer's expectations and needs with the quality of the output delivered. While the need for the CTQ requirement is clear, it is not always easy to identify the exact features that provide the quality in the customer's eyes. This is where the Critical to Quality Tree comes into the picture.

Critical to Quality tree is a diagram tool that helps in translating broad customer needs into specific, actionable, and measurable performance quantifiers. For example, "Deliver quality pizza and good service” is too broad a term to do much about it. CTQ tree is used to break this requirement down to actionable items.

 

Developing Critical to Quality Tree

Step 1: Identify Critical Needs

Critical needs are the needs that your product or service needs to satisfy. The first step in the process of developing a CTQ tree is to identify critical needs. Conduct needs analysis or even ask the client or customer what they require. It would help if you also brainstormed along with other team members to identify needs that the client might not have recognized. It is best to define these needs in broad terms as this will prevent you from missing out on essential pointers.

 

Step 2:  Identify Quality Drivers

Quality drivers are the factors that must be present in your product or service for the customer to think that you are delivering a quality product or service. This level will require effective communication with the client or the customer. It is of utmost importance to spend a considerable amount of time on this to not miss out on any of the drivers.

 

Step 3: Identify Performance Requirements

Once you have identified the quality drivers, you need to decide on these quality drivers' minimum performance requirements. There are several factors that you will have to consider while deciding on the performance requirement. Examples of such factors are the availability of resources, availability of the technology, etc.

Example of CTQ tree

Now that you know how to create a CTQ tree let's revisit our initial need statement and see how we can break it down.

 

Need:

 Deliver quality pizza and good service

 

Drivers

1. Variety of pizza

2. Quick Service

3. Use of good ingredients

 

Performance Requirements

1. Variety of pizza

- Diversity in the pizza toppings

- Include the option to add seasonal toppings

 

2. Quick Service

- All customers addressed within 2 minutes of

- Orders fulfilled within 10 minutes

 

3. Use of Good Ingredients

- Including gluten-free pizza

- Calories of each item mentioned          

 

We hope the example will give you an idea about the creation of the Critical to Quality tree and its steps. While the tool is a part of Six Sigma, it can efficiently and effectively be used during a project or product development. You can explore similar essential concepts of Lean Six Sigma with CP's Lean Six Sigma Courses and apply them in your domain to deliver excellent quality products or services. Happy Learning!


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Salesforce - Einstein Analytics

Most of us may have heard of Salesforce in our organizations. We may have even worked on the Salesforce tool. So, what is the buzz about Salesforce? Salesforce is the pioneer in using cloud technology in the CRM system. It is a popular and leading customer relationship management (CRM) tool used by many organizations. It is so popular and user-friendly that it is used by start-ups as well as fortune 500 companies. When Salesforce was launched, it started as a tool that people in sales used to track their accounts, opportunities, leads, and financial information. It helped to create projections and follow up with their customers. Today, it is used in various industries to track their customer interactions, predictions, analytics, reports, and to manage customer accounts and information.      History of Salesforce Salesforce was started by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Frank Dominguez, and Dave Moellenhoff in an apartment in 1999. By 2000 they...
Post a Comment
Read more

Optimizing Stakeholder Engagement

  Stakeholders are individuals or organizations who are involved in the project, or whose interests are positively or negatively affected by the result of the project. Stakeholders are essential as the project’s success or failure largely depends on the fulfillment of stakeholder’s needs or expectations. Due to this, the engagement of stakeholders intrinsically becomes an essential part of project management. The key to effective stakeholder engagement is “planning.” One has to systematically identify and prioritize stakeholders, along with establishing proper communication modes with them. So let’s look at the steps in the strategy to develop and optimize stakeholder engagement.   1. Stakeholder Identification The first step is to identify who all are being affected by the projects. It would be best if you considered all the individuals, interest groups, and right holders who would have an interest in the project. If you are running the project for a client, you may b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Importance of Effective Communication in the Workplace

Ineffective communication can lead to the failure of a project and even closure of a process or an organization. Communication is very crucial at work. A superior should be able to communicate effectively with their team members. The communication gap at work can lead to chaos, delay in projects or work on time, prioritizing secondary work instead of the primary work, and misleading the team from their core objectives. It is crucial as a leader to have excellent communication skills and to give out clear messages. Active Listening Active listening is one of the crucial elements to be a good communicator. Nobody likes to communicate with a person who doesn’t listen. It creates a wall between two people. The person who is talking will feel disconnected and might not share their ideas and views in the future. A person who actively listens will ask the right questions and understand what the other person is trying to say. If a person actively listens, they will be abl...
Post a Comment
Read more