PMP Quality Management: Tools, Techniques & Exam Cheat Sheet

Quality is, in my experience, one of the most-confused knowledge areas on the PMP exam. The Manage Quality vs Control Quality distinction trips up most candidates I coach, and the seven basic quality tools are tested in disguise across many questions. Cost of Quality calculations appear regularly, and quality theorists make occasional appearances. I have seen candidates who internalise quality management cold reliably score 8-12 quality questions; the ones who skim quality during prep often miss half of these.

This is the complete cheat sheet I would have wanted when I prepped for my own PMP. It includes the three processes, the seven basic quality tools, cost of quality components, the major quality theorists, the exam traps I tell candidates to watch for, and the patterns that, in my view, distinguish strong quality knowledge from surface familiarity.

The headline: Manage Quality is process-focused. Control Quality is product-focused.

Plan Quality Management establishes what quality means for the project, which standards apply, and how quality will be measured. Outputs include the quality management plan, quality metrics, and quality checklists.

Manage Quality is the executing-level activity that audits whether the team is following the planned quality processes. It produces quality reports, change requests, and updated project documents. The output is process improvement, not deliverable inspection.

Control Quality is the monitoring-level activity that inspects deliverables against acceptance criteria. It produces verified deliverables, work performance information, change requests. The output is deliverable verification.

For exam questions, the candidate must distinguish which of the three is implicated by the scenario. “We are auditing the test process” -> Manage Quality. “We are testing a specific feature” -> Control Quality. “We are deciding what quality standards apply to this project” -> Plan Quality Management.

Memorise this distinction. It is the single most-tested quality concept.

The pattern that helps: Manage Quality is about how the team works (processes); Control Quality is about what the team produces (deliverables). Audit vs inspect captures the distinction at a high level.

The sequence matters too. Control Quality precedes Validate Scope. Internal QA inspects the deliverable; then the customer formally accepts via Validate Scope. Both are in the Monitoring & Controlling process group, but they are different processes with different purposes.

For PMs in real projects, the distinction maps to “are we following our process?” (Manage Quality) vs “is this output correct?” (Control Quality). Strong quality programmes do both rigorously.

Exam questions often describe the use case. Recognise which tool applies.

Cause-and-effect diagrams (Ishikawa or fishbone) organise potential causes of a problem into categories (often the 6Ms: machine, method, material, measurement, mother nature, manpower). The diagram surfaces causes systematically rather than relying on intuition.

Flowcharts visualise process steps and decision points. They are useful for understanding existing processes and designing new ones.

Checksheets are simple tally tools that record how often categories of events occur. Used as input to Pareto and other analytical tools.

Pareto charts display causes ranked by frequency, with a cumulative line. They illustrate the 80/20 principle - typically 80% of effects come from 20% of causes.

Histograms display data distribution. They reveal whether data is normally distributed or skewed. Useful for understanding process variation.

Control charts plot process measurements over time with upper and lower control limits. Points outside the limits or patterns within them signal special-cause variation.

Scatter diagrams plot two variables against each other. They reveal correlations (or absence of correlation) between potential cause and effect variables.

See Fishbone Diagram in PM: Root Cause Analysis, Pareto Chart for PMP, and What is Control Chart in PMP? for deeper coverage.

The exam tests recognition - given a scenario, identify which tool to use. Drilling on tool-recognition questions builds the pattern recognition needed.

COQ has two halves:

Cost of conformance: cost of preventing and detecting defects.

• Prevention costs (training, equipment, planning).
• Appraisal costs (testing, inspections).

Cost of non-conformance: cost of defects.

• Internal failure costs (rework, scrap).
• External failure costs (warranty, lost sales, reputation).

The PMI mindset: invest in conformance costs to avoid the much larger non-conformance costs.

The classic ratio: prevention investment pays back 5-10x in reduced failure costs. The discipline of prevention investment is one of the most under-applied disciplines in PM practice. Most teams rush through planning and pay the cost in later rework.

For exam questions, “cost of quality includes…” typically tests whether the candidate knows both halves. The right answer usually includes both conformance and non-conformance costs, not just one.

A worked example: a project budgets $50,000 for prevention (training, design reviews) and $30,000 for appraisal (testing, inspection). Cost of conformance = $80,000. The same project incurs $20,000 in rework and $10,000 in customer warranty claims. Cost of non-conformance = $30,000. Total cost of quality = $110,000.

The strategic insight: increasing conformance investment from $80,000 to $100,000 might reduce non-conformance from $30,000 to $5,000, lowering total COQ from $110,000 to $105,000.

Exam questions occasionally name a theorist. Recognise which concept maps to which person.

Deming emphasised statistical quality control and management responsibility for quality. The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle is his framework. His 14 points for management remain influential.

Juran introduced “fitness for use” as a quality definition - quality means the product fits the user’s intended use. His quality trilogy organises quality work into planning, control, and improvement.

Crosby argued “quality is free” - the cost of doing things right is less than the cost of fixing them later. His four absolutes: definition (quality is conformance to requirements), system (prevention not appraisal), performance standard (zero defects), measurement (price of nonconformance).

Ishikawa developed the fishbone diagram and emphasised quality as everyone’s responsibility, not just QA. Quality circles (small groups improving their own work) are his contribution.

Taguchi introduced the loss function (deviation from target produces increasing loss) and robust design (designing products to be insensitive to variation). Design of experiments is his statistical contribution.

For exam preparation, learning theorists by their distinctive concepts is more efficient than rote memorisation of biographies. The exam tests concept attribution, not biographical detail.

The exam tests the distinction between quality and grade:

Quality: degree to which a product meets requirements. A high-quality product meets its requirements; a low-quality product does not.

Grade: category of features. A high-grade product has many features; a low-grade product has few.

A low-grade product can still be high-quality if it meets its (modest) requirements. A high-grade product can be low-quality if it has features but does not work reliably.

For exam questions, the distinction matters. Customers may complain about quality (the product does not work) or grade (the product is missing features). The PM addresses each differently.

The PMI mindset: customers should always receive high-quality products at the grade they requested. Grade is a customer choice; quality is a project deliverable.

Prevention and inspection are both quality activities but with different roles:

Prevention: activities that keep defects from occurring. Examples: training, design reviews, process improvement, quality planning.

Inspection: activities that detect defects after they occur. Examples: testing, audits, code review, quality control checks.

The PMI mindset prefers prevention over inspection. Prevention is cheaper than inspection because it stops problems at the source. Inspection catches problems but does not prevent them.

For exam questions, “prevention vs inspection” comparisons typically have the right answer favouring prevention. The candidate who has internalised this principle navigates these questions reliably.

The strategic frame: prevention investments compound. Training that prevents one defect today also prevents similar defects tomorrow. Inspection investments do not compound - each inspection catches its own defects but does not prevent future ones.

Statistical sampling tests a representative subset of items rather than 100%. For large populations, sampling produces reliable quality verdicts at much lower cost than full inspection.

Key concepts:

• Population: the full set of items being assessed.
• Sample: the subset actually inspected.
• Sample size: how many items to inspect (depends on confidence level and acceptable risk).
• Sampling plan: rules for what to do based on sample results.

Sampling makes sense when: population is large, full inspection is expensive, defects are common enough to detect via sampling, the cost of missing a defect is acceptable.

Sampling does not make sense when: population is small, defects are rare enough that sampling would miss them, defect cost is catastrophic (life safety, regulatory).

For exam questions, the candidate identifies whether sampling fits the scenario. High-volume manufacturing typically uses sampling; safety-critical components typically inspect 100%.

Continuous improvement is woven through quality management:

PDCA (Deming): Plan-Do-Check-Act. Plan an improvement, do the work, check results, act on findings.

Kaizen: Japanese concept of continuous small improvements driven by everyone in the organisation.

Six Sigma: statistical approach targeting 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Uses DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control) methodology.

Lean: focus on eliminating waste in processes. Origins in Toyota Production System.

Total Quality Management (TQM): organisation-wide commitment to quality across all functions.

For exam questions, continuous improvement is implicit in many quality scenarios. The PMI mindset assumes ongoing improvement rather than fixed processes.

In Manage Quality, continuous improvement activities surface and address process issues. In Control Quality, defects feed back into prevention activities for future work.

Quality in agile contexts:

Definition of Done (DoD): explicit quality criteria for stories before they can be considered complete.

Acceptance criteria: per-story quality criteria reviewed during sprint review.

Continuous integration / continuous delivery (CI/CD): automated testing built into the delivery pipeline.

Pair programming and code review: real-time quality checks during work.

Retrospectives: continuous process improvement.

In agile, quality is woven into every sprint rather than concentrated in dedicated quality phases. The discipline of DoD and CI/CD produces quality continuously.

For hybrid projects, quality activities span both predictive and agile parts. Predictive parts use classical quality processes (audits, formal inspections). Agile parts use sprint-level quality practices.

For exam questions in agile or hybrid contexts, the right answer typically involves continuous quality embedded in the work rather than separate quality phases.

• Manage vs Control confusion. Always check whether the question is about process or deliverable.
• Quality vs Grade. Quality refers to whether a product meets requirements. Grade refers to category of features. Low grade can still be high quality.
• Inspection vs Prevention. PMI mindset prefers prevention over inspection.
• Continuous improvement vs Quality control. Continuous improvement is a Plan Quality / Manage Quality activity, not Control Quality.
• JIT and Lean references. Occasionally appear; both reduce inventory and waste.
• Cost of Quality scope. COQ includes both conformance and non-conformance costs, not just non-conformance.
• Theorist attribution. Match concepts to theorists carefully; the exam tests this specifically.

The pattern: quality traps reward precise reading. Slow reading prevents most traps; rushing produces wrong answers on questions where the right concept was clear if read carefully.

Quality fluency develops through deliberate practice:

• Week 1: memorise the three processes, the seven tools, and the COQ structure.
• Week 2: 10 quality questions per day with rationale review.
• Week 3-4: 15 questions per day. Focus on Manage vs Control distinctions.
• Week 5+: integrate quality questions into mock exams.

Total practice questions on quality: 80-150 across the prep period.

For candidates struggling with the seven tools, drilling on tool-recognition questions specifically helps. Doing 30+ questions where the candidate must identify which tool applies builds reliable recognition.

For candidates struggling with COQ, working through 10+ COQ scenarios builds conceptual understanding. The math is simple; the framework requires deliberate practice.