CSQA Practice Questions

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a technique used to quickly generate a quantity of creative or original ideas on or about a process, problem, product, or service. Brainstorming can be used to:

Develop a vision

Review inputs, outputs, and flows of existing processes

Create a list of products or services

Eliminate wasteful and redundant work activities

Reengineer a process, product, or service

Design a new or improved process

Establish standards, guidelines, or measures

Identify the internal and external customers served

Improve the work environment

Gather data for use with other tools

Affinity Diagram

The affinity diagram is an orderly extension of a structured brainstorming session. Teams use this tool to help create order out of chaos, by categorizing large numbers of ideas. Rather than having teams react logically to a group of ideas, this technique helps to identify more creative solutions or to structure ideas for a cause-and-effect diagram.

Nominal Group Technique

The nominal group technique is a structured, facilitated technique where all team members participate by individually ranking ideas, issues, concerns, and solutions, and then achieve consensus by combining the individual rankings.

Cause-and-Effect Diagram

Teams use cause-and-effect diagrams to visualize, clarify, link, identify, and classify possible causes of problems in processes, products, and services. They are also referred to as "fishbone diagrams," “why-why diagrams,” or "Ishikawa diagrams" (after Kaoru Ishikawa, a quality expert from Japan).

The framework defines risk and enterprise risk management, and provides a foundational definition, conceptualizations, objectives categories, components, principles and other elements of a comprehensive risk management framework. It provides direction for companies and other organizations in determining how to enhance their risk management architectures, providing context for and facilitating application in the real world. This document is also designed to provide criteria for companies’ use in determining whether their enterprise risk management is effective and, if not, what is needed to make it so.

Most people on a job, and even in management positions, do not understand what the job is, or what is right versus wrong. Moreover, it is not clear to them how to find out.

Many of them are afraid to ask questions or to report trouble. The economic loss from fear is appalling. It is necessary, for better quality and productivity that people feel secure.

Another related aspect of fear is the inability to serve the best interest of the company through necessity to satisfy specified rules, or to satisfy a production quota, or to cut costs by some specified amount.

One common result of fear is seen in inspection. An inspector records incorrectly the result of an inspection for fear of overdrawing the quota of allowable defectives of the work force.

A histogram requires some understanding of the data set being measured to consolidate or condense it into a meaningful display. To create a histogram, perform the following steps:

Gather data and organize it from lowest to highest values.

Calculate the range, which is the largest value – smallest value.

Based on the number of observations, determine the number of cells, which is normally between 7 and 13.

Calculate the interval or width of the cells, which is the range divided by number of cells.

Sort the data or observations into their respective cells.

Count the data points of each cell (frequency) to determine the height of the interval, and create a frequency table.

Plot the results.

The use of teams is critical in a quality management environment. As a result, understanding the team life cycle is important in order to set proper expectations for the team and to help it communicate and function effectively. Teams go through four phases:

Forming

In this first stage, teams are dominated by feelings of confusion and anxiety, and are not able to focus on their purpose for long. Individuals may come to the team proud to be selected, but wondering why, and wondering about the other members. Information will be solicited and shared, and hidden agendas add to the uncertainty. Key accomplishments of this phase are identifying roles for team members, clarifying responsibilities and accepted behavior, and defining the team's purpose.

Storming

Conflict, defensiveness, and competition are key during this stage. Team members still think individually and wrestle with loyalties outside the team. As ideas emerge, they are attacked and defended. There may be confrontations, disagreements, and fluctuating attitudes over the likelihood of achieving the team's purpose. Barriers will be examined and the team will focus on well-known observations and common beliefs. Some people will not participate to prevent unfavorable responses, and others will test the leader's authority and form cliques.

Norming

In this stage the individuals start to become a team. Personal agendas, concerns, and loyalties are minimized. People are discussed less often than the issues, conflicts are resolved constructively, and the team focuses on its real purpose. As trust develops, riskier ideas are proposed andfeelings exchanged. The willingness to discuss for the sake of the team grows, which results in better communication and cooperation.

Conforming

During this final stage, the team has matured into a cohesive unit. Individual strengths and weaknesses are understood and appreciated, leading to an overall satisfaction with the team membership. As steps are made toward the team's goals, there is individual learning and growth, and people feel satisfied with progress.

Preventive controls are located throughout the entire IT system. Many of these controls are executed prior to the data entering the computer programs. Following are three of the 8 preventive controls:

Source-data authorization- Once data has been recorded properly, there should be control techniques to ensure that the source data has been authorized. Typically, authorization should be given for source data such as credit terms, prices, discounts, commission rates, overtime hours, and so forth.

Data input -Data input is the process of converting data in non-machine-readable form (such as hard-copy source documents) into a machine-readable form so that the computer can update files with the transactions. Since the data input process is typically a manual operation, control is needed to ensure that the data input has been performed accurately.

Source-data preparation -In many automated systems, conventional source documents are still used and, therefore, no new control problems are presented prior to the conversion of source documents into machine-readable form. Specially designed forms promote the accuracy of the initial recording of the data. A pre-audit of the source documents by knowledgeable personnel to detect misspellings, invalid codes, unreasonable amounts, and other improper data helps to promote the accuracy of input preparation.