Understanding Customer Needs (Digital Short Cut): Software QFD and the Voice of the Customer

Leading companies around the world, including Toyota and General Electric, have practiced Quality Function Deployment (QFD) for decades. Developed in Japan by Dr. Yoji Akao and Dr. Shigeru Mizuno, QFD has two aims: to ensure that true customer needs are properly deployed throughout all phases of the development process, and to improve the development process itself. The application of QFD to software (Software QFD) began in Japan in 1982, in North America in 1988, and in Europe in 1990. Today many leading software organizations around the world use Software QFD and it is an essential part of organization-wide quality approaches such as Total Quality Management (TQM) and Design for Six Sigma (DFSS). As a quality system, QFD employs, but is not limited to, the Seven Management and Planning (7 MP) Tools, introduced in Chapter 7 of the book Design for Trustworthy Software. It has deployments, or subsystems, to address customer concerns such as quality, technology, cost/schedule, and reliability/risk, among others. Although QFD is known for the "House of Quality" matrix, organizations that simply use this matrix alone neither meet the aims of QFD nor are considered to be "doing QFD" by leading QFD experts. Further, because of unfortunate historical errors in understanding, many published QFD examples are incorrect and are not suitable as models for software development. Such mistakes are corrected in the overview of Blitz QFD presented in this short cut. This short cut is a reproduction of Chapter 11 of the book Design for Trustworthy Software and introduces Software QFD as a part of trustworthy software development process. It can be used either as an important methodology in software design process or as a standalone presentation on QFD for software development process. This short cut should be of interest to software and quality professionals. In particular, it would be of value to the CMMI, Six Sigma, and DFSS communities worldwide, especially those who have acquired or plan to acquire Green Belt, Black Belt, Master Black Belt, or similar competencies in various quality management disciplines. It should also be useful resource for students and academics of various programs at senior undergraduate and graduate levels, and for those preparing for ASQ's Certified Software Quality Engineer (CSQE) examination. What This Short Cut Covers 3 QFD: Origin and Introduction 4 Problems with Traditional QFD Applied to Software 20 Modern QFD for Software 25 The Blitz QFD