Datasheet
2 ■ Optimize Quality for Business Outcomes
 Any person on the manufacturing floor can stop the 
entire manufacturing process if they notice something is 
not right. 
 Everybody on the assembly line is a quality checker.
 When a problem is spotted early, it’s a lot cheaper to fix 
at that point, instead of cranking out a bunch of flawed 
cars and later having to rework the design, or possibly 
even do a recall.
The HP Quality Model was born out of the question, “How can 
we save IT costs for testing and quality management?”
To find the answer, we followed the approach made popular 
by Taiichi Ohno, inventor of the Toyota Quality System, and 
others. The 5-Why method asks five questions that help lead us 
down the right path. 
First, we asked: Why is IT so expensive, when hardware costs 
are dropping and development technologies have improved 
developer productivity?
We found that despite the advancements in IT process and 
technology, IT projects are becoming more complex and they 
almost always run out of time. When time is short, people tend 
to sacrifice the quality of the product. 
The Standish Report over the past 15 years shows the rate of 
successful projects (that is, under budget and on time) is below 
30 percent (Figure 1). The advancements haven’t lowered the 
cost. On the contrary, with more complexity, the need for 
proper planning and project management is greater. 
When budget and time constraints dictate the project parame-
ters, functionality and quality get the short end of the stick.
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