Comments for QFD on the Web

Comment on Submission Confirmation by Peter

Peter — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:08:16 +0000

Justin - if you haven’t already done so, you should check out Joseph Merts’ article “When to Say When” posted back in June. He makes some pretty interesting comments about limiting requirements to a “magic number” or “rule of thumb”.

Comment on Submission Confirmation by Fred

Fred — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 06:37:55 +0000

It seems like it would be appropriate or helpful for tools to highlight or somehow indicate to users that the “whats” are not adequately being provided for or that the “hows” aren’t actually helping any of the “whats”. Knowing the aforementioned principles, it is still easy to miss these points while maintaining, using or just reading a QFD.

Comment on Changing the Orientation of Your QFD by Justin

Justin — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 18:40:27 +0000

You mentioned that the column restrictions imposed by Excel, etc. may be too limiting for an HOQ. I have been told that no HOQ should ever have more than 30 or 40 requirements in any of its lists in order to keep it maintainable. Therefore, I really don’t think that the column restrictions are much of an issue considering that Excel allows 256 columns.

Comment on QFD First Step: Determine Your Customer by Skid

Skid — Tue, 29 May 2007 05:21:54 +0000

Great comments Joseph Merts…
A problem I often see is that the stake holders are not sure who their customer is. They get stuck in a loop of adding features and changing those features over and over again. All because of the lack of focus, inability to choose, or fear to be wrong. The stake holders have a hard time grasping the QFD process, but once they see and work through the exercise a new understanding is opened up and the product is able to move forward.

Comment on QFD First Step: Determine Your Customer by James

James — Sat, 26 May 2007 01:19:53 +0000

Okay I have to disagree about the internal customers ruling the day. I think that while there are legitimate internal customer issues they can’t be “given the bull horn.” Example … Beta Max vs. VHS. If Sony would have listened more to the consumer and their desire to record programs they could have been the defacto standard. Instead they listened to other internal forces (hollywood partners) and lost the market.

Comment on QFD First Step: Determine Your Customer by Mike

Mike — Sat, 26 May 2007 01:16:18 +0000

We suffer from the issue of having a strong influence from internal customers but who are oft times out of touch with the consumers or decide features based on tradition.

You do make a good point about internal customers deciding the success of the project. Some ideas have caused internal customers to sour on the product. And so they believe it’s not good or not on target…this gets spread around too much and the product is doomed before it reaches the consumers. Dead before it’s out the door.

How can you educate your internal stake holders about what will make the product a smashing success?

Hopefully you can cover that in your next blog post.