Quality Function Deployment - A Systematic Approach to Product Definition

At AT&T, we are always working to improve our development process to reduce the cost of rework and improve product quality and customer satisfaction. We are also emphasizing the need to better understand customer's needs up front to define products and services that meet customers' expectations. One approach that we are finding useful is Quality Function Deployment (QFD). QFD is a systematic approach for identifying and prioritizing customer needs, translating those needs into product/service specifications and tracking those customer needs throughout the product/service realization process.