Quality Function Deployment at the Service of Questionnaire Design

Abstract

Questionnaires are commonly used to collect data, to learn people’s opinions and determine customer’s  satisfaction or identify employee’s needs. More often they are used when it is difficult to obtain data directly.  Typically what is more important is the subject matter under investigation and the statistical analysis of collected data. However, if questions are wrongly formulated the whole implementation process can be a flop. The questionnaire methodology involves three phases. Phase 1 is the planning stage whereby Quality Function Deployment QFD construction and questionnaire analysis, constitute the novelty of this method. The goal is to rigorously identify relationships between the questionnaire’s stated objectives and the questions being asked. Phase 2: pilot testing. Phase 3: implementation. The aim of this paper is to show how QFD can help in the successful implementation of a questionnaire.

Keywords: quality function deployment, covariance, cronbach alpha, reliability testing, response quality.