May 2002 • Table of Contents

Certification

Developing a New Kind of Certification

ASQ's new CQIA certification is aimed at those working outside the traditional quality arena

by Melissa G. Hartman

THE CERTIFIED QUALITY improvement associate (CQIA), one of ASQ's newest certification exams, stands as a shining example of out-of-the-box thinking, process management and response to customer needs. While undergoing the same rigorous development process as all other ASQ certifications, the CQIA represents a unique entry to the ASQ certification lineup.

Certification overview

An ASQ certification recognizes that an individual has demonstrated proficiency in an area of quality at a specific point in time. Certification is not a license or registration. Rather, it is an opportunity for an individual to demonstrate he or she comprehends the concepts associated with a particular quality body of knowledge.

There are currently 11 ASQ certifications:

1. Certified quality engineer (CQE).

2. Certified quality auditor (CQA), with two specializations:

• Hazard analysis and critical 09; control point (HACCP).
• Biomedical.

3. Certified reliability engineer (CRE).

4. Certified quality manager.

5. Certified software quality engineer (CSQE).

6. Certified quality technician (CQT).

7. Certified Quality Inspector (CQI).

8. Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (SSBB).

9. Certified quality improvement associate (CQIA).

Most certifications are geared toward individuals working as quality practitioners in a specific quality discipline. The CRE exam, for example, is intended for individuals with eight or more years of experience (or a combination of experience and academic preparation) in reliability engineering.

Certifications are generally sponsored by an ASQ division, committee or outside group. For example, the CQI and CQT exams are sponsored by ASQ's Inspection Division, and the CQE is sponsored by the ASQ Division Affairs Council.

Over 113,000 ASQ certifications have been issued, and many individuals hold more than one certification (see Table 1).

Benefits of certification

ASQ certification offers many benefits. Individuals benefit through the esteem attached to holding an ASQ certification. Certified individuals may have promotion opportunities that are not open to their uncertified counterparts. Job qualifications may also be enhanced by holding a certification. A recent search of Monster.com revealed over 100 open positions for individuals holding an ASQ certification.

The annual salary survey conducted by Quality Progress consistently reports that quality professionals with an ASQ certification can earn up to $20,000 a year more than uncertified quality professionals. Finally, holding one or more ASQ certifications can be a source of personal pride for having demonstrated competency in one of quality's bodies of knowledge.

Certification also brings numerous benefits to organizations. Most importantly, organizations that employ ASQ certified individuals have a higher degree of organizational knowledge about quality. Employers who actively support certification send a clear message to their stakeholders that quality is important. Certification also increases an organization's ability to manage processes, reduce waste and enhance the quality of goods and services.

Breaking the mold

The CQIA is like all other ASQ certifications in that it holds a certain amount of esteem and brings benefits to organizations. However, the CQIA also differs in many ways.

Aiming for a new target

Unlike other ASQ certifications, the CQIA was born out of an identified market need for a certification for nonquality professionals. These people work in positions that do not have primary responsibility for traditional quality management, assurance or control activities. Critical care nurses, accountants, customer service representatives, purchasing managers and insurance agents, for example, don't have the same type of responsibility for quality as do quality engineers or managers.

While these professionals may have some direct responsibility for quality, they don't typically have a high degree of expertise in what many quality professionals think of as the quality sciences. They do, however, frequently participate in some type of quality improvement team and may use quality tools to analyze processes in their work environment. The other ASQ certification exams lean toward quality professionals with specific areas of expertise, such as quality auditing or quality engineering.

Patricia Westfall, certified quality manager exam chair and vice chair of the ASQ Quality Management Division, points out other indications of the need for the CQIA certification. She says there was a fundamental shift in focus within industry from quality to performance excellence, and as a result, responsibility for quality became more widely distributed. "With that shift in focus, it is apparent a basic understanding of the principles of quality improvement and teamwork is required at every level, in every area of the organization," Westfall says.

This new intended audience posed some unique challenges for exam sponsorship. Because of the broad nature of the new CQIA certification exam, typical sponsorship by an ASQ division or committee did not seem appropriate. According to Greg Weiler, ASQ's group manager of education, "One of the major differences between this certification and the others is that this one was sponsored by ASQ headquarters rather than a specific division."

Body of knowledge

The body of knowledge (BOK) for the CQIA exam was also developed differently from the BOK for the other certifications. The typical development process includes the creation and validation of a job analysis. This job analysis describes in detail the state of the practice (rather than the state of the art) for a specified discipline.

For example, a job analysis for quality engineers would result in an articulate description of the job currently performed by practicing quality engineers. This description would include specific knowledge (such as central tendency and measurement error) and skills (such as the ability to design an experiment and determine if a process is out of control) a quality engineer has to have to do his or her job. (See "The Phases of Exam Development," pp. 26 and 27, for more information on how a regular certification exam is designed.)

A typical job analysis starts with a search of the literature and creation of a questionnaire. The questionnaire is then presented to a job analysis advisory committee. This committee consists of 10 to 12 experienced practitioners in the discipline of the new certification. The committee comes together for a two-day meeting where it reviews and updates the job analysis survey. The survey is then distributed to a randomly selected set of practitioners.

Sheila Connolly, ASQ psychometrician, says, "We talked about conducting a job analysis for the CQIA and quickly realized the very nature of the audiences we intended to serve--broad-based, multi-industry, nonhomogeneous job titles and responsibilities--would make a classic job analysis study inappropriate." The problem lies in the wide audience the CQIA targets. Whereas typical exams are intended for quality practitioners in a relatively narrowly defined discipline, the CQIA is intended to have broad appeal across a wide variety of industries and job positions.

So instead of a job analysis, the certification board conducted an extensive review of literature, university courses, corporate training material and similar materials. The objective of this review was to describe a fundamental BOK about quality principles across a multitude of industries.

The proposed BOK was presented to a panel of 12 volunteers from 10 ASQ divisions in January 2000. The result of this meeting was a finalized BOK for the CQIA certification exam. (See "CQIA Body of Knowledge.")

Developmental challenges

One of the first challenges in the development phases of the new exam was to choose an appropriate name for the certification. The development of the CQIA BOK was actually completed before the new certification exam was formally named. A number of different names were discussed among members of the ASQ certification board and certification development volunteers. Their goal was to come up with a name that truly represented the diverse audience for which the exam was intended.

The original working title for the certification was certified quality practitioner. This title, however, seemed to imply a different level of competency in quality from what was intended for the exam.

Nick Martino, CQE exam chair, says the name "certified quality practitioner conveys more of a professional credential" than what the BOK represents. It was Martino who first proposed the name "certified quality improvement associate." That name seemed to capture the essence of the intended audience and was approved by the certification board.

A second major development challenge lay in the availability of resources. One of the responsibilities of the sponsoring entity for a certification is to recruit a sufficient number of volunteers from its membership to staff the exam development workshops. Development workshops for the CQA exam, for example, are generally staffed by members of ASQ's Audit Division who are CQAs.

With the CQIA, we had to recruit volunteers from nearly all ASQ divisions. The bulk of recruitment activities fell on the shoulders of Mary Martin, ASQ certification administrator, and Marty Mitchell, CQIA exam committee member. Martin and Mitchell were able to recruit capable volunteers from more than a dozen ASQ divisions (see Table 2).

Another challenge with respect to resources dealt with the availability of appropriate reference material. Every question on every ASQ certification exam is linked directly to a reference in the existing body of quality literature. These references are books that are widely available and obtainable by exam candidates.

This seemingly simple requirement became something of an obstacle for the CQIA because exam candidates would come from such a wide range of industries. Exam candidates from healthcare would probably use different reference material than candidates from manufacturing. It was an enormous challenge to find a common body of literature that would be equally accessible and meaningful to exam takers from all industries.

A related challenge was posed by the need to develop questions that addressed the very fundamentals of quality. Much of the existing literature from which those questions would be derived addresses quality principles at a more complex level than what most CQIA candidates could be expected to know. It also proved difficult to find adequate references for quality principles that are considered so fundamental and so basic that experienced quality practitioners just "know the stuff."

We addressed this challenge by carefully reviewing the resources available in ASQ's Quality Information Center. Item writers from various industries worked diligently in teams to identify resources everyone on the team was familiar with.

Similar attention was devoted to the availability and applicability of resources during the item review. At least one resource was verified for every item in the CQIA item bank. This checking and cross checking ensured exam candidates from all industries would have an equal opportunity to be successful on the exam.

Support and acclaim continue to grow

Despite all the challenges the certification board encountered while developing this certification, the general response has been amazing--more than 900 CQIA certifications have been issued since the January 2001 pilot exam.

Sally Harthun, ASQ certification manager, sums up the response to the CQIA when she says, "We're very excited about this new examination and its potential to help a large assortment of companies around the world. The response so far has been outstanding."

Lynda Winterberg, CQIA examination chair and Health Care Division chair, says, "I believe this certification is critical for the healthcare industry since it provides basic skills and knowledge all healthcare providers need to improve quality and patient safety." Winterberg also says the CQIA has the potential to be widely accepted and used by many industries.

"The Quality Management Division is committed to the advancement of the CQIA principles and to supporting the development of these capabilities throughout industry," Westfall says. As part of this commitment, the Quality Management Division prepared the Quality Improvement Handbook to provide a foundation for this development.¹

The CQIA has also led to the development of another resource for the fundamentals of quality. Fundamental Concepts of Quality Improvement comprises a collection of articles from Quality Progress and papers from quality conferences that capture the foundations of quality.²

So far, the CQIA has met every expectation for being an introductory level certification exam. Interest in the exam continues to grow among different industries, and many corporations are enthusiastically embracing it. The future for the CQIA and those who become certified looks quite bright.

REFERENCES

1. ASQ's Quality Management Division, John E. Bauer, Grace L. Duffy, Russell T. Westcott, editors, Quality Improvement Handbook (Milwaukee: ASQ Quality Press, 2002).

2. Melissa G. Hartman, editor, Fundamental Concepts of Quality Improvement (Milwaukee: ASQ Quality Press, 2001).

MELISSA G. HARTMAN is the programs chair at the Baker University School of Professional and Graduate Studies in Wichita, KS. She has a doctorate in business administration from the University of Sarasota in Florida and is an ASQ Fellow. Hartman is the incoming chair of the ASQ certification board and is an ASQ certified quality manager, engineer, auditor, improvement associate and Quality Inspector. She chaired the CQIA exam during its development phase.