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How to Build a House of Quality (QFD)

Posted By: Lucidchart Content Team

Every product developed aims to fill a specific customer need, but pinpointing what cus-
tomers actually need is more difficult than it seems. Without a clear understanding of the
customerʼs pain points, the development
How to process
Create a can become bloated,
Customer A Quick misguided,
Guide on or Story
User
Related
simply doomed fromPosts:
the start.  Journey Map Mapping
(/blog/how-to-build-customer- (/blog/how-to-create-a-user-
journey-maps) story-map) /
Quality function deployment (QFD) is a methodology created in response to this prob-
lem: Itʼs focused on providing a clear framework for addressing customer needs, begin-
ning with a matrix called the House of Quality. Read on to learn more about QFD and how
our House of Quality template can help you develop a product that resonates with
customers.

(https://www.lucidchart.com/documents/editNewOrRegister/4cf5010d-ea2a-458c-
bf40-7bb01610d372)
House of Quality (Click on image to modify online)

Whatʼs quality function deployment?

Related Posts: How to Create a Customer A Quick Guide on User Story
Quality function deployment. Itʼs a veryJourney
technical-sounding
Map name for a process that es-
Mapping
sentially helps businesses integrate the Voice of the Customer (/blog/how-to-create-a-user-
(/blog/how-to-build-customer- (VOC) into product devel-
opment. This methodology can provide many benefits—it will help you: story-map)
journey-maps) /
 Understand customers: Often, customers donʼt even know what they want or need.
The quality function deployment aims to understand customers better than they know
themselves.
Predict how customers will perceive a productʼs value: Remember fidget spinners?
Fidget spinners were created to be an antidote for ADD, anxiety, and autism, but the
vast majority of customers just used them as a classroom distraction (and/or a weapon
at recess). Understanding how customers will judge your productʼs value is key
throughout the entire development process.
Obtain buy-in from stakeholders: All areas of the organization need to be informed
about the customersʼ needs so that they can create processes for developing,
marketing, and selling to those needs. 
Use customer needs to develop goals: Without determining performance goals,
thereʼs no way to measure how well the product is fulfilling customer needs. Consider
performance metrics (CTQs), concepts, design characteristics, process parameters,
and production controls.
Document requirements: This benefit should speak for itself: Without documenting
the requirements, customer needs are simply a game of telephone that can be
misinterpreted from department to department.
Provide structure: The front end of product development can become quickly mired
in inefficiency. QFD provides logic and structure so development can take a deliberate
approach.
Prioritize resources: QFD will allow you to pinpoint areas most critical to the
customer and bottom line, then allocate resources properly to those areas. 
As you can see, each aspect of the QFD is pointed toward the same “north star”—what
your organization understands as your customersʼ needs, based on feedback from sur-
veys, focus groups, interviews, etc. Those customer needs are the directions your orga-
nization must follow to develop a successful product.

Phases of the QFD process

The entire QFD process is much more involved than weʼll get into in this article, but here
are the basic steps:
. Product Related
Definition: Howinvolves
This phase
Posts: to Creategathering
a Customer A Quick
VOC (through Guide onfocus
interviews, User Story
Journey Maphow those customer requirements
groups, and related methods) and determining Mapping
(/blog/how-to-build-customer- (/blog/how-to-create-a-user-
journey-maps) story-map) /
 translate into product features or design requirements. The House of Quality fits into
this stage.
. Product Development: During this phase, teams will translate the product
specifications prioritized in the House of Quality into part and assembly characteristics
and define functional requirements.
. Process Development: During this phase, the company will design manufacturing
and assembly processes to fulfill the product specifications.
. Process Quality Control: Finally, those using the QFD process will identify critical
characteristics and develop controls, inspections, and tests to ensure that those
characteristics are met.

What is the House of Quality?

The QFD House of Quality may sound like a French couture designer, but it is actually a
voice of the customer analysis tool. Through multiple factors, including competitor re-
search and the level of importance of each customer need, you can determine which
product specifications take priority.

Related Posts: How to Create a Customer A Quick Guide on User Story

Journey Map Mapping
(/blog/how-to-build-customer- (/blog/how-to-create-a-user-
journey-maps) story-map) /
 (https://www.lucidchart.com/documents/editNewOrRegister/2f17caa8-854b-44e9-
8bae-17484748ff3b)
House of Quality Example (Click on image to modify online)

How to use the House of Quality template

Letʼs walk through the processHow
of putting
to together
Create a a House of Quality
Customer A Quickexample
Guide forUser
on a Story
RelatedaPosts:
company building new smartphone.Journey Map Mapping
1. Add customer needs(/blog/how-to-build-customer-
and ratings
journey-maps)
(/blog/how-to-create-a-user-
story-map) /
On the left side of the House of Quality, youʼll enter the most important customer needs
based on your research. For instance, in this House of Quality example, customers care
about the following qualities when shopping for a smartphone:
Size
Lightweight
Easy to use
Reliable
Cheap
Big screen
Long-lasting battery
High-quality camera
Next to the customer needs you have listed, rate how important each of the require-
ments are on a scale of 1 to 5. Customers may rate several traits of high importance, so
itʼs okay to have multiple 5s or multiple 4s. Ratings donʼt have to be whole numbers
either.
To the right, youʼll calculate the percent of customer importance rating for each require-
ment. Take the rating given to a requirement (1 to 5) divided by the total of all ratings. 

Related Posts: How to Create a Customer A Quick Guide on User Story

Journey Map Mapping
(/blog/how-to-build-customer- (/blog/how-to-create-a-user-
journey-maps) story-map) /
2. List design requirements
Horizontally above the relationship matrix, youʼll add design requirements for the prod-
uct, such as weight, cost of production, and operating system.
3. Weigh the relationship between customer needs and design
requirements
In the relationship matrix, youʼll identify how strongly each of the design parameters af-
fects the customer need. Use the following symbols:

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Journey Map Mapping
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journey-maps) story-map) /
As an example, if customers would like a less expensive smartphone, the cost of produc-
tion will strongly contribute to the price. The operating system, battery, and glass used in
the product will also affect the overall cost to customers, but not as strongly.
Once you have filled the relationship matrix, you can add the importance rating and per-
cent of importance for each design requirement. To calculate the importance rating, mul-
tiply the percent of importance rating with the relationship score for each customer
need. (In our example, “size” has a 4% customer importance rating and a 9 relationship
score, so the total would be 0.36.) Add those totals together for the importance rating.
After you calculate all the importance ratings, you can take each rating divided by the to-
tal for your percentages. The requirements with the highest importance ratings or per-
centages are likely the features that your company should prioritize or invest in more.

Related Posts: How to Create a Customer A Quick Guide on User Story

Journey Map Mapping
(/blog/how-to-build-customer- (/blog/how-to-create-a-user-
journey-maps) story-map) /
4. Complete the correlation matrix
The correlation matrix will determine how design requirements help and hinder each
other.

Above eachRelated requirement,How

design Posts: to Create
youʼll mark a Customer
whether itʼs better AforQuick
the Guide on
feature to Userlow-Story
be
arrow). Journey Map it would be preferableMapping
er (down arrow) or higher (up(/blog/how-to-build-customer-
For example, for the weight
(/blog/how-to-create-a-user-
of a smartphone to be lower, so the example includes a down arrow. On story-map)
journey-maps) the other hand, it
/
would be preferable for the battery to be higher (last longer), so the House of Quality ex-
ample includes an up arrow. These ratings are up for interpretation.
Based on these up and down symbols, youʼll determine the correlation between different
design requirements. Use the correlation matrix legend to designate these relationships
using the appropriate symbol (placed in the square between two features):

For example, the operating system will greatly affect the expected life of the smart-
phone. Since both have up arrows, the two features have a strong positive correlation.
5. Add competitor research
Finally, the competitive assessment shows how companies currently rank for each of
your customersʼ needs so you can determine what has been overlooked and how you
can gain the advantage of your competition.
The correlation matrix and competitor research do not affect the importance ratings, but
they do provide additional insight to help you weigh which customer needs and design
requirements matter most.
Thatʼs it! Your House of Quality is now complete. This will be your guiding matrix for de-
termining what your product absolutely must have to appeal to your customersʼ needs
and wants. Related be a usefulHowtooltoinCreate
It will alsoPosts: a Customer
documenting the VoiceAofQuick Guide onand
the Customer User Story
keeping all processes on track throughout Journey Map
production.  Mapping
(/blog/how-to-build-customer- (/blog/how-to-create-a-user-
journey-maps) story-map) /
Why do teams use QFD?
QFD and the House of Quality might seem like too much work—why does your team
need to go through the arduous process of determining customer needs and developing
toward needs? Weʼve got the answer. QFD is a good option if any of the following apply
to your business:
Customer satisfaction is a main goal for your organization.
There have been delays in development.
There is poor interdepartmental communication about customer needs.
Product and process decisions have not had clear guidelines.
There is no clear, documented product definition.
You are entering into a new market.
The product is not performing as well as it had been expected to.
The product is becoming a commodity or people already view it as a commodity.
You have more than one customer with differing needs.
Consider, too, that the longer it takes to develop a product and bring it to market, the
more resources are invested in development. It is only a benefit to your organization to
make the development process faster and more efficient.
With Lucidchart, you can begin using QFD and start building your House of Quality
faster. Using our free templates, you can create a House of Quality that is always updat-
ed in real time and can be easily shared with anyone in any department in seconds.

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