Book excerpt: Thoroughly tested and used by students and proven to help students taking the American Society for Quality’s Certified Quality Improvement Associate exam, Essentials of Quality is highly accessible, experiential, and unique in its coverage of current quality management topics, from creative and innovative improvements and approaches to today’s economic environment to ways of developing metrics for measuring and evaluating programs. With non-academic, reader-friendly writing, the text features many chapter exercise and cases that provide students with hands-on experience.