Critical To Quality 
Key, measurable, features which have been identified by customers / users of a product or service as being of particular importance to them. The term is often shortened to CTQ. Involving customers in identifying the key features can be undertaken using a House of Quality design tool, a CTQ tree, or similar, with the aim being to capture the Voice of the Customer (VOC). The important features can then be prioritised by managers as areas for providing something which a customer sees as being value-added to the product or service.
Performance Quality Standards are measurable criteria for spor
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Demerits
The use of deducting points for defects in a product to determine if it achieves or fails a quality standard.
A common approach for assessing sports pitches is to use Performance Quality Standards to provide an objective measure of what has been produced.
Demonstration
An idea generation and problem-solving technique which involves physically showing others a process or product, or demonstrating types of behaviour, along with an explanation of what is happening and what the issue is. Visual and cognitive understanding of a problem can be significantly enhanced by a demonstration, with ideas being generated more readily by having seen, first-hand, the problem. Possible solutions would then be explored.
Desirable Grass Species
A structural quality performance standard which states the minimum amount of desirable grass species, as a percentage, in the surface being maintained. The standard can be qualified to also state the specific species, which might be more than one, which are desired by the manager of a site.
Disease Resistance
A characteristic which is used to evaluate the relative impact a disease might have on a turfgrass cultivar. Different species are assessed for different disease resistance:
• Perennial ryegrass: Red thread;
• Smooth stalked meadow grass: Rust;
• Red (Chewings / Slender / Strong fescues) fescues, Hard fescue, Browntop bent and Creeping bent, Tufted hairgrass: Red thread.
Whilst this does provide some benefit in contributing to cultivar evaluation, the causes of red thread can be readily controlled by various turf maintenance practices, including reducing stress on the grass
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Diseases
A structural quality performance standard which states the maximum amount of disease, as a percentage, in the surface being maintained. The standard can be qualified to also state some specific diseases for which the acceptable maximum percentage content might vary. For example, for Red Thread, a content of 20% might be acceptable, yet for Fusarium Patch it might be given as 2%. Fairy ring type 2 might be qualified as being acceptable to 100% of the surface, with a proviso that attention is given to removing any fruiting bodies by hand and application of sulphate of iron, or similar, to green
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Disintegration of the Surface
A playing quality performance standard which states the maximum amount of disintegration of a surface following impact of a cricket ball on a prepared surface. It is measured as a percentage of a sampled area. It is commonly referred to as ‘minefielding'.
Earthworms
A structural quality performance standard which states the maximum amount of earthworm casting present, as a percentage, covering the surface being maintained. The standard might also state the maximum number of earthworm casts counted, rather than area covered. Earthworms provide significant benefits to a grass sward, but can also severely impact on playing quality, especially of golf greens, bowling greens, cricket squares and capping of sand-slit drainage systems where installed on winter games pitches. An appropriate acceptable maximum percentage would be given to balance benefits with dis
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Evenness
A structural quality performance standard which states the maximum variation, measured in millimetres, either 1. below a straight edge which is laid onto the turf surface, or 2. where a bump is present, the difference between the bottom edge of a raised (on two blocks of wood) straight edge and the height to the top of the bump, this figure is then taken away from the height of the wooden blocks to give the height of the bump. For example, two wooden blocks are used with a height of 100mm, the measured height from the bottom of the straight edge to the top of the bump is 42mm; 100mm ¯ 42m
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External Quality Assurance
Independent verification of an organisation’s compliance with not only their own stated policies and procedures in achieving stated outcomes, but also meeting other organisations requirements where they have signed up to meet their required quality standards.
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