May 2026 CPHQ Prep Virtual Class-CPHQ Virtual Live Review Course

CPHQ Virtual Live Review Course | Video: Pareto Charts

Video Transcription

Video Summary

A Pareto chart is a bar chart that ranks categories (problems/variables) from most frequent to least frequent to show where improvement efforts will have the biggest impact. Unlike a run chart, it doesn’t test for statistical change; it identifies which causes occur most often. Analysts look for the “Pareto effect” or 80–20 rule (about 80% of occurrences coming from about 20% of categories), as a guideline to focus on a few key drivers. If the effect isn’t clear, you can step back for patterns (“Zen moment”), re-stratify data, create weighted Pareto charts using severity, or drill down into top categories.

Keywords

Pareto chart

80-20 rule

category frequency ranking

quality improvement prioritization

weighted Pareto analysis