An organization's quality control team has informed the project manager that a project deliverable is not within specifications. Which of the following tools would be the MOST useful to determine…

Key Performance Indicators measure ongoing project performance against defined targets but do not categorize or rank the frequency of specific quality defects.

A Scatter Diagram shows the correlation between two variables but does not count or rank the occurrence of individual defect types.

A Pareto Chart applies the 80/20 principle by displaying issues in descending order of frequency, allowing the team to quickly see which problems account for the majority of defects. This directly answers the quality control team's need to identify the most common specification failures. The visual ranking makes it straightforward to prioritize corrective actions on the highest-impact issues.

A SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats at a high level, not to analyze the frequency of production quality issues.