Project Quality Management
What Is Project Quality?
The International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) defines quality as
“the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics
fulfills requirements” (ISO9000:2000)
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What Is Project Quality?
Other experts define quality based on:
Conformance to requirements: the project’s processes
and products meet written specifications
Fitness for use: a product can be used as it was
intended
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What Is Project Quality Management?
Project quality management ensures that the
project will satisfy the needs for which it was
undertaken
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What Is Project Quality Management?
Processes include:
Quality planning: identifying which quality standards are
relevant to the project and how to satisfy them
Quality assurance: periodically evaluating overall project
performance to ensure the project will satisfy the relevant
quality standards
Quality control: monitoring specific project results to
ensure that they comply with the relevant quality standards
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Project Quality Management
Project Quality Management Processes (per PMBOK);
Quality Planning
Quality Assurance
Quality Control
Process Groups Initiation Planning Execution Control Closing
Knowledge Areas
Quality
Quality Quality Assuranc Quality
Management Planning e Control
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Project Quality Management Summary
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Quality Planning
Quality Planning
Implies the ability to anticipate situations and
prepare actions to bring about the desired
outcome
Important to prevent defects by:
Selecting proper materials
Training and indoctrinating people in quality
Planning a process that ensures the appropriate
outcome
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Chapter 8 - Project Quality Management
Quality Planning – Methods
Some commonly used tools & techniques
employed for Quality planning are:
Benefit/cost analysis
Benchmarking
Flowcharting
Design of experiments
Cost of Quality
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Quality Planning – Methods
Benefit/cost Analysis
Must consider benefit/cost tradeoffs during quality planning.
The primary benefit of meeting quality requirements is less
rework which translates to higher productivity, lower costs, and
increased stakeholder satisfaction.
The primary cost of meeting quality requirements is the
expense associated with project quality management activities.
Understand that the benefits of the quality management
discipline outweigh the costs.
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Quality Planning – Methods
Benchmarking
It involves comparing actual or planned project
practices to those of other projects (either within the
performing organization or external) to generate
ideas for improvement and to provide a standard by
which to measure performance
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Quality Planning – Methods
Best practices for benchmarking
Determine what to benchmark
Form a benchmark team
Identify benchmarking partners
Collect and analyze benchmarking information
Take action to match or exceed the benchmark
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Quality Planning – Methods
Flowcharting
a technique which creates a diagram that displays how
various elements of a system relate
Can assist the project team with anticipating what and where
quality problems may occur and with developing approaches
for addressing the problems
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Quality Planning – Methods
Flowcharts commonly used in quality management
include:
Cause-and-effect diagrams: illustrate how various factors
may be linked to potential problems or effects. (also referred to
as Ishikawa or fishbone diagrams)
System or process flow charts: show how various elements
of a system interrelate.
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Quality Planning – Methods
Cost of Quality
It’s a term that's widely used – and widely misunderstood.
The "cost of quality" isn't the price of creating a quality product
or service. It's the cost of NOT creating a quality product or
service.
Every time work is redone, the cost of quality increases.
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Quality Planning – Methods
Examples of COQ include:
The reworking of a manufactured item
The retesting of an assembly
The rebuilding of a tool
The correction of a bank statement
The reworking of a service, such as the reprocessing of a
loan operation or the replacement of a food order in a
restaurant
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Quality Planning – Methods
Cost of Quality
Refers to the total cost of all efforts to achieve
product/service quality
Includes all work to ensure conformance to requirements
as well as all work resulting from nonconformance to
requirements
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Quality Planning – Methods
Cost of Quality
Three types of incurred costs:
1) Prevention:
Costs of all activities specifically designed to prevent poor quality in products or
services
Examples: New product review, Quality education and training
2) Appraisal:
The costs associated with measuring, evaluating or auditing products or services
to assure conformance to quality standards and performance requirements
Example: Inspection/tests, audits
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Quality Planning – Methods
3) Failure Costs:
The costs resulting from products or services not
conforming to requirements or customer/user needs
Failure costs are divided into
o internal and external failure categories
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Quality Planning – Methods
Internal Failure Costs
Failure costs occurring prior to delivery or shipment of
the product, or the furnishing of a service, to the
customer
Examples are the costs of:
Scrap, Rework, Re-inspection, Re-testing, Material
review
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Quality Planning – Methods
External Failure Costs
o Failure costs occurring after delivery or shipment of
the product — and during or after furnishing of a
service — to the customer.
o Examples are the costs of:
o Processing customer complaints, Customer returns,
Warranty claims
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Quality Planning – Methods
Internal Failure Costs
Failure costs occurring prior to delivery or shipment of
the product, or the furnishing of a service, to the
customer.
Examples are the costs of: Scrap, Rework, Re-
inspection, Re-testing, Material review
Downgrading
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Quality Planning – Methods
Design of experiments is a quality planning technique that
helps identify which variables have the most influence on the
overall outcome of a process
Computer chip designer would determine what combination of materials and
equipment will produce the most reliable chips at a reasonable cost
Also applies to project management issues, such as cost and
schedule trade-offs
Junior programmers cost less than senior programmers but will not produce the
same level of work in the same amount of time
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Quality Planning – Methods
An appropriately designed experiment to compute` project
costs and durations for various combinations of staff can help
determine an optimal mix of personnel
Involves documenting important factors that directly contribute
to meeting customer requirements
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Scope Aspects of IT Projects
It is often difficult for customers to explain exactly what they want in
an IT project. Important scope aspects of IT projects that affect
quality include:
Functionality is the degree to which a system performs its intended
function
Features are the system’s special characteristics that appeal to users. It is
important to specify which are required and which are optional
System outputs are the screens and reports the system generates.
Need to define clearly what they look like
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Scope Aspects of IT Projects
Performance addresses how well a product or service
performs the customer’s intended use.
Need to know volumes of data and transactions, number of
simultaneous users, required response time, etc.
Reliability is the ability of a product or service to perform as
expected under normal conditions (customers must define
expected level of service)
Maintainability addresses the ease of performing maintenance on a
product
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Who’s Responsible for the
Quality of Projects?
Project managers are ultimately responsible for
quality management on their projects
Several organizations and references can help
project managers and their teams understand quality
International Organization for Standardization (www.iso.org)
When products, systems, machinery and devices work well and safely, it is
often because they meet standards. The organization responsible for many
thousands of the standards which benefit the world is ISO (derived from the
Greek isos, meaning “equal”)
IEEE – Standards Association (www.ieee.org)
A leading, developer of industry standards in a broad-range of industries
(Power and Energy, Information Technology, Telecommunications,
Transportation, Medical and Healthcare, nanotechnology, cybersecurity,
information assurance, and green technology) . Globally recognized
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Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance includes all the activities related to
satisfying the relevant quality standards for a project
Another goal of quality assurance is continuous quality
improvement
Benchmarking generates ideas for quality improvements
by comparing specific project practices or product
characteristics to those of other projects or products within
or outside the performing organization
A quality audit is a structured review of specific quality
management activities that help identify lessons learned
that could improve performance on current or future
projects
Performed by in-house auditors or third parties
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Quality Control
Quality Control
Although one of the main goals of QC is to improve
quality, its main outcomes are:
Acceptance decisions- are the products/services
acceptable or should they be rejected and rework is then
necessary
Rework – action taken to bring rejected items into
compliance with products specs. Can be very expensive
Process adjustments – correct or prevent further quality
problems based on quality control measurements (purchase
faster server if response time is too slow)
There are Seven Basic Tools of Quality that help in
performing quality control
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Flow Charts
What is a Flowchart?
A diagram that uses graphic symbols
to depict the nature
and flow of the steps in a process
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Benefits of Flowcharts
Promote process understanding
Provide tool for training
Identify problem areas and improvement
opportunities
" Draw a flowchart for whatever you do. Until you
do, you do not know what you are doing, you just
have a job.”
-- Dr. W. Edwards Deming
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Keys to Success
Start with the big picture
Observe the current process
Record process steps
Arrange the sequence of steps
Draw the Flowchart
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Flowcharts
Don’t Forget to:
Define symbols before beginning
Stay consistent
Check that process is accurate
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Flowcharts
Flowcharts are
graphic displays of
the logic and flow of
processes that help
you analyze how
problems occur and
how processes can
be improved
They show
activities, decision
points, and the order
of how information is
processed
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Pareto Charts
Pareto Principle
Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) Italian economist
20% of the population has 80% of the wealth
adapted by Joseph Juran
Remember the 80/20 rule states that approximately 80%
of the problems are created by approximately 20% of the
causes
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What is a Pareto Chart?
A Pareto chart is a histogram that can help you identify and
prioritize problem areas
The variables are ordered by frequency of occurrence to help
identify the key contributors that account for most quality
problems (hopefully following the 80-20 rule)
Bar charts arranged in descending order of height from left to
right
Bars on left relatively more important than those on right
Separates “vital few” from the “trivial many”
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Pareto Charts
In the following chart, Log-in Problems account for about
55% of the complaints and together with System lock-ups
accounts for about 80%
Fixing these two problems can greatly reduce the volume of complaints
Small problems should be investigated before addressing them in case
the user is in error
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Sample Pareto Diagram
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