Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Project Quality Management

Project Quality Management







Definition


Project Quality Management is a group of processes necessary to ensure that the project will satisfy customer requirements.


Processes


There are following three processes which are part of Project Quality Management.



  • Quality Planning

  • Quality Assurance

  • Quality Control


Modern quality management complements project management. For example, both disciplines recognize the importance of:

Customer satisfaction: Understanding, evaluating, defining,and managing expectations so that customer requirements are met.


Prevention over inspection: The cost of preventing mistakes is generally much less than the cost of correcting them, as revealed by inspection.


Management responsibility: Success requires the participation of all members of the team, but it remains the responsibility of management to provide the resources needed to succeed.


Continuous improvement: The plan-do-check-act cycle is the basis for quality improvement as defined by Shewhart and modified by Deming.




Quality Planning


Identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how to satisfy them.


"Quality is planned in - not inspected in"


Quality Planning process is a part of "Project Planning Phase".




(1) Quality Planning - Inputs



(1.1) Enterprise Environmental Factors: Governmental agency regulations, rules, standards, and guidelines specific to the application area may affect the project.


(1.2) Organizational Process Assets: Organizational quality policies, procedures and guidelines, historical databases and lessons learned from previous projects specific to the application area may affect the project. Quality policy is overall intentions and direction of an organization with regard to quality as formally expressed by top management.


(1.3) Project Scope Statement


(1.4) Project Management Plan







(2) Quality Planning - Tools & Techniques



(2.1) Benefit/cost analysis: Cost and benefit tradeoffs of meeting quality requirements. (Less rework).


(2.2) Benchmarking: Comparing actual or planned project practices to other projects, in order to generate ideas for improvement.


(2.3) Design of experiments: Analytical technique that helps identify which variables have the most influence on the overall outcome.


(2.4) Cost of Quality : Total cost of all quality efforts. Includes : Prevention costs, appraisal costs and failure costs.


(2.5) Additional Quality Planning Tools: These include brainstorming, affinity diagrams, force field analysis, nominal group techniques, matrix diagrams, flowcharts like Ishikawa diagram, and prioritization matrices.







(3) Quality Planning - Output



(3.1) Quality Management Plan Describes how the Project Management team will implement quality policy.


(3.2) Quality Metrics: Describes what something is and how it is measured by the quality control process.


(3.3) Quality Checklists : Used to verify that a set of required steps has been performed.


(3.4) Process Improvement Plan: The process improvement plan details the steps for analyzing processes that will facilitate the identification of waste and non-value added activity, thus increasing customer value, such as:



  • Process boundaries: Describes the purpose, start, and end of processes, their inputs and outputs, data required, if any, and the owner and stakeholders of processes.


  • Process configuration: A flowchart of processes to facilitate analysis with interfaces identified.


  • Process metrics: Maintain control over status of processes.


  • Targets for improved performance: Guides the process improvement activities.



(3.5) Quality Baseline: The quality baseline records the quality objectives of the project.


(3.6) Project Management Plan updates: The project management plan will be updated through the inclusion of a subsidiary quality management plan and process improvement plan.





Quality Assurance


Planned and systematic activities implemented within the quality system in order to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards.


Quality Assurance process is a part of "Project Execution Phase".




(1) Quality Assurance - Input



(1.1) Quality Management Plan


(1.2) Quality Metrics


(1.3) Process Improvement Plan


(1.4) Work Performance Information


(1.5) Approved Change Requests


(1.6) Quality Control Measurements


(1.7) Implemented Change Requests


(1.8) Implemented Corrective Actions


(1.9) Implemented Defect Repair


(1.10) Implemented Preventive Actions






(2) Quality Assurance - Tools & Technology



(2.1) Quality-planning tools and techniques: include but not limited to:


  • Benefit/cost analysis


  • Benchmarking


  • Flowcharting


  • Design of experiments



(2.2) Quality audits : Structured review of Quality Management activities to identify the lessons learned that can improve the performance of this project and of other projects.


(2.3) Process Analysis: Process analysis follows the steps outlined in the process improvement plan to identify needed improvements from an organizational and technical standpoint.


(2.4) Quality Control Tools and Techniques







(3) Quality Assurance - Outputs



(3.1) Requested Changes: Quality improvement includes taking action to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the policies, processes, and procedures of the performing organization, which should provide added benefits to the stakeholders of all projects.


(3.2) Recommended Corrective Actions


(3.3) Organizational Process Assets updates


(3.4) Project Management Plan updates





Quality Control


Monitoring results to determine if they comply with relevant quality standards and identifying ways to eliminate problem causes or unsatisfactory results.


Project results are deliverables and management results, such as cost and schedule performance.


Quality Control process is a part of "Project Controlling Phase".




(1) Quality Control - Input



(1.1) Quality Management Plan


(1.2) Quality Metrics


(1.3) Quality Checklists


(1.4) Organizational Process Assets


(1.5) Work Performance Information


(1.6) Approved Change Requests


(1.7) Deliverables






(2) Quality Control - Tools & Techniques



(2.1) Cause and Effect Diagram: Cause and effect diagrams, also called Ishikawa diagrams or fishbone diagrams, illustrate how various factors might be linked to potential problems or effects.


(2.2) Control Charts: Control charts are graphic display of the results over a time of a process. They are used to determine if the process is "in control".


(2.3) Flowcharting: Flowcharting helps to analyze how problems occur. A flowchart is a graphical representation of a process and shows how various elements of a system interrelate.


(2.4) Histogram: A histogram is a bar chart showing a distribution of variables. Each column represents an attribute or characteristic of a problem/situation. The height of each column represents the relative frequency of the characteristic. This tool helps identify the cause of problems in a process by the shape and width of the distribution.


(2.5) Pareto Diagram: is a histogram and ordered by frequency of occurrence, that shows how many results were generated by type or category of identified case. Pareto diagrams are conceptually related to Pareto's law which holds that a relatively small number of causes will typically produce a large number of the problems or defects. This is commonly referred to as the 80/20 principle where 80% of the problems are due to 20% of the causes.


(2.6) Run Chart: A run chart shows the history and pattern of variation. A run chart is a line graph that shows data points plotted in the order in which they occur. Run charts show trends in a process over time, variation over time, or declines or improvements in a process over time.


(2.7) Scatter Diagram: A scatter diagram shows the pattern of relationship between two variables. This tool allows the quality team to study and identify the possible relationship between changes observed in two variables.


(2.8) Statistical Sampling: Choosing part of a population of interest for inspection. Decision made thereafter on quality.


(2.9) Inspection (reviews): Measuring, examining, and testing to determine whether results conform to requirements.


(2.10) Defect Repair Review: Defect repair review is an action taken by the quality control department or similarly titled organization to ensure that product defects are repaired and brought into compliance with requirements or specifications.






(3) Quality Control - Outputs



(3.1) Quality Control Measurements: Quality control measurements represent the results of QC activities that are fed
back to QA to reevaluate and analyze the quality standards and processes of the performing organization.


(3.2) Validated Defect Repair: The repaired items are re inspected and will be either accepted or rejected before
notification of the decision is provided. Rejected items may require further defect repair.


(3.3) Quality Baseline updates


(3.4) Recommended Corrective Actions


(3.5) Recommended Preventive Actions


(3.6) Requested Changes


(3.7) Recommended Defect Repair


(3.8) Organization Process Assets updates:



  • Completed checklists

  • Lessons learned documentation.


(3.9) Validated Deliverables: A goal of quality control is to determine the correctness of deliverables. The results
of the execution quality control processes are validated deliverables.


(3.10) Project Management Plan updates



Last Moment Revision:



  • Control: The process of comparing actual performance with planned performance, analyzing variances, evaluating possible alternatives, and taking appropriate corrective action as needed.


  • Control Charts: A graphic display of the results, over time and against established control limits, of a process. They are used to determine if the process is in control or in need of adjustment.


  • Corrective Action: Changes made to bring expected future performance of the project into line with the plan.


  • Cost of Quality: The cost incurred to ensure quality. Includes quality planning, quality control, quality assurance, and rework.


  • Pareto Diagram: A histogram ordered by frequency of occurrence that shows how many results were generated by each identified cause.


  • Performance Reporting: Collecting and disseminating information about project performance to help ensure project progress.


  • Project Quality Management: The processes required to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it as undertaken.


  • Quality Assurance (QA): The process of evaluating overall project performance on a regular basis to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards. Also, the organizational unit that is assigned responsibility for quality assurance.


  • Quality Control (QC): The process of monitoring specific project results to determine if they comply with relevant quality standards and identifying ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance. Also, the organizational unit that is assigned responsibility for quality control.


  • Quality Plan: A document setting out the specific quality practices, resources and sequence of activities relevant to a particular product, service, contract or project.


  • Quality Policy: The overall quality intentions and direction of an organization as regards quality, as formally expressed by top management.


  • Quality Planning: Identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how to satisfy them.


  • Total Quality Management (TQM): A common approach to implementing a quality improvement program within an organization.


  • Deming suggested a process of Plan-Do-Check-Act to improve quality. According to Deming, each process should go through these steps to improve the quality.


  • Kaizen Theory : Apply continuous small improvements to reduce costs and ensure consistency.


  • Marginal Analysis : You compare the cost of incremental improvements against the increase in revenue made from quality improvements. Optimal quality is reached when cost of improvements equals the costs to achieve quality.


  • Rule of seven : In control charts, if there are seven points on one side of mean, then an assignable cause must be found.


  • Customer Satisfaction: Customer expectations met. Conform to requirements.


  • Prevention vs. Inspection The cost of preventing mistakes/defects is much less than the cost of correcting them later when identified by inspection.


  • Quality is Management's responsibility


  • The aim of quality is to ensure "Conformance to requirements" and "fitness for use".


  • Giving extras i.e. doing more than the project scope is called gold-plating. PMI does not recommend gold-plating.


  • Quality must be planned in and not inspected in. Prevention is more important than inspection.


  • In Just-In-Time (JIT) Quality, the amount of inventory is zero. The inputs are made available, just when they are required. This reduces the storage cost.



1 comment:

  1. The PMP Certification establishes a common language among project managers and helps each other work within a common framework. Once you have the PMP, you need to consider how you're applying the processes, tools, and techniques to projects. I took a training course for my preparation in http://www.pmstudy.com and got ready for the exam on day 5!

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