Project Quality Management (PM 0017) - ASSIGNMENT

Question 1:

What is the need for quality management? Explain the significance of customer focus in quality
management.
A1. If customers do not get the required quality of products, then their probability of switching over to
other brands rises significantly so it is essential for organizations to manage quality in projects. The needs
are:
To achieve objectives:
Organizations must adhere to the quality standard considered in their objectives. Every organization
strives to meet its desired objectives. Apart from profit and long-term survival in the market, quality
defines the organizational mission and objectives.
To generate long run business survival:
Every business is executed with an objective of serving customers in the long run. A high quality in
products or services helps organizations to continue and expand their business operations across the
global market. In addition, they will be able to win the trust and confidence of customers.
To deal with competition:
When it comes to product selling, there is always competition in the market. If the quality of products is
poor, then the customers may switch loyalty to competitors. To prevent this, organizations must focus on
providing better quality to customers.
To bring customer satisfaction and loyalty:
If customers are satisfied with the quality of products and services, they may become regular buyers or
loyal towards the brand. An organizations quality is considered excellent if its products or services are
able to meet or exceed customers expectations.

Some other reasons are:

To build the trust of existing and potential customers
To develop a good relationship with customers
To accelerate the productivity of an organization
To deliver error-free outputs
To provide a superior customer service
To deliver products safely and reliably

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Every organization aims to satisfy the customers by providing products and services according to their
expectations. A customer is someone who buys products and services from others as per his or her needs
and requirements. Customers are the end-all and be-all of all organizations. A satisfied customer is a
returning customer. Organizations build brand loyalty of customers by continuously focusing on quality
management in products and services. The two main types of customers:
Internal customers:
These are the persons or the departments of an organization that rely on the output and information from
another department of the same organization to perform their own function
External customers:
These are the target customers outside an organization who buy its products or services.
Quality management aims to meet the expectations of customers by fulfilling their needs in terms of
quality and services. It ensures that the products and services are free from any defects or issues.
Customers expect the service staff to be knowledgeable about products, willing to listen, and proficient in
resolving the issues. This builds trust and confidence among customers for a brand. It is habitual for
customers to look for established quality standards set by ISO and Indian Standard Institute (ISI) before
spending money on products. Note that quality assurance should always be accompanied by good
services.

Question 2:
Explain the major project management standards and frameworks.
A2. Below listed are some well-known project management standards and frameworks:
PMBOK
PMBOK is a project management guide published by the Project Management Institute (PMI). It is a
widely recognized standard for the project management profession. The first edition was published in
1996. It has undergone many revisions and the latest is the fifth edition published in 2013.
The guide describes 47 project management processes through five process groups along with inputs,
tools, techniques, and outputs for each process. The guide also categorizes these 47 processes in terms of
10 knowledge areas that are applicable for any project. These 10 knowledge areas are:
1. Project integration management
2. Project time management
3. Project cost management
4. Project scope management
5. Project communication management
6. Project risk management
7. Project quality management
8. Project Human Resource management
9. Project stakeholders management
10. Project procurement management
The PMBOK guide defines important aspects of knowledge areas and explains how they integrate with
process groups or categories.
ISO 10006
ISO 10006 is a standard published by the ISO for providing guidance on quality management in projects.
It focuses primarily on project management processes and requires organizations to refer to ISO 9000 for
quality management of product related processes in any project. According to the requirements of ISO
10006:
Manage project processes within a QMS to achieve the project objectives

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Align the Project Quality Management System (PQMS) with the QMS of the project originating
organization
Document the PQMS and include or reference it in a quality plan for the project
Identify the activities and resources necessary for achieving the quality objectives of the project in
the quality plan
Incorporate the quality plan with the reference of the project management plan
There are four major process groups of QMS requirements. ISO 10006 categorizes 37 project
management processes within these process groups.
BS 6079
The British Standards Institute (BSI) has published a series of standards on project management called
BS 6079. The BS 6079 series of standards deals with project management in four parts:
1.
BS 6079 Part 1: Guide to project management This part is an introductory standard in
project management and is meant for any type of project.
2.
BS 6079 Part 2: Project management vocabulary This part defines the multiple terms
used in project management and is related to the projects of different industries
3.
BS 6079Part 3: Guide to the management of business related project risks This part is
related with the management of business related project risks.
4.
BS 6079 Part 4: Guide to project management in the construction industry This part is
related to construction related projects.
The BS 6079 standards give detailed principles, guidance, and activities related to project management.
These standards are meant for the various projects carried out in different organizations and can be used
by project sponsors, project managers, team mangers, and team members. Some requirements of BS 6079
are:
There should be proper quality planning, control, and assurance activities.
The project quality plan should form an integral part of the overall project management plan.
The project quality plan should be approved by both the quality management and project
sponsor.
The quality plan should provide a quantified means of demonstrating that the quality
requirements have been adequately addressed.
The quality plan should be developed in the feasibility phase of the project and confirmed at the
beginning of each subsequent project phase.
PRINCE2
In 1989, PRINCE (Projects IN Controlled Environments) was developed as the UK government standard
for IT project management. Now, it serves as a generic approach for all types of projects. It is used
extensively as the de facto standard by the UK government and also by the private sector in the UK and
international organizations. The key features of PRINCE2 are:
Focus on business justification
Flexibility as appropriate to the project
Product-based planning approach
Emphasis on dividing the project into stages
Definition of organizational structure for the project management team
PRINCE2 is a non-proprietary method available in public domain. It is a structured project management
method based on the experience drawn from thousands of projects, project managers, project teams, and
academics.
ISO 21500
ISO 21500 is a new ISO standard on project management issued in 2012. It deals with the concepts that
tend to form good practices in project management. In this way, it aims to ensure project success and
achieve business results. It is designed to align with related international standards such as ISO

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Project Quality Management (PM 0017) - ASSIGNMENT

10006:2003. ISO 21500 categorizes 40 project processes in terms of five project process groups and 10
subject groups. The 10 subject groups are:
1.
Integration
2.
Scope
3.
Resource
4.
Stakeholder
5.
Cost
6.
Time
7.
Procurement
8.
Communication
9.
Risk
10.
Quality
The ISO 21500 standard describes the purpose, requirements, primary inputs, and primary outputs of
each process. The project manager can choose and tailor these processes according to the project type,
project phase, etc.

Question 3:
What are the benefits of quality metrics? Explain the 3 categories of quality metrics.
A3. Quality metrics provide the following key benefits:
They identify the accepted frameworks, standards, and best practices applicable for the project.
They achieve compliance with industry standards, statutory requirements, and business policies.
They set benchmarks to judge project management competency, process capability, and
organizational maturity goals.
They establish quality assurance activities and control project management aspects, such as cost,
schedule, and resource utilization.
They manage technical and business process performance to applicable standards.

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1. Process metrics:
They are used for continuous process improvement and are practiced within the QMS of the organization.
They refer to the process capability of product realization processes and are specific to the application
area. These metrics are related to the process effectiveness and efficiency.
2. Product metrics:
They are specific to the application area and are governed by the product quality standards specified by
the customer. These metrics refer to the product quality attributes. They include metrics such as:
Availability
Defect frequency
Defect density
Component quality
Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
3. Project metrics:
Project metrics provide a common understanding of a project. They manage, monitor, and control project
performance in terms of scope, cost, time, and quality. They determine and analyses trends, and ascertain
and improve capability and maturity levels. They include metrics such as:
Earned value
Schedule variance
Cost variance
Planned value
Schedule performance index
To-complete performance index
Cost performance index
Question 4:
Discuss the major barriers to project quality improvement.
A4. An important barrier in improving project quality is resistance to change. Some other barriers are:

General uncertainty:

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Employees prefer the status-quo and do not like the uncertainty associated with changes. They feel
uncertain about how these changes will affect them in general. When changes are introduced, then they
would need to face complexity afresh, which makes them anxious. They are habituated to programmed
responses for managing complexity in their daily schedules.

Lack of involvement:

When employees are not involved in the improvement process, they remain dubious about the changes.
This increases their anxiety level and reduces their commitment to necessary modifications. Thus,
organizations should ensure that there is total employee participation before introducing any
improvement process.

Lack of motivation:

Employees should be convinced about the need for change. If they are not convinced and forced to agree
to the changes, their level of commitment and morale suffer. Poorly motivated employees resist changes.

Uncertainty over job performance:

Employees might fear how a change will impact their job performance. They might feel that they are not
capable enough to meet the required challenges introduced by the change.

Lack of responsibility:

A general perception is that quality improvement is a responsibility of the quality department only.
Organizations should educate employees that quality is everyones responsibility. The management is
responsible for improving quality of projects across the organization.

Focus on short-term goals:

Sometimes project managers have a misconception that project quality improvement is a costly exercise.
So instead of long-term goals, they might focus on short-term objectives.

Failure to commit resources:

An organization should support employees and provide them with adequate resources to enable them to
better adapt to project quality improvement. If employees do not have sufficient resources, they might
oppose the proposed changes.

Culture:

The existing culture of an organization might not be conducive to modifications, which acts as a barrier to
improving quality. If the existing norms, values, and beliefs do not support the change, the organization
cannot expect its employees to support it.

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These are strong barriers to project quality improvement.

Question 5:
What is SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers)? Which 3 factors should you focus
on developing SIPOC? Explain.
A5.
The Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers (SIPOC) process provides a template to define a
process in order to map, measure, and/or improve it. It is represented in a five column tabular format. It
is used as a tool in the Measure phase of Six Sigmas Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control
(DMAIC) methodology to identify the key elements of an improvement process. Its three major factors
are:

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Voice of Business (VoB):

It reflects both productivity and profitability of an organization. This represents your organizational needs
in terms of customer satisfaction, quality, growth, revenue, profit, market image, market share, and
suppliers feedback. Therefore, you can identify the VoB from the business plans projections and financial
information. Managers can identify value levers (strategic, process, customer, and financial) and priorities
them. This will enable them to translate the evaluation information into opportunity areas.
Voice of Process (VoP):
VoP indicates the quality of process that you are currently following so that you can examine if it is
capable of accomplishing the quality objectives. VoP represents the task, purpose, and description of a
process in terms of simple questions, such as who, what, when, where, why, and how. The answers to
these questions give you a clear idea about the changes that you would like to introduce in an existing
process.

Format of the VOP process

Voice of Customer (VoC):
This indicates the customers expectations from an organization or a service provider so that his wants,
needs, requirements, and preferences are considered. To satisfy your customer, you need to listen to the
voice of customers.
This real-life observation of the customers behavior to a product or a service cannot be replaced by just
information gathering from surveys and interviews. To understand the voice of customer, you can follow
the customer feedback process. The feedback process generally consists of identifying the target customer,
preparing questionnaires, collecting feedback through customer interaction, analyzing the feedback,
generating a feedback report, and acting on the basis of the report.

Feedback Process
Question 6:

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Write short notes on the following problem solving methodologies:

a) Brainstorming
b) Nominal Group Technique(NGT)
A6.
a) Brainstorming:
Brainstorming can be effectively used for the root cause analysis for quality problems. Quality
improvement tools such as the Fish Bone diagrams are used to structure brainstorming sessions.
Brainstorming is a formal process for generating creative ideas that can be applied either in a structured
or unstructured format.
Brainstorming is a decision making process where participating group members are encouraged to
generate as many ideas or alternatives as possible, while withholding evaluation or criticism of those
alternatives. The brainstorming technique ensures that the views and ideas of every group member is
taken into consideration in the decision making process. The group members are encouraged to be
creative and provide unusual, out-of-the-box ideas, so that maximum possible ideas are generated to
make an accurate decision to resolve the problem.
The various steps involved in brainstorming are as follows:
1. Form a team: A problem solving team is formed. The team nominates a scribe for noting down
the ideas.
2. Define the problem: The team defines the problem to be addressed. The team scribe enters the
problem on a whiteboard or a flipchart.
3. Present ideas: The team members are requested to come up with as many ideas as possible. The
ideas are presented in the round robin fashion where each member presents only one idea at a
time to be followed by the next member.
4. Review ideas: The team then reviews the generated ideas, seeks clarifications, and removes
duplicate ideas from the list.
5. Finalize the idea: The team finalizes the generated list of ideas and selects the best possible
solution from the given alternatives.
b) Nominal group technique:
The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) is a group decision making technique in which team members meet
in-person and pool their judgments in a systematic and independent fashion. The steps involved in the
NGT are as follows:
1. A team is assembled and a problem is presented to it. Clarifications are provided so that all team
members clearly understand the problem. Generally, a team with 8-10 participants is selected.
2. Before any discussion takes place, each team member is requested to record his or her ideas. The
members are expected to work independently. Since there is no discussion, there will be no
judgmental comments or peer pressure. This allows free and open thinking. It normally takes 1015 minutes for all members to record their ideas.
3. After this period, every member presents one idea to the group. Each idea is taken up in the round
robin fashion. The process is repeated until all the ideas are recorded. Participants may pass at
any time during this process. There is no discussion, evaluation, or criticism of ideas at this stage.
4. The ideas are recorded on a marker board or a flipchart. Each idea is numbered. These are not the
final ideas and the participants may modify or combine some ideas to promote better
understanding. In some variations, a master list of ideas is circulated to the team before
clarifications are sought. No judgments or justifications are made with regard to the ideas, but
only further clarifications are sought for overall understanding of the group.
5. Finally, each team member is asked to vote or rank ideas. Each member, individually and
anonymously, selects and prioritizes a small number of ideas from the total list. The number
prioritization can vary.

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6. The idea with the highest overall ranking is considered for the final decision. Normally, the cards
are collected and the points assigned to ideas are recorded on the marker board. When this
process is accomplished for all five cards of all the group members, the points are tallied to select
the best idea.

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