Chapter 7: Project Quality Management

adopted from PMIs PMBOK 2000 and Textbook : Information Technology Project Management (author : Dr. Kathy Schwalbe)

Contents
Importance of Project Quality Management Project Quality Management Processes
Quality planning, Quality assurance, Quality control

Quality Model: Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award (MBNQA), CMM and ISO 9000 Software test
Methods to improve IT Project Quality leadership cost of quality organizational and workplace factors maturity models

Quality of Information Technology Projects

Many people joke about the poor quality of IT products (MS windows joke!!) People seem to accept systems being down occasionally or needing to reboot their PCs But quality is very important in many IT projects Software quality is the key development in modern IT industry. MicroSoft has spend 25% of the R&D in software reliability.
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What Is Project Quality Management?

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines quality as the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs Other experts define quality based on
conformance to requirements: meeting written specifications fitness for use: ensuring a product can be used as it was intended
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Project Quality Management Processes

Project quality management includes those processes required to ensure that the project satisfies the needs for which it was undertaken. There are 3 processes in Project quality Management:
Quality planning Quality assurance Quality control planning phase executing phase control phase

Compare to Jurans quality trilogy: Quality plan, Control control and Quality improvement
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Modern Quality Management

Modern quality management
requires customer satisfaction prefers prevention to inspection recognizes management responsibility for quality

Noteworthy quality experts include Deming, Juran, Crosby, Ishikawa, Taguchi, and Feigenbaum
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Quality Experts
Deming was famous for his work in rebuilding Japan and his 14 points Juran wrote the Quality Control Handbook and 10 steps to quality improvement Crosby wrote Quality is Free and suggested that organizations strive for zero defects Ishikawa developed the concept of quality circles and using fishbone diagrams Taguchi developed methods for optimizing the process of engineering experimentation Feigenbaum developed the concept of total quality control
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Quality Planning
11th of 21 of planning phase process It is important to design in quality and communicate important factors that directly contribute to meeting the customers requirements
know what customer want is the key in quality but it is quite difficult to get this information Design of experiments helps identify which variable have the most influence on the overall outcome of a process

Many scope aspects of IT projects affect quality like functionality, features, system outputs, performance, reliability, and maintainability
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Inputs to Quality Planning

Quality policy
Defined by the ISO as the overall intentions and direction of an organization with regard to quality as formally expressed by top management. The performing organizations quality policy can serve as the policy for the project.

Scope statement
provides a documented basis for making future project decisions and for confirming or developing common understanding of project scope among stakeholders. The scope statement describes major product deliverables and objectives that define the project.

Inputs to Quality Planning (2)

Project description
documents the characteristics of the product or service that the project was undertaken to create. It details various technical issues or concerns that may impact Quality Planning.

Standards and regulations

Inputs from authorities outside the performing organization may impact Quality Planning.

Other process outputs

Outputs from the other PM knowledge areas may impact Quality Planning.
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Tools & techniques

Benefit/cost analysis
involves estimating tangible and intangible benefits and costs of meeting quality requirements and then using financial measures to assess the relative desirability of the identified alternatives.

Benchmarking
compares actual or planned project practices to other projects to generate ideas for improvement and to provide a standard against which to measure performance.

Flow-charting
involves creating any diagram detailing how elements of a system relate to one another. Flow-charting techniques commonly used in quality management includes: a) cause-andeffect diagrams; b) process flow charts.
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Tools & techniques (2)

Design of experiments
An analytical technique that helps identify with variables have the most influence on the overall outcome and helps determine an optimal solution from a relatively limited number of cases.

Cost of quality
The financial cost incurred to ensure quality. These are associated preventing, detecting, and correcting defects. Cost of quality includes (known as PAF cost)
preventive costs appraisal costs failure costs (internal and external)
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Outputs from Quality Planning

Quality management plan
Part of the project plan. QMP describes how the PM team implements the quality policy. For the project, it covers a) quality control; b) quality assurance; c) quality improvement.

Operational definitions
Also called metrics. They describe the specifics of what something is (such as work procedure or operation) and how the Quality Control process measures it. For example, convert a general objective of increase success rate to increase success rate by 15% in 2 months to make it specific.

Checklists
verify required steps have been performed or followed.

Inputs to other processes

provides the feedback loops to other processes to determine if Quality Planning can identify a need for further activity in anther knowledge area.

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Quality Assurance
2nd of 7 of executing phase process 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 can be used to generate ideas for quality improvements Quality audits help identify lessons learned that can improve performance on current or future projects
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Inputs to Quality Assurance

Quality management plan
Part of the project plan. QMP describes how the PM team implements the quality policy. For the project, it covers a) quality control; b) quality assurance; c) quality improvement.

Results of quality control measurements

records of quality testing and measurements, presented in a format useful for comparison and analysis

Operational definitions (also called metrics)

describe an element and how the element is measured by the Quality Control process.
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Tools & techniques

Quality planning tools and techniques
includes benefit/cost analysis, benchmarking, flowcharting, and Design of Experiments.

Quality audits
A structured review of other QM activities to identify the lessons learned that can improve the performance of this project and other projects in the organization. Such audits are an independent review of quality management activities to a performance standard.
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Outputs from Quality Assurance

Quality improvements
Actions that increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the project and provide added benefits to stakeholders. Implementing them usually involves preparing change requests or taking corrective action in accord with procedures for overall change control.
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Quality Control
6th of 8 controlling phase process determine the correctiveness of the work results
involves monitoring specific project results to determine if they comply with relevant quality standards identify ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance

The main outputs of quality control process are

acceptance decisions rework process adjustments

Some tools and techniques include

pareto analysis statistical sampling quality control charts testing

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Inputs to Quality Control

Work results
The results of activities performed to accomplish the project.

Quality management plan

Part of the project plan. QMP describes how the PM team implements the quality policy. For the project, it covers a) quality control; b) quality assurance; c) quality improvement.

Operational definitions
describe an element and how the element is measured by the Quality Control process.

Checklists
used to verify that a set of required steps has been performed.

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Tools & techniques

Inspection
activities such as measuring, examining, and testing undertaken to determine if results conform to requirements. It is also reference to reviews, product reviews, audits, and walk-through.

Control charts
graphically display the results of a process. It helps to verify the process is statistically in control

Pareto diagrams
histograms, ordered by frequency of occurrence, that show how many results were generated by type or category of identified cause. The ranking of categories can be used to guide corrective action.
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Tools & techniques (2)

Statistical sampling
chose part of a population of interest for inspection. Appropriate sampling can often reduce the cost of quality control.

Flow-charting
A graphical method of analysis that helps determine how and where quality problems occur. It can help to develop approaches to resolving the problems.

Trend analysis
use mathematical techniques to forecast future outcomes based on historical results. technical performance can be monitor to determine how many defects or errors have identified and corrected, it is also possible to monitor cost & schedule performance.
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Outputs to to Quality Control

Rework
any action taken to bring a defective or NC item into compliance with required

Acceptance decisions
the results of inspecting items delivered.

Completed checklists
These documents are part of the project.
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Outputs to to Quality Control (2)

Quality improvements
outputs form the related process of quality assurance (QA). They represent actions intended to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the project. They provide added benefits to stakeholders. Implementing quality improvements require preparation of change requires or taking corrective actions. Any improvements are managed according to procedures for Overall Change Control.

Process adjustments
Immediate corrective or preventive action as a result of Quality Control measurements.

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Testing in software
Many IT professionals think of testing as a stage that comes near the end of IT product development Testing should be done during almost every phase of the IT product development life cycle

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Types of Tests
A unit test is done to test each individual component (often a program) to ensure it is as defect free as possible Integration testing occurs between unit and system testing to test functionally grouped components System testing tests the entire system as one entity User acceptance testing is an independent test performed by the end user prior to accepting the delivered system
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Improving Information Technology Project Quality

Several suggestions for improving quality for IT projects include
Leadership that promotes quality Understanding the cost of quality Focusing on organizational influences and workplace factors that affect quality Following maturity models (CMM) to improve quality
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Maturity Models
Maturity models are frameworks for helping organization improve their processes and systems
Software Quality Function Deployment Model focuses on defining user requirements and planning software projects The Software Engineering Institutes Capability Maturity Model provides a generic path to process improvement for software development Several groups are working on project management maturity models
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Project Management Maturity Model

1. Ad-Hoc: The project management process is described as disorganized, and
occasionally even chaotic. The organization has not defined systems and processes, and project success depends on individual effort. There are chronic cost and schedule problems. 2. Abbreviated: There are some project management processes and systems in place to track cost, schedule, and scope. Project success is largely unpredictable and cost and schedule problems are common. 3. Organized: There are standardized, documented project management processes and systems that are integrated into the rest of the organization. Project success is more predictable, and cost and schedule performance is improved. 4. Managed: Management collects and uses detailed measures of the effectiveness of project management. Project success is more uniform, and cost and schedule performance conforms to plan. 5. Adaptive: Feedback from the project management process and from piloting innovative ideas and technologies enables continuous improvement. Project success is the norm, and cost and schedule performance is continuously improving.
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Summary
Importance of Project Quality Management Project Quality Management Processes
Quality planning, Quality assurance, Quality control Compare to Jurans quality trilogy: Quality plan, Control control and Quality improvement

Quality Model: Malcolm Baldrige Award, CMM and ISO 9000 Quality Planning: identify customers requirements and define critical success factors Quality Assurance: continuous quality improvement, Benchmarking and Quality audits
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Summary (2)
Quality control: tools and techniques => Pareto analysis, statistical sampling, quality control charts and testing Software test is very key factors:
unit test, Integration testing, System testing, User acceptance testing ways to improve IT Project Quality leadership cost of quality organizational and workplace factors maturity models
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