5.1 Quality Management

Ensuring that the project is done on time, on budget, and within scope is important, but there is more to project success. Project success also involves delivering the right solution that accomplishes the project’s objective and satisfies stakeholders’ expectations. This is the role of quality management. According to PMI PMBOK 7th edition, “quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements.”

The requirements of a product or process can be categorized or given a grade that will provide a basis for comparison. The quality is determined by how well something meets the requirements of its grade. For most people, the term quality also implies good value—getting your money’s worth. For example, even low-grade products should still work as expected, be safe to use, and last a reasonable amount of time. Project Quality Management includes the processes and activities that determine quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities to ensure that the project satisfies the needs for which it is undertaken.

Project Quality Management is composed of the following processes:

• • Plan Quality Management
  • Manage Quality
  • Control Quality

High quality is achieved by planning for it rather than by reacting to problems after they are identified. Standards are chosen, and processes are put in place to achieve those standards. Similar to the triple constraints (scope, cost, and schedule), quality is managed on a project by setting goals and taking measurements. It is important to understand the quality levels stakeholders believe are acceptable and ensure that the project meets those targets.

When the project team gathers requirements for the solution, they identify all of the specifications that stakeholders want in the product, so they know how to define and measure quality. “Fitness to use” ensures the product has the best design possible to fit the customer/client’s needs. For example, you could pound in a nail with a screwdriver, but a hammer is a better fit for the job. Conformance to requirements is the core of customer satisfaction and fitness and measures how well the solution meets expectations. Above all, the solution must fulfill the requirements established by the users.

On large complex projects, a formal quality management plan is necessary. This plan should be developed with key stakeholders, including the end-user community. The plan will identify the quality expectations and the work required to ensure these expectations are fulfilled. Just as the project budget and completion dates may change over the life of a project, the project specifications may also change. The approach to managing change is dependent on the development methodology chosen. When the requirements for the solution are being defined upfront, as is the case with the predictive/waterfall methodology, formal change control processes are important as commitments regarding project duration and/or project cost have likely already been established.

Formally assessing changes in quality specifications allows the team to understand the impact on the commitments. In these situations, the impacts are communicated, and approvals are sought before implementation occurs. In projects using an adaptive/agile approach, the end solution cannot be clearly defined. The quality expectations will be defined when the capabilities, features, and user stories are developed in cycles. Quality processes are conducted throughout the project.

Project management organizations that execute several similar types of projects may find process improvement tools helpful in identifying and improving the baseline processes used on their projects. Process improvement tools may also help identify cost and schedule improvement opportunities. Students wishing to learn more about these tools can begin by reading about Lean Six Sigma practices for products and their applicability to service organizations.

Ideally, opportunities for improvement are to be quickly identified in order to influence project performance. This is particularly true when the predictive/waterfall development methodology is used since planning is completed upfront. During later project stages, as pressures to meet project schedule goals increase, the culture of the project is less conducive to making changes in work processes. Many organizations have a quality policy that states how it measures quality across the organization. When planning quality in the project, project leaders must ensure that the project follows the company policy and any government rules or regulations.

Part of good quality planning includes identifying the tasks that need to be performed in order to measure the quality of the project’s solution. These specific tasks will be part of the scope and considered when schedules and budgets are developed.