Project Quality Management Summary 6th Edition

1. Quality as a delivered performance or result is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements.

2. Grade as  a  design  intent  is  a  category assigned to deliverables having the same functional use but different technical characteristics.

3. Prevention (keeping errors out of the process) and inspection (keeping errors out of the hands of the customer).

4. Failure costs also called cost of poor quality and they can be internal (found by the team) and external (found by the customer).

5. Effective quality management can be done in five ways:

✓  Let the customer find defects.

✓  Detect them before product sent to customer.

✓  Use quality assurance to examine.

✓  Incorporate quality into the planning and designing of the project and product.

✓  Create a culture at organization.

6. Continual improvement: The plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle is the basis for quality improvement as defined by Shewhart and modified by Deming. Also, TQM, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma can improve project and product quality.

7. Data Gathering:

✓  Benchmarking:  comparing  actual or planned project practices or the project’s  quality  standards  to  those  of  comparable  projects  (Internal or external) to identify best practices & generate ideas for improvement.

✓  Brainstorming:  gather data creatively from a group of team  members or subject matter experts.

8. Data Analysis:

✓  Cost-benefit   analysis:  Financial analysis tool used to estimate the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives in order to determine the best alternative in terms of benefits provided. It will help Project manager to

determine if the planned quality is cost effective.

✓  Cost of Quality (COQ): consists one or more of the following costs >>

Cost of  Conformance

❖  Prevention costs: (Training, Document process, Equipment and  Time to do the right).

❖  Appraisal  costs:    (Testing,      Destructive      testing     loss    and  Inspection).

Cost of Nonconformance

❖  Internal Failure costs: (Rework & Scrap).

❖  External  Failure  costs:   (Liabilities,  Warranty  work  &  Lost business).

9. Data Representation:

✓  Flow Charts (process maps):

❖  Display the sequence of steps and the branching possibilities that exist for a process that transforms one or more inputs into one or more outputs.

❖  It shows activities, decision points, loops, parallel paths, and the overall order of processing by mapping the operational details of  procedures that exist within a horizontal value chain. One version of  value  chain  is  called  SIPOC  (suppliers,  inputs,  process,  outputs and customers) model.

❖  Flowcharts are useful in understanding and  estimating the cost of quality for a process.

❖  They can be called (process flows or process flow diagrams) when they used to represent the steps in a process. Which is used  for process improvement and identify quality defects .

✓  Logical data model:

❖  Visual  representation  of  an  organization’s  data, described in business language and independent of any specific technology. Can  be  used  to  identify  where  data  integrity  or  other  quality issues can arise.

✓  Matrix diagrams:

❖  Help find the strength of relationships among different factors.

✓  Mind mapping:

❖  The mind-mapping technique may help in the rapid gathering of project quality requirements, constraints and relationships.

10. Test and Inspection planning: During planning phase, the project manager and the team determine how to test/inspect the product to meet the stakeholders’ expectations and meet product’s performance and reliability goal.

11. Quality Management Plan:  Describes  the  activities  and  resources  necessary  for  the  project management team to achieve the quality objectives set for the project.

12. Quality Metrics: Describes a project or product attribute and how the Control Quality process will verify compliance to it. Examples  (percentage of completed tasks, failure rate, defects number and errors found).

13. Manage Quality is sometimes called quality assurance. although Manage Quality has a broader definition than quality assurance as it is used in non-project work.

14. Quality assurance focuses  on  the  processes  used  in  the  project  and  using  these processes effectively by follow and meeting standards.

15. Manage quality includes all the quality assurance activities and also concerned with the product design aspects and process improvements.

16. Manage Quality is  considered  the  work  of  everybody.  In  agile  projects  quality management is performed by all team members. However, in traditional projects only specific members does it.

17. Checklists: structured tool,  usually  component-specific,  used  to  verify  that  a  set  of required steps has been performed or to check if a list of requirements has been satisfied.

Quality checklists should incorporate with scope baseline. Usually developed based on historical information.

18. Data Analysis:

✓  Document analysis: analysis of different documents produced as part of the output of project control processes.

✓  Process analysis:  identifies opportunities for process improvements also examines  problems,  constraints,  and  non-value-added  activities  that occur during a process.

✓  Root  cause  analysis  (RCA):  analytical  technique  used  to  determine  the basic  underlying  reason  that  causes  a  variance,  defect,  or  risk.  It  may underlie more than one variance and it may also use to solve these root                    causes.

19. Data Representation:

✓  Affinity diagrams: organize potential causes of defects into groups.

✓  Cause-and-effect   diagrams:   (known   as   fishbone   diagrams,   why-why diagrams, or Ishikawa diagrams). These diagrams break down the causes of the problem, helping to identify the main or root cause of the problem.

✓  Flowcharts: show a series of steps that lead to a defect.

✓  Histograms:  graphical  representation  of numerical  data. Histograms  can show the number of defects per deliverable, a  ranking of the cause  of defects,  the  number  of  times  each  process  is  noncompliant  or  other

representations of project or product defects .

✓  Matrix  diagrams:  show  the  strength  of  relationships  among  factors, causes, and objectives that exist between the rows and columns that form the matrix.

✓  Scatter   diagrams:  graph   that   shows   the   relationship   between   two variables.

20. Audits :

✓  Structured, independent process used to  determine if project activities comply  with  organizational       and project policies, processes, and procedures .

✓  Usually conducted by a team external to the project such as (organization’s internal audit department, PMO or an external auditor to the organization).

✓  The subsequent effort to correct any deficiencies should result in a reduced cost of quality  and  an increase in sponsor or customer acceptance  of the product.

✓  Quality audits may be conducted by internal or external auditors.

21. Design for X (DfX):

✓  Technical guidelines that may be applied during the design of a product for the optimization of a specific aspect of the design.

✓  DfX can control or even improve the product’s final characteristics .

✓  DfX result in cost reduction, quality improvement, better performance, and customer satisfaction.

22. Problem Solving:

✓  Finding solutions for issues or challenges.

✓  Effective  and  systematic  problem  solving  is  a  fundamental  element  in quality assurance and quality improvement.

✓  Problems can arise as a result of the Control Quality process or from quality audits and can be associated with a process or deliverable.

23. Quality Reports:

✓  Reports can be graphical, numerical, or qualitative.

✓  Reports  information can  be  used  by  other  processes  to  take  corrective actions to achieve quality expectations

✓  Reports may include all quality management issues escalated by the team; recommendations  for   process, project,  and product improvements; corrective  actions  recommendations  the  summary  of  findings  from  the  Control Quality process.

24. Test and Evaluation Documents:

✓  Inputs  to  the  Control  Quality  process  and  are  used  to  evaluate  the achievement of quality objectives.

✓  They      may    include     dedicated      checklists     and    detailed    requirements  traceability matrices.

✓  They  can  be  created  based  on  industry  needs  and  the  organization’s templates.

25. Control quality in agile projects can be performed by all team members throughout the project life cycle. However, in waterfall projects it’s performed at specific times, toward the end of the project or phase, by specified team members.

26. Deliverables that are outputs from the Direct and Manage Project Work process are inspected and compared to the acceptance criteria defined in the project scope statement.

27. Data Gathering:

✓  Check sheets (Tally sheets): organize facts in a manner that will facilitate the effective collection of useful data about a potential quality problem.

They are especially useful for gathering attributes data while performing  inspections to identify defects.

✓  Statistical sampling: involves choosing part of a population of interest for inspection. The  sample  is  taken  to  measure  controls  and  verify  quality. Sample frequency and sizes should be determined during the Plan Quality Management process.

✓  Questionnaires and Surveys: gather data about customer satisfaction after the  deployment  of  the  product  or  service.  The  cost  regarding  defects identified in the surveys may be considered external failure costs in the COQ model and can have extensive cost implications for the organization .

28. Performance reviews: measure, compare, and analyze the quality metrics defined by the Plan Quality Management process against the actual results.

29. Inspection:

✓  Determine if the product conforms to documented standards .

✓  They can be done on single activity or at final product.

✓  Inspection can be called reviews, peer reviews, audits, or walkthroughs.

✓  Inspections also are used to verify defect repairs.

30. Control charts:

✓  Determine   whether   or   not   a   process   is   stable   or   has   predictable performance.

✓  Upper and lower specification limits are based on the requirements and reflect the maximum and minimum values allowed.

✓  Upper and lower control limits are different from specification limits .

✓  The control limits are determined using standard statistical calculations and principles to ultimately establish the natural capability for a stable process .

✓  Project manager and appropriate stakeholder use controlled control limits which corrective action will be taken to prevent performance that remains outside control limits.

✓  Control charts can be used to monitor various types of output variables to help determine if the project management process is in control.

✓  The sample out of control if there are 7 values either above or below the mean. Or if there is any value outside the control limits .

31. Quality Control Measurements:

✓  Documented results of Control Quality activities. They should be captured in the format that was specified in the quality management plan.

32. Verified Deliverables:

✓  The  results  of  performing  the  Control  Quality  process  are  verified deliverables  that  become  an  input  to  the  Validate  Scope  process  for formalized acceptance.

✓  If  there  were  any  change  requests  or  improvements  related  to  the  deliverables, they may be changed, inspected, and reverified.

33. Important Notes:

✓  Processes and quality plan>>>>Manage quality.

✓  Deliverable>>>> Control quality.

✓  Defect  repair>>>>  weak  performance  is  in  product  under  operational conditions which means quality problem is in product will require.

✓  Prevention action>>>> New changes to ensure the future performance will change.