Chapter 8:

Project Quality Management

 What Is Project Quality?
• The ISO defines quality as “the degree to which a set
of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements”
(ISO9000:2000)
• Other experts define quality based on:
– Conformance to requirements: the project’s processes and
products meet written specifications or scope.
– For example, if the project scope statement requires delivery of 100 computers with
specific processors, memory, and so on, you could easily check whether suitable computers
had been delivered

– Fitness for use: a product can be used as it was intended

– If these computers were delivered without monitors or keyboards the customer might not
be satisfied because the computers would not be fit for use.

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 What Is Project Quality Management?
• Project quality management ensures that the project will satisfy
the needs for which it was undertaken
• Processes include:
– Planning quality
– Performing quality assurance
– Performing quality control

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FIGURE 8-1 Project quality
management summary

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 Planning Quality
• Identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project
and how to satisfy them.
• For IT projects quality standards include:
– Planning reasonable response time for system
– ensuring that the system produce consistent and accurate
information.

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 Quality Planning Technique
• Design of experiments is a quality planning technique that
helps identify which variables have the most influence on the
overall outcome of a process
• For Example:
– computer chip designers might want to determine which combination
of materials and equipment will produce the most reliable chips at a
reasonable cost

• Also applies to project management issues,

such as cost and schedule trade-offs
– For example, junior programmers or consultants cost less than senior
programmers or consultants, but you cannot expect them to complete
the same level of work in the same amount of time.
– Design experiments to compute project costs and durations for various
combinations of junior and senior programmers
 Scope Aspects of IT Projects
Effecting Quality
• Functionality is the degree to which a system performs its
intended function. For example system allows users to track
sales of specific medical instruments by pre determined
categories such as the product group, country, hospital, and
sales representative
• Features are the system’s special characteristics that appeal to
users. For example graphical user interface with icons, menus,
online help, and so on.
It is important to clarify what functions and features the system
must perform, and what functions and features are optional

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 Scope Aspects of IT Projects
Effecting Quality
• System outputs are the screens and reports the
system generates
• Its is important to define:
– Can the users easily understand the system outputs?
– Can users get all of the reports they need in a suitable
format?

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 Scope Aspects of IT Projects
Effecting Quality
• Performance addresses how well a product
performs the customer’s intended use
• To design a system with high Quality performance, project
stakeholders must address many issues .
– What volumes of data and transactions should the system be
capable of handling?
– How many simultaneous users should the system be designed to
handle.

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 Scope Aspects of IT Projects
Effecting Quality
• Reliability is the ability of a product or service to
perform as expected under normal conditions.

• Maintainability addresses the ease of performing

maintenance on a product.

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 Who’s Responsible for the Quality
of Projects?
• Project managers are ultimately responsible for quality
management on their projects.

• Project managers should be familiar with basic quality

terms, standards, and resources.

• Several organizations and references can help project

managers and their teams understand quality
– International Organization for Standardization
(www.iso.org)
– IEEE (www.ieee.org)
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 Performing Quality Assurance
• Quality Assurance: Periodically evaluating overall project
performance to ensure the project will satisfy the relevant
quality standards

Goal of quality assurance is continuous quality improvement

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Management Impact on Project
Quality

Top management and project managers can

have the greatest impact on the quality of
projects by doing a good job of quality
assurance .

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 Quality Assurance
• Quality assurance includes all of the activities related
to satisfying the relevant quality standards for a
project.
• Another goal of quality assurance is continuous
quality improvement.
• Several tools used in quality planning can also be
used in quality assurance.
• For example, Design of Experiments can also be used
for quality assurance.

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 Quality Assurance Techniques
• Benchmarking: Generate ideas for quality
improvements by comparing specific project
practices or product characteristics to those of other
projects or products within or outside the performing
organization.
• For example a database firm benchmarks the query
performance of products against the competition on
a regular basis.

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 Quality Assurance Techniques
• A Quality Audit: structured review of specific quality
management activities that could improve
performance on current or future projects
• In house auditors or third parties with expertise in
specific areas can perform quality audits.
• Quality audits can be scheduled or random.

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 Quality Control
• The main goal of quality control is to improve
quality.
• outputs of quality control are:
– Acceptance decisions
– Rework
– Process adjustments

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 Quality Control
• Acceptance decisions determine if the
products or services produced as a part of the
project will be accepted or rejected .
– If they are accepted, they are considered to be
validated deliverables.
– If project stakeholders reject some of the product
or services produced as part of the project, there
must be re-work.

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 Quality Control
• Rework is action taken to bring rejected items into
compliance with product requirements or specification or
other stakeholder expectations.
– Rework can be very expensive, so the project manager must struggle
to do a good job of quality planning and Quality assurance to avoid
this need.
• Process adjustments correct or prevent further quality
problems based on quality control measurements.

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 TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL
• The following seven tools are known as the Seven Basic Tools
of Quality that can be applied to information technology
projects.
1. Cause-and-effect diagrams: Trace complaints about quality
problems back to the responsible production operations. In
other words, they help you find the root cause of a problem.
They are also known as fishbone or Ishikawa diagrams

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 FISHBONE DIAGRAM PROCEDURE
• Agree on a problem statement (effect). Write it at the center right of the flipchart or
whiteboard. Draw a box around it and draw a horizontal arrow running to it.
• Brainstorm the major categories of causes of the problem. If this is difficult use generic
headings:
• Methods
• Machines (equipment)
• People (manpower)
• Materials
• Measurement
• Environment
• Write the categories of causes as branches from the main arrow.
• Brainstorm all the possible causes of the problem. Ask "Why does this happen?" As each idea
is given, the facilitator writes it as a branch from the appropriate category. Causes can be
written in several places if they relate to several categories.
• Again ask "Why does this happen?" about each cause. Write sub-causes branching off the
causes. Continue to ask "Why?" and generate deeper levels of causes. Layers of branches
indicate casual relationships.
• When the group runs out of ideas, focus attention to places on the chart where ideas are few.
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 Example

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 Example

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TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL

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 TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL
2. Control chart is a graphic display of data that illustrates the
results of a process over time. Control charts allow you to
determine whether a process is in control or out of control.
• When a process is in control, any variations in the results of
the process are created by random events. Processes that are
in control do not need to be adjusted.
• When a process is out of control, variations in the results of
the process are caused by nonrandom events. When a
process is out of control, you need to identify the causes of
those nonrandom events and adjust the process to correct or
eliminate them.

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TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL
Sample control chart

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 TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL
3. Run chart displays the history and pattern of
variation.
• You can use run charts to perform trend
analysis to forecast future outcomes based on
historical results. For example, trend analysis
can help you analyze how many defects have
been identified over time and see if there are
trends

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TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL
Sample run chart

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 TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL
4. Scatter diagram helps to show if there is a
relationship between two variables.

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 TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL
5. Histogram is a bar graph of a distribution of
variables.

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 TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL
6. Pareto chart is a histogram that can help you
identify and prioritize problem areas.
• Pareto analysis is sometimes referred to as
the 80-20 rule, meaning that 80 percent of
problems are often due to 20 percent of the
causes.

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TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL
Sample Pareto chart

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 TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR
QUALITY CONTROL
• Flowcharts are graphic displays of the logic
and flow of processes that help you analyze
how problems occur and how processes can
be improved.

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Flow Chart as QC Tool

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Flow Chart as QC Tool

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Flow Chart as QC Tool

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 Six Sigma
• a comprehensive and flexible system for
achieving, sustaining and maximizing business
success.
• An organization can apply the Six Sigma
principles to the design and production of a
product.
• Projects that use Six Sigma principles for
quality control normally follow a five-phase
improvement process called DMAIC
(pronounced de-MAY-ick)
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 DMAIC
1. Define: Define the problem/opportunity,
process, and customer requirements.
• Important tools used in this phase include a
project charter, a description of customer
requirements, process maps.
2. Measure: Define measures, then collect,
compile, and display data. Measures are defined
in terms of defects per opportunity.

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 DMAIC
3. Analyze: Inspect process details to find
improvement opportunities. An important tool
in this phase is the fishbone diagram.
4. Improve: Generate solutions and ideas for
improving
5. Control: Track and verify the stability of the
improvements and the predictability of the
solution. Control charts are one tool used in the
control phase.
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 Testing
• 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
• Unit testing tests 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 end users prior to accepting the delivered
system

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 Modern Quality Management
• Modern quality management:
– Requires customer satisfaction

– Prefers activity of inspection

– Recognizes management responsibility for quality

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 The Cost of Quality
• The cost of quality is the cost of conformance
plus the cost of nonconformance
– Conformance means delivering products that
meet requirements and fitness for use.
– Cost of nonconformance means taking
responsibility for failures or not meeting quality
expectations.

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 Five Cost Categories Related to Quality

• Prevention cost: cost of planning & executing a project

so it is error-free or within an acceptable error range
• Appraisal cost: cost of evaluating processes and
their outputs to ensure that a project is error-free or
within an acceptable error range. Such as inspection
and testing of products,
• Internal failure cost: cost incurred to correct an
identified defect before the customer receives the
product
• External failure cost: cost that relates to all errors not
detected and corrected before delivery to the customer
• Measurement and test equipment costs: capital cost of
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 USING SOFTWARE TO ASSIST I N
PROJECT QUALITY MANAGEMENT
• Software can be used to assist with several of
these tools and techniques.
• You can create charts and diagrams from
many of the Seven Basic Tools of Quality using
spreadsheet and charting software
• You can create Gantt charts using project
management software to help you plan and
track work related to project quality
management.
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