8.1 Plan Quality Management
"The process of identifying quality requirements and/or standards for the project and its deliverables and documenting how the project will demonstrate compliance with quality requirements."
The definition shown above in italics is taken from the Glossary of the Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition, Project Management Institute Inc., 2013
Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition, Project Management Institute Inc., 2013 Figure 8-3 Page 232
Quality Management Plan:
Describes how the PM Team will implement the quality policy
Quality is:
The degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements
ISO 8402 “Totality of features and characteristics of a product or service which bear on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs”.
Process Improvement
- Malcolm Baldridge – Organisational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3®)
- Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI®)
ISO 9000
International range of Quality Management System (QMS) standards
Basis for proprietary QMSs is based on 8 principles:
- Customer satisfaction
- Role of leadership
- Involvement of people
- Business Process Approach
- Systematic approach to management
- Continual Improvement
- Factual approach to decision making
- Mutually beneficial supplier relationships.
PMI® Quality Principles
Customer satisfaction:
- Conformance to requirements - Whose requirements?
- Fitness for use - Satisfy real needs (whose?)
Prevention over Inspection
- Quality is planned in – not inspected in
Management responsibility
- Responsibility to provide resources
- Participation of all members
Processes within phases
- Repeated plan-do-check-act cycles
- Process Improvement
Quality Philosophies
W. Edward Deming - 14 Steps to Total Quality Management
- Key points – continuous improvement; defect prevention over detection; coach; have achievable targets; remove barriers
- “As much as 85% of the cost of quality is management's problem and responsibility”
Arnold Feigenbaum – founded TQM
Kaoru Ishikawa – TQM-Japanese style
Philip B Crosby's – Four Absolutes
- Conformance to Requirements
- Prevention is the key to Quality
- The target is zero defects
- Cost of Quality can be measured
- Measuring quality is price of non conformance (what are the costs incurred when we don't get it right)
- Balancing price of non conformance with price of conformance (costs incurred in ensuring we do get it right)
- Price of Conformance is less than the Price of Non Conformance
Joseph M Juran
Fitness for purpose = stakeholders' and customers' needs or expectations have been met or exceeded
Should not confuse Quality with Grade
- Quality: “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements” (ISO 9000)
- Grade: a category for products that perform the same function but have different technical characteristics
New release of Windows:
- low quality (there will be some bugs) but high grade (many features)
- Always strive for high quality
“It is most important that top management be quality-minded. In the absence of sincere manifestation of interest at the top, little will happen below.” Juran, 1945
Some Quality Basics
- Voice of the Customer = what the customer wants
- Voice of the Process = what the process delivers
- Customer Satisfaction – requires aligning both
- Plan it – Quality Management Plan
- Quality Assurance, aka Audits - Are the quality standards being followed; are the correct metrics being used; quality reporting
- Quality Control - Monitoring and recording results of quality checks carried out; assessing performance; recommending any changes required
Quality – Relationships
Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition, Project Management Institute Inc., 2013 Figure 8-2 Page 231
Six Sigma
Focus on achieving quality levels by:
- process control
- reducing defect levels
Stipulates that no more than 3.4 defects / million are produced, but aim is for zero defects
Would you fly with xxx Airlines if their target was 99% ?
Two project methodologies:
DMAIC
- improve existing processes
- Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control
DMADV
- new product/process design
- Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify
- Also known as Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
Others
Six Sigma Roles
- Champion – implementation of Six Sigma across the organization,
- Master Black Belt – in house coach,
- Black Belt – responsibility for application of Six Sigma to specific projects, under the MBB,
- Green Belt – employees with Six Sigma as one of many other responsibilities
Continuous Improvement – Kaizen
- Toyota – small incremental changes better than large ones which disrupt operations
- Improve the quality of the people first, then the quality of the products or service
Benchmarking
- Identifying companies that are world class or best in class
- Seeking to learn from them/their practices
- Measuring self against other to identify improvement points
Just in Time
- Components obtained at the time they are needed
- No storage or warehousing
- No safety stock requires more reliance on processes
- These have to be effective Forces a focus on quality problems to eliminate them
- Why? Because there are no spares in stock to replace any defects -> dissatisfied customers
- Amazon's Create Space – authors send their book directly to Amazon and as a customer orders it, they print and deliver it
Quality Terms to be aware of
Precision & Accuracy
- Precision: a measure of exactness. Value of 1.285mm is more precise than 1.2mm
- Accuracy: the measured value is close to the true (target or required) value. A door which needs to be 33.2mm thick being 33.18mm thick is accurate.
Cost of Quality (COQ)
- The total cost of all efforts to achieve product/service quality.
- It includes all work to ensure conformance to requirements, as well as all work resulting from non-conformance.
- Three types of costs are incurred: prevention costs, appraisal costs (conformance) and failure costs (non conformance).
Steps in Quality Planning
Identify Quality Requirements:
- policies, standards and regulations
- stakeholder focus
- review scope statement and product description
Identify Quality Assurance procedures:
- prevention over inspection
Identify Quality Control procedures:
- everyone participates
- PM responsible for Quality
Develop a Quality Management Plan:
- iterative process
- create checklists
Quality is planned, designed, and built in. It CANNOT be inspected in.
Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques
Cost/Benefit Analysis:
- Is a cost and a benefit to meeting each quality standard.
- Less rework and higher stakeholder satisfaction versus the expense of the quality management activities (quality assurance and quality control)
Benchmarking:
- Comparing your project practices (actual and planned) to those of other projects.
Design of Experiments (DOE):
- A statistical technique that identifies the elements or variables, that will have the greatest effect on overall project outcomes.
- It can systematically change all the important factors instead of changing them one at a time to see what happens.
- Helps determine the best combination to produce the best result at a reasonable cost
The 7 Tools Of Quality
Cause and Effect Diagram
A diagram that shows the relationships of various elements in a system or process. Also called the Ishikawa diagram or fishbone diagram
Process Flowcharts
Used to understand how and where a problem occurs.
Pareto Diagrams
Checksheets
A tally sheet that can be used as a checklist when gathering data
Histograms
A special form of bar chart used to describe the central tendency, dispersion and shape of a statistical distribution
Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition, Project Management Institute Inc., 2013 Figure 8-7 Page 239<
Control Charts
- Walter Shewhart
- A standard deviation (± one Sigma) - Measures how much variation exists in a distribution of data
- A small standard deviation is the ideal - data clustering closely around the center of a distribution, with little variability
- Control Limits – the capability or limits of a stable process – outside limit -> corrective action
- Assignable cause - Points which are significantly outside the distribution and should be examined for their cause
- Rule of Seven - if seven data points in a row are all above or below the mean, or increasing or decreasing, examine the process for non-random problems
Scatter Diagram
A graphical representation of two variables, showing the relationship between them
Source: BrightHub
Tools and Techniques
Benchmarking
Design of Experiments
- Identifies which combination of factors can be changed for best effect to the product under development
- Helps to optimise products or processes
Statistical Sampling
- A technique for rejecting a larger population by choosing a part of the population for inspection.
- The larger the sample the more the confidence, however to obtain 100% confidence, 100% must be sampled.
- Techniques include single sampling, multiple sampling and double sampling
Outputs
Quality Management Plan
Quality policy to be implemented:
- Organisational structure
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Procedures and Processes
Quality Assurance & Quality Control Plans to be implemented:
- Levels/standards to be achieved.
- Quality Audits to be carried out
Process Improvement Plan
- Description of processes + boundaries
- Process Configuration & metrics
- Targets for improved performance