8.1 Plan Quality Management

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"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