Objectives
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
- Perform Quality Assurance
- Perform Quality Control
Introduction
Projects are intended to achieve outcomes that are specified by the organisation, client or customer. Understanding these and planning and managing your project activity to achieve them are necessary for project success.
Quality
Project quality management focuses on making sure that the project meets its objectives as specified by the organisation, client or customer. There can be many different elements of quality, which may be in the processes being used to conduct the project and / or in the quality of the project outcome.
For example, the Fast Food Restaurant Automated Ordering System, the quality desired may include aspects of the functionality of the system which might be its impact on the flow of customers in the restaurant, the volume of food sold, customer perceptions of their experience, the reliability of the system, etc.
Project activity needs to be designed and managed to meet the project objectives. First, we identify the quality elements we want to achieve and then we design processes to achieve them.
Quality Specification and Measurement
We first need to know what the quality requirements are. The project scope statement and any other specification documents that may have been prepared should be reviewed. Discussions may be held with the project team and project stakeholders, which should include people who will be managing, using or working with or impacted by the outcome of the project.
Quality specifications can then be prepared for the project, which provide targets for the project to achieve. These targets should be measurable, where this is possible, but it is sometimes difficult to do. Unmeasurable objectives need to be carefully described and efforts should be made to ensure everyone in the project team understands them.
In the Fast Food Restaurant Automated Ordering System the measurable objectives might be:
- Number of users per hour
- Percentage of abandoned uses
- Time taken to place an order
The harder to measure (or intangible) objectives might be:
- Appearance of the equipment – is it contributing to a comfortable environment in the restaurant?
- Impact of the equipment on the quality of working life of employees
- Management simplicity – is it adding to the complexity of the restaurant managers job and leading to poorer overall restaurant management?
There may be ways to measure some of the intangible objectives, such as user surveys. The quality objectives of the project need to be as clear as possible, be understood by everyone in the project team and agreed with the sponsor or client of the project and inform the design of Quality Assurance (which seeks to prevent errors occurring) and Control (which seeks to find errors that have occurred and fix them) activity.
Quality Assurance
It is clearly better that work we do on the project achieves the quality that is desired, rather than that we fix sub standard work after it has been completed. Quality Assurance is the work that we do to ensure we perform project activities correctly the first time. This can include the development of project processes to achieve our objectives and regular checks and audits on project processes to see that they are performing as planned.
For example, in the Fast Food Restaurant Automated Ordering System, if our objective is to ensure that the new system is not adding to the complexity of the project manager’s job, we might involve the restaurant manager in the creation of the work practices for the new system and regularly review these with them as the new system is implemented.
Quality Control
Quality Control activity finds and fixes problems after they occur. Despite our efforts using Quality Assurance, problems may occur, and it is important that we identify them as early as possible and deal with them (possibly including the use of a problem-solving team).
For example, in the Fast Food Restaurant Automated Ordering System, if our objective is that Work has been progressing to set up the new system, including on the series of menus that customers will use to place their order, the target is that order placement should average 1 minute and 20 seconds. Programmers interpreted this requirement as 1 minute and 20 seconds processing time per customer and work proceeded on that basis. Auditing of their progress indicated that they were on track to achieve this.
Unfortunately, their objective had not considered the time for one person to complete their order and move away from the machine and for the next customer to take their place. This was discovered when a planned trial run of a system prototype found that the system could only enable 40 people per hour to use it which was discovered to be due to the error in the design.
Rectification activity required a review of the work done so far and establishment of a new target for system processes that included the time that it took for the transition from one customer to another. Project processes were modified to require a new prototyping step to evaluate the system after modification and more frequent review of the system development work at the project team meetings.
A simple table will help us identify where Quality activity is undertaken in the project:
| Quality Standard | Quality Assurance Activity | Quality Control Metrics |
| 45 users per hour | Prototype based trials of the system | Users per hour in trials |
| Maximum of 1 user abandoning order per hour | Prototype based trials, followed by surveys on ease of use | Survey responses rate ease of use 8 / 10 or better |
| 1 minute and 20 seconds for order placement | Measurement of order placement time | Order placement time in trials |
| Appearance of equipment | Services of an interior design consultant in placement of machines in the restaurant | Seating patterns of customers |
| Impact on QWL | Regular consultation with employees on new work practices | Staff turnover during cutover period. |
| Management simplicity | Consultation with restaurant manager | Manager overtime |
The Involvement of Vendors and Stakeholders
Project quality management is more effective if it is designed to include suppliers and contractors to the project and those impacted by the results. This takes extra time but this is usually beneficial because it enables their expertise to contribute towards better design of the outcomes of the project, a better project plan, better project execution and better sustaining of the project results.
Canadian Canoe Company Case Study Exercise
Some of the quality requirements for the Connected Canoe project are:
- That the number of canoes that fail inspection after the Mold Shop be no higher than prior to the Connected Canoe.
- That employees believe the new system will improve their working life.
- That all employees are fully trained in the requirements of work on the Connected Canoes prior to the Handover.
- That effective maintenance operations are in place prior to the Handover.
Reproduce this table on a flipchart page and insert your suggested Quality Assurance Activity and Quality Control Metrics:
| Quality Standard | Quality Assurance Activity | Quality Control Metrics |
Project Leadership 