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Introduction to Project Management Unit 11

Sikkim Manipal University Page No.: 226

Unit 11 Management of Project Quality

Structure

11.1 Introduction

Objectives

11.2 Project Quality

Definitions of Quality

ISO 9000 Quality Standards

11.3 Perception of Quality by Quality Gurus

11.4 Quality Management Concepts

11.5 Quality Control Tools

11.6 Total Quality Management

11.7 Summary

11.8 Terminal Questions

11.9 Answers

11.1 Introduction

Quality is a critical component of the performance parameters specified for a

project. A project culminates in a product deliverable or a service deliverable

after its implementation. The unit briefly traces the development of changes

that have taken place in the concept of quality from the time of the industrial

revolution. Seven tools deployed for quality management are also

discussed. These tools may be directly relevant to quality management in

manufacturing firms and firms which provide services. The project manager

must understand these tools since several products and services required

for implementing the projects are outsourced by the project manager /

project team.

The project quality management processes enumerated in the PMBoK are

summarised in the unit. It also introduces the student to the ISO 9000, the

international quality standard today and the concept of Total Quality

Management (TQM) in organisations.

Quality as an attribute of a product or service has elicited varying definitions

from different people and therefore, it is difficult to zero in on a single

definition. The marketing personnel of a manufacturing company view,

quality as something that is in the eyes of the customer who uses the

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American Society for Quality (ASQ) has defined quality as 2The totality of

features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability tosatisfy stated or implied needs.

Quality is also defined as the Conformance to requirements or fitness for

use. This means that the product or services must meet the intended

objectives of the project. It should be such that the beneficiaries can use the

material or service as it was originally intended.

The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) defines quality as

the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfil the requirements.

PMBoK emphasizes that product quality measures and techniques are

specific to a particular type of product, while project quality management

must address the quality of both the management of the project and the

product of the project. For example, the quality management of a software

project involves different approaches and measures than a highway building

project, but project quality management approaches apply to both.

Quality can be defined in three different ways based on the category of a

project which include:

User based definitionsays quality lies in the eyes of the beholder.

This definition is preferred by marketing people to whom higher quality

means better performance, better features, and other (sometimes costly)

improvements.

Manufacturing based definition says quality means conforming to

standards and following it right from the beginning of the project. This

definition is preferred by production managers.

Product based definition views quality as a precise and measurable

variable

Quality management is not an event. Quality management is a repetitive

cycle, which is implemented for measuring quality and updating processes

until the desired quality is achieved. Quality is a process and this means a

consistently high quality product or service cannot be produced by adefective quality process.

2Joseph M. Duran, Quality Control Handbook (1951).

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The main focus of quality management is to meet or exceed the

expectations of a stakeholder and maintain the project design andspecifications. Ultimately, the quality is judged by the beneficiary and

represents how close the project outputs and deliverables come together, to

meet the requirements and expectations of the beneficiaries. Quality varies

from one project to another based on the type of project. Described here are

some of the most popular views on quality:

Quality is the fitness for use.

Quality is doing it right the first time and every time.

Quality is the customers perception.

Quality is to provide a product or service, at a price the customer can

afford. Quality is the most expensive product or service (You pay for what you

get).

11.2.2 ISO 9000 Quality Standards

Quality is so important globally that the world is uniting around a single

quality standard. International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 9000

is a set of universally understood and accepted quality practices which,

when well implemented, give customers a confidence that suppliers can

consistently meet their needs. The USA, through the American National

Standards Institute, has adopted the ISO 9000 series, as the ANSI/ASQ

Q9000 series.

ISO 9000 is a set of standard written rules published by an international

standards writing body. These rules define practices that are universally

recognised and accepted for assuring that organisations consistently value

and meet the needs of their customers. ISO 9000 is highly generic

standard. The principles can be applied to any organisation irrespective of

product or service provided by them anywhere in the world.

ISO 9000 specifies elements of a quality system. They do not provide

implementation requirements. ISO 9000 has a handbook of quality

standards and compliance.ISO 9000 is a de facto industry standard for quality assurance for any type

of organisation. ISO 9000 norms are considered as the generalised

specification for quality assurance along with additional elements of total

quality management. The ISO norms do not prescribe how the production

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and management should be organised, but simply states that an

organisation: Defines and plans all its processes.

Documents all the processes properly.

Checks their capabilities.

Ensures that they are reviewed and controlled.

The requirements of ISO 9000 goes much in detail, but when the above

given simple principles are adopted in all the processes of the organisation,

then it is said to be 90% ISO ready.

ISO 9001-9003 standard consists of number of management principles

expressed in production terminology. This reflects the focus on the

situations where suppliers are required to demonstrate their capability of

guaranteeing the conformity to the product specifications to their industrial

clients. The ISO 9001-9003 norms are highly process oriented which

emphasises on thorough planning, documentation, and control. The

principles of quality standards of ISO 9000 can be summarised as:

The organisation has clear quality objectives.

There are clear agreements between everyone involved in a process.

The organisation has necessary resources to achieve the required

quality level.

The organisation defines itself which processes and resources are

necessary to achieve quality.

All processes and systems are under control with the readiness for

evaluation and modification when needed.

Everything required for quality assurance is documented

Quality registration verification and proof for quality assurance is to be

provided when needed.

ISO 9000 Structure

ISO 9000 is a family of standards for Quality Management system. The

series of ISO 9000 standard are given in the table 11.1 below:

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Table 11.1: ISO 9000 Structure

ISO 9000 is not the only quality standard. ISO has other quality standardswhich are defined across various defined parameters.

Self Assessment Questions

1. Quality management is a repetitive cycle which is implemented for

_________ and _______________ until the desired quality is achieved.

2. ___________ and _________ must be conducted and corrective actions

must be implemented for every three to six months on the installed

quality management system.

Activity 1:

Go to any ISO9000 certified organisation located in your city. Find outthe steps followed by the organisation to accomplish the needs to meet

the ISO 9000 quality standards. Compare the steps obtained with the

steps describes in this unit.

11.3 Perception of Quality by Quality Gurus

There are various people who are responsible for the quality management

process that is implemented in various organisations across the globe. Each

person has his own perception on quality based on the product and service

offered. In this section, we shall discuss about the perception of quality by

few quality gurus who are recognised all around the world.

Dr. W. Edwards Deming

Dr. W. Edwards Deming is known as the father of the Japanese post-war

industrial revival. He is regarded as leading quality guru in the United

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that integrated the processes of a company. His work on quality led to the

field of cross-functional teamwork. His book Total Quality Control in 1961,laid out 40 steps to quality improvement processes.

Feigenbaum3 stated many organizations commit the blunder of viewing

statistical tools as a means to control quality. However, he suggested that

statistical tools make up only a small percentage of the quality control

program.

Philip B. Crosby

Philip B. Crosby was recognised across the globe for promoting the concept

of "zero defects" and for defining quality as conformance to requirements.

His book Quality is Free published in 1979 drew a lot of attention from

quality practitioners in United States and Europe. He believed that in the

traditional trade-off between the cost of improving quality and the cost of

poor quality, the cost of poor quality is understated. The cost of poor quality

should include all of the things that are involved in not doing the job right the

first time. Crosby coined the term zero defects and stated, There is

absolutely no reason for having errors or defects in any product or service.

11.4 Quality Management Concepts

As we noted in the previous section, quality is relative and different

definitions of quality are given by different professionals. Earlier, project

firms as well as manufacturing firms believed that higher quality increased

overall project costs. Today, all established and reputed companies realise

that improved quality increases business as well as profitability of business.

The growing competition in all markets as well as the growing size and

complexity of projects has forced firms to concentrate on quality at every

stage.

The project quality management ensures, the project meets or exceeds the

needs and expectations of stakeholders. The project team should have a

good relationship with key stakeholders, especially with donor and the

beneficiaries of the project, to know what quality means to them. Poor

project results when the project mainly focuses on meeting the written

requirements for the main outputs and ignores other needs and

expectations of stakeholders of the project.

3Ten Steps Supplement Paper, Ten Step Inc and CK Management, 2004

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To achieve stakeholders satisfaction delivering the project on time and

within the defined budget is not enough. The project must develop a goodworking relationship with all stakeholders and realise their stated or implied

needs. Various concepts must be implemented in the project right from the

beginning of the project at every level. The sections below describe the

concepts.

Quality Definition

The first step of the quality management is to define quality. The project

manager along with his team should identify the quality standards for the

project. It also considers the donor, beneficiaries and other key stakeholders

to come up with a good definition of quality. Identifying quality standards

helps to identify the key characteristics, which governs project activities,ensuring that the beneficiaries and donor accept the outcome of the project.

Quality management anticipates situations and prepares the right actions

that help in bringing the desired outcome of a project. The ultimate goal of

quality management is to prevent defects through the creation of actions

that ensures the project team knows exactly what is defined as quality.

Sources of Quality Definition

The main source for definition of quality comes from the donor. The project

team must establish conversations with the donor to be familiar with

requirements of the donor. The team and the donor must agree on acommon idea that states the donors quality definition. The donor has

certain standards that define the projects expectations, and how the project

team delivers the expected benefits to the beneficiaries.

The second source for a quality definition comes from the beneficiaries. The

project team must realise how the beneficiaries perspective of quality. The

beneficiaries focus more on the use, the projects outcome that meets their

current needs and results in improving their standard of living.

The development organisation has its own quality standards that can reflect

the technical and managerial nature of the project. The organisation

requires in-time and accurate delivery of project information needed for

decision making or compliant to international or locally recognised quality

standards that define specific technical areas of the project.

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Quality Characteristics

All products or services have characteristics that facilitate the identificationof its quality. The characteristics describe the conditions of the material,

equipment and services that are used to meet the requirements of the

project. Quality characteristics relate to the attributes, measures and

methods attached to a particular product or service. The following table 11.4

describes the factors that need to be measured to define the quality

characteristics of a product or service.

Table 11.4: Quality Characteristics

Quality plan

Developing a Quality plan is a part of defining the quality process which

includes developing a quality checklist that can be used during the

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implementation of a project. This checklist ensures that the project team

delivers the outputs according to the quality requirements. The quality plandescribes all the quality definitions and standards relevant to the project. It

highlights the standards that must be followed to comply to regulatory

requirements setup by the organisation, the donor, and external agencies

such as professional organisations and local government.

The quality plan defines the conditions of services and materials to satisfy

the needs and expectations of the project stakeholders. It describes the

condition that makes an output fall below the standard quality. This

information helps the project team to identify what is above and what is

below a quality standard. It includes the procedure which ensures that the

quality standards are being followed by all project staff of an organisation.The plan also includes the steps required to monitor and control qualities

and the approval process to make changes to the quality standards and the

quality plan.

Quality Assurance

Assurance is an activity which involves providing evidence to create

confidence among all stakeholders that the quality-related activities are

being performed effectively. It should also ensure that all the planned

actions are being done to provide adequate confidence that, a product or

service will satisfy the stated requirements for quality.

Quality Assurance is a process to confirm that the product meet the needs

and expectations of the donors and beneficiaries. It also assures the

existence and effectiveness of procedures, tools, and safeguards are in

place to make sure that the expected levels of quality will be reached to

produce quality outputs.

Quality assurance occurs during the implementation phase of the Project. It

includes the evaluation of the overall performance of the project on a regular

basis, to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the quality standards

defined by the project.

Quality management mainly finds errors and defects at an early stage in the

project. The aim is to reduce the chance of poor quality products or services

after the project is completed. Quality assurance is done not only to the

products and services delivered by the project, but also to the process and

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procedures used to manage the project like usage of tools, techniques, and

methodologies to manage scope, schedule, budget and quality. Qualityassurance also ensures that the project meets any legal or regulatory

standards.

Quality Audits

Quality audits are the structured reviews of the quality management

activities that help to identify lessons to improve the performance on current

or future project activities. Audits are performed by project staff or

consultants with expertise in specific areas. The purpose of quality audit is

to review how the project is using its internal processes to produce the

products and services that are delivered to the beneficiaries. The goal of

quality audit is to improve that tools, techniques, and processes that areused to create the products and services. If any problem is noticed during

the quality auditing process, a corrective action to tools, processes, and

techniques should be taken to ensure the reestablishment of quality.

Quality audit also reviews the quality parameters knowledge of project staff.

It also reviews the skills expertise and knowledge of the people in charge of

producing or delivering the products or services. If any corrective actions are

required, it must be approved through the change of control processes.

The PDCA Shewhart cycle is the most commonly used tool to determine the

quality assurance. It is a never ending cycle of improvement. It is alsoreferred as Deming3 cycle, since it originated with Shewart and was

subsequently applied to management practices by Deming. This quality

assurance cycle consists of four steps that are described in the table 11.5

given below:

Table 11.5: PDCA Cycle

The PDCA is an effective method for monitoring quality assurance as it

analyses existing conditions and methods that are used provide the product

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or service to beneficiaries. The goal of this quality assurance tool is to

ensure that excellence is inherited in every component of the process.Quality assurance also determines whether the steps used to provide the

products or services are appropriate for the time and conditions. The PDCA

cycle is repeated throughout the project to improve internal efficiency.

Quality Control

Quality control is a process that monitors specific project results to

determine if they comply with relevant standards and identifies different

approaches to eliminate the causes for the unsatisfactory performance. It

uses the techniques and activities that compares the actual quality

performance with goals and defines appropriate action in response to a

shortfall.

It involves monitoring the project outputs to determine if they meet the

quality standards based on the expectation of a project stakeholder.

Quality control also controls the performance of project in its efforts to

manage scope, budget, and schedule. The table 11.6 given below describes

the various processes involved in quality control management:

Table 11.6: Quality Control Processes

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Quality Improvements

Quality improvement is a systematic approach to the processes of work thatremoves waste, loss, and rework.

Quality improvement refers to the application of methods and tools that can

be used to close the gap between current and expected levels of quality.

This process is accomplished by analysing and addressing system

deficiencies, strengths to improve, and also re-design project processes in

some cases.

A variety of quality improvement approaches exists in project quality

management that ranges from individual performance improvement to

redesign of entire project processes. These approaches differ in terms of

resources, time, and complexity, but share the same four steps in quality

improvement:

Identify what the factors required for improvement. Using the data found

in the quality control process, the project identifies the areas that need

improvement.

Analyse the problem in the system. The project team then investigates

the causes for the problem and its implications.

Develop a potential solution or implement the change that can likely

improve the problem or system. The team brainstorms ideas and

potential solutions to the problem considering its impact on the projectschedule and budget. The team decides and chooses the best

alternative after careful considerations.

Test and implement the solutions. The team tests the solution on a small

scale to verify its capability in fixing the problem. It tests for the initial

assumptions made about the problem. Once it confirms that the solution

is a viable alternative, it then proceeds to implement the solution on a

full scale.

Quality Cost

Quality cost is the total sum of costs that a project has spent to prevent poor

quality and any other costs incurred as a result of outputs of poor quality.

Poor quality is the waste, errors, or failure to meet stakeholder needs and

project requirements. The costs of poor quality can be broken down into the

three categories that are described in the table 11.7 given below:

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Table 11.7: Types of Costs in an Organisation

Self Assessment Questions

3. Quality of the project must be viewed on an equal level with _________,___________ and ___________ of the project.

4. ______________________ has the ability to anticipate the situations

and prepare the actions that will help bring the desired outcomes of a

project.

5. ___________ is a degree which describes the intended function of

equipment.

6. _____________ defines the fitness of the product, appropriateness and

correctness of the product or service.

7. ______________ is an activity which involves providing evidence to

create confidence among all stakeholders that the quality-related

activities are being performed effectively.

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11.5 Quality Control Tools

Quality control tools used by organisations help to monitor and managequality initiatives. There are seven basic quality control tools that are

commonly used. Different tools are used for different problem solving

opportunities. These tools are:

Histogram: This is one of the basic quality control tools. It is a graphic

summary of variation in a set of data. In histogram, continuous variable is

clustered into categories and the value of each cluster is plotted to give a

series of bars. It enables the user to see patterns that are difficult to see in a

simple tabular list of numbers. It is applied to plot the density of data. It often

referred as density estimation. It estimates the probability density function of

the underlying variable. It can also be used to draw conclusion about thedata set.

Histograms are also referred as a bar chart picture of data that depicts

patterns in data that fall within typical process conditions. Changes in a

process should be indicated by a new collection of data. A minimum of 50 to

75 data points should be gathered to ensure the collection of an adequate

number of data points. The detected patterns demonstrate an analysis that

helps analyse and identify variation.

For example, the skewed distribution of a set of product measurements that

remains nevertheless within specified limits. Without the usage of graphicmethod, this kind of problem can be difficult to analyse, recognise or

identify. The figure 11.1 given below shows the typical form of generic

histogram graph.

Figure 11.1: Generic Histogram Graph

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Flowchart: It is an essential project management technique. It is used by

the project manager and project management team to discuss about theproject. Flowchart is a specific graphical representation of order and process

that must take place during the life of a project. This represents and

highlights fundamental elements of project like every single mode of input,

processing action, and output. Flowchart is not meant to represent a formal

and unyielding plan that describes how the project must be conducted. It is

a brainstorming type of activity that is meant to merely illustrate the

anticipated course that the project and its anticipated components will take,

with the idea that it may in fact become obsolete as the project advances.

Flowcharts are also used to represent a document process flow. This is

used to figure out bottlenecks or breakdowns in current processes.Flowcharts are also be used to show changes in process, when

improvements are made or to show a new work flow process. The figure

11.2 given below shows the generic flowchart

Figure 11.2: Generic Flowchart

Check Sheet:This is one of the basic quality control tools. It was created by

Blair Whitehead at the Pennsylvania state university, for Total Quality

Management. It is a simple data collection tool, which has the ability to

interpret the results, as soon as the data is collected. It is used for

monitoring the quality improvement processes. Check sheets provide a

quick answer to a problem and hence no assumptions should be made to

which, data does not support. The common types of check sheets are

discussed in the table 11.8 below:

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Table 11.8: Check Sheet Types

To create a check sheet, in a group of three to five people, conduct

brainstorm session on a process, which can be internal or external of an

organisation. Then create a list of questions that should be answered by the

check sheet process. The steps to be followed to create a check sheet

described in table11.9:

Table11.9: Steps to Create Check Sheets

The figure 11.3 shows sample check sheet which identifies the reasons for

misplaced letters.

Figure 11.3: Sample of Check Sheet

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variable can be predicted, based on the value of the other variables, then

there exists correlation. All relationships between variables are not linear. Avisible slope of line does not provide any information about the strength of

correlation since the scales of the graph can be expanded or compressed

on either axis of the scatter diagram. The direct or strong correlation

between the variables does not necessarily imply cause and effect

relationship. If a correlation is shown by scatter diagram, investigate for

further confirmation. For example, volume of ice cream sold per day is

strongly correlated to the daily number of fatalities by drowning. Neither of

the variables is a result and strongly correlated to third variable which is the

outside temperature. The steps to draw a scatter diagram for a process are

shown in the table 11.10:

Table 11.10: Steps to Draw Scatter Diagram

Pareto Charts: This quality control tool is based on Paretos rule. The

Pareto rule states that 80 percent of the problems are often due to 20

percent of the causes. The basic assumption is that most of the results in

any situation are determined by a small number of causes and helps toidentify the vital few contributors that account for most quality problems. The

Pareto chart is a form of histogram that orders the data by frequency of

occurrence. It shows how many defects were generated, by a type of

category of identified cause.

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philosophy with a focus on quality as the main dimension of business.

Emphasising the quality of product or service predominates under TQM.TQM expands beyond statistical process control to embrace a wider scope

of management activities which involves managing people and

organisations by focusing on the entire process and not just taking simple

measurements.

The method of implementing total quality management comes from the

teaching of quality gurus or leaders. Implementation of the core concepts of

the total quality management has Demings 14 points, which is a set of

management practices to help or guide companies and organisation to

improve their quality and productivity.

Note:Refer Table 11.2 for Demings TQM 14 points.

Total quality management is mainly for customer focused organisation that

encourages bringing in continual improvement in all the aspects of the

organisation. TQM is an integrative system that uses strategy, effective

communication, and data to integrate the quality principles into the culture

and activities of the organisation. The core intension of the total quality

management is to have a long term success through customer satisfaction.

Figure 11.7 shows the various factors of organisation, associated to

implement total quality management system.

Figure 11.7: Factors of Organisations

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The goal of total quality management is to do the rights things, right from

the first time which has two main objectives to achieve: Total client satisfaction, through quality of products and services

Continuous improvements in processes, systems, people, suppliers,

partners, products, and services.

Total quality management defines the culture of organisation and supports it

to attain customer satisfaction through integrated system of tools,

techniques and training. This enables the company to improve the

processes continuously, which results in high quality of products and

services. There are three aspects of TQM that are shown in the Table 11.11

given below:

Table 11.11: Aspects of Total Quality Management

TQM is a comprehensive management system. The main areas of TQM are

shown in the Table 11.12 given below:

Table 11.12: Total Quality Management Focus Points

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There are universal TQM beliefs that are followed in various successful

organisations across the globe. The basic beliefs or tenets of TQM are: Donor and beneficiary satisfaction is the measure of quality.

Quality improvement is a continuous process.

Everyone has donors or beneficiaries; everyone is a donor or

beneficiary.

Analysing the processes used to create product and service is a key to

quality improvement.

Measurement, employee involvement, and skilful use of analytical tools

are critical sources of quality improvement ideas and innovations.

Active, visible, consistent, and enabling leadership by managers at allthe levels will sustain the total quality management.

If we do not improve the quality of products and services, we provide

continuously to our beneficiaries, someone else will do it.

Figure 11.8 shows the segregated layers of total quality management

system of an organisation.

Figure 11.8: Layers of Total Quality Management System

The new attitude of organisation management is price minus cost equals

profit. Donors are now demanding higher quality work at a lower cost. In an

attempt to keep pace with the new attitude, a quality management system

that helps to keep the costs down is well worth implementing.

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11.9 Answers

Answers to Self Assessment Questions1. Measuring quality and updating processes.

2. Internal audit and management review.

3. Scope, schedule and budget.

4. Quality management.

5. Functionality.

6. Suitability.

7. Assurance.

8. Bar chart picture.

9. Cause and effect diagram.

10. The Pareto rule.11. Total Quality Management (TQM).

12. Culture of organisation and integrated system.

Answers to Terminal Questions

1. Refer Section 11.2.2

2. Refer Section 11.2.2

3. Refer Section 11.3



References

1. Project Quality Management: Why what and how - Kenneth Rose

2. Managing Project QualityTimothy J Kloppenborg, Joseph A Petrick

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