General Summary

Quality is one of the six dimensions of a project namely scope, cost, time, quality, resources and risks. A specific quality level can be achieved only with the help of quality assurance and quality control activities. Based on the quality requirements which are mentioned in the requirements document, a project manager has to plan the quality assurance and control activities for the project. The PM has to determine which of the quality tools such as the seven QC tools, benchmarking, DOE and so on that he or she would use in the project, what measurements (metrics) will they use in the project and document it in the quality management plan. Based on the quality management plan, the PM has to ensure that the quality assurance and quality control activities will be performed.

Important ITTOs

8.1 Plan quality management

Inputs

Project management plan

Stakeholder register

Risk register

Tools and Techniques

Cost benefit analysis

The primary benefits of meeting quality requirements include less rework, higher productivity, lower costs, increased stakeholder satisfaction, and increased profitability. A cost-benefit analysis for each quality activity compares the cost of the quality step to the expected benefit.

Cost of Quality (CoQ)

Cost of quality includes all costs incurred over the life of the product by investment in preventing nonconformance to requirements, appraising the product or service for conformance to requirements, and failing to meet requirements (rework). Failure costs are often categorized into internal (found by the project) and external (found by the customer). Failure costs are also called cost of poor quality.

Seven basic quality tools

There are several tools used to make measurements resulting in quality related decisions and seven of them are as follows:

  • Cause effect diagrams: These are diagrams that resemble a fish bone with an effect at the position of a fish head and causes, sub causes and so on in the position of the bones. These are also called RCA (Root Cause Analysis) diagrams, fish bone diagrams and Ishikawa diagrams.
  • Flowcharts: A diagrammatic representation of how a process works
  • Checksheets: Checksheets are used to organize facts in a manner that will facilitate the effective collection of useful data about a potential quality problem.
  • Pareto diagrams: Barcharts or histogram that plots causes and their contribution to defects. The Pareto charts typically follow the Pareto principle or the 80-20 principle which states that about 20% causes result in typically 80% effects.
  • Histograms: Are a special form of bar chart and are used to describe the central tendency, dispersion, and shape of a statistical distribution.
  • Control charts: Are used to determine whether or not a process is stable or has predictable performance. A control chart operates based on the following principles:
    • 5 values – USL, LSL, UCL, LCL, Mean and 3 rules (Rule of seven, hugging, out of limits) that determine whether the process is under control or not.
    • Upper and lower specification limits (USL, LSL) are based on requirements of the agreement with the customer. They reflect the maximum and minimum values allowed by the contract.
    • Upper and lower control limits (UCL, LCL) are imposed by the vendor on their own process so that the process stays well within the specification limits
    • The process is said to be out of control and a root cause analysis is triggered if any of the following conditions are met: Rule of seven (seven consecutives being either below or above mean), Hugging (Seven consecutive values forming either an upward trend or a downward trend) and Out of limits (Any one value going out of either UCL or LCL).

Scatter diagrams

Plots ordered pairs (X, Y) and are sometimes called correlation charts because they seek to explain a change in the dependent variable, Y, in relationship to a change observed in the corresponding independent variable, X.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking involves comparing actual or planned project practices to those of comparable projects (Industry standard) to identify best practices, generate ideas for improvement, and provide a basis for measuring performance

Design of experiments

Design of experiments (DOE) is a statistical method for identifying which factors may influence specific variables of a product or process under development or in production. DOE may be used during the Plan Quality Management process to determine the number and type of tests and their impact on cost of quality.

Statistical sampling

Statistical sampling involves choosing part of a population of interest for inspection (for example, selecting ten engineering drawings at random from a list of seventy-five).

Additional quality planning tools

Brainstorming, Nominal group technique, force field analysis, quality management and control tools

Meetings

Please refer to previous sections the common ITTO section

Output

Quality management plan

The quality management plan is a component of the project management plan that describes how the organization’s quality policies will be implemented for this project.

Process improvement plan

The process improvement plan details the steps for analyzing project management and product development processes to identify activities that enhance their value or making improvements to the standard processes.

Quality metrics

A quality metric specifically describes a project or product attribute and how the control quality process will measure it.

Quality checklists

A checklist is a structured tool, usually component-specific, used to verify that a set of required steps has been performed.

8.2 Perform quality assurance

Input

Quality management plan

Process improvement plan

Quality metrics

Quality control measurements

Quality control measurements are the results of control quality activities. They are used to analyze and evaluate the quality of the processes of the project against the standards of the performing organization or the requirements specified.

Project documents

Tools and Techniques

Quality management and control tools

The Perform Quality Assurance process uses the tools and techniques of the Plan Quality Management and Control Quality processes. In addition, other tools that are available include Affinity diagrams, PDPC (Process decision program charts), Interrelationship diagraphs, Tree diagrams, Prioritization matrices, Activity network diagrams, Matrix diagrams.

Quality Audits

A quality audit is a structured, independent process to determine if project activities comply with organizational and project policies, processes, and procedures. A quality audit picks up sample scenarios in the project and verifies if the work performed in these scenarios are compliant with the stated processes and guidelines.

Process analysis

Process analysis follows the steps outlined in the process improvement plan to identify needed improvements. This analysis also examines problems experienced, constraints experienced, and non-value-added activities identified during process operation.

Output

None

8.3 Control quality

Input

Project management plan

Quality metrics

Quality checklists

Work performance data

Approved change requests

Deliverables

Tools and Techniques

Seven basic quality tools

Statistical sampling

Inspection

An inspection is the examination of a work product to determine if it conforms to documented standards. The deliverables will be reviewed in this process to check for conformance to quality. If the deliverable is a document, then it will be subjected to a document review. If the deliverable is a software, it will be subject to a system test and so on.

Approved change requests review

All approved change requests should be reviewed to verify that they were implemented as approved.

Output

Quality control measurements

Quality control measurements are the documented results of control quality activities. They should be captured in the format that was specified through the Plan Quality Management process.

Validated changes

Any changed or repaired items are inspected and will be either accepted or rejected before notification of the decision is provided. Rejected items may require rework

Verified deliverables

A goal of the Control Quality process is to determine the correctness of deliverables. The results of performing the Control Quality process are verified deliverables. Verified deliverables are an input to Validate Scope for formalized acceptance.

Work performance information

Change requests

Highlights

Notes

  • Concepts
    • Quality v/s grade – “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements” v/s “Grade as a design intent is a category assigned to deliverables having the same functional use but different technical characteristics”
    • Precision v/s accuracy – The fineness with which measurements are made v/s closeness to actual value. Ex:- When the actual temperature is 100 degree C, a thermometer showing a reading of 98.997 is more precise because it is calibrated up to 3 decimal points whereas another thermometer showing a reading of 99.2 degree C is more accurate because it is closer to the actual value.
    • Cost of quality – Cost of quality refers to the total cost of the conformance work and the nonconformance work that should be done
    • QA v/s QC – Activities performed during the product development to build in quality v/s activities performed after the product development to remove defective products or correct defects already occurred.
  • Seven basic quality tools – RCA, Flowcharts, Pareto diagrams, Histograms, Scatter diagrams, Control charts and Checksheets.
  • RCA diagrams are also called Cause-Effect diagrams, Fishbone diagrams and Ishikawa diagrams
  • Seven tools of 8.2 are not important, but still they are – Affinity diagrams, PDPC (Process decision program charts), Interrelationship diagraphs, Tree diagrams, Prioritization matrices, Activity network diagrams, Matrix diagrams.
  • Note inputs and outputs of 8.3 control costs
    • Deliverables and approved change requests are inputs
    • Verified deliverables are output
  • Control quality uses the same tools as of plan quality

Important dependencies

  • Hard
    • Requirements documentation
    • Verified deliverables
  • Soft
    • Cost of quality (TT of 7.2 Estimate cost)
    • Inputs to risk identification

Important process flows

  • Direct and manage project work (approved change requests, deliverables) à Control quality
  • Collect requirements (Requirements documentation) à Plan quality management
  • Plan quality management (Cost of Quality) à Estimate costs
  • Control quality (Verified deliverables) à Validate scope

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