Comparing Quality Techniques For Project Management

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Comparing Quality Techniques for Project Management

BSc Hons Business Information Technology

Introduction

The purpose of a product/service is to satisfy customer needs. Customers’ choice to either buy a cheap or expensive product directly affects the quality of the product/service. Good quality products intended to provide complete (in some cases exceed) customer expectations hence, come at a price.

Quality has direct reflection on the buying behaviour, image and status of the customer and organization related to the product/service. Organizations use different project management techniques and methods to achieve desired quality, PRINCE2, PMBOK and ITIL are compared and the best quality techniques are concluded in this essay.

Comparing Quality Techniques for Project Management

Quality is an essential part of any project whether it is constructing a building, buying a bed or travelling abroad. For every project, a quality assurance is crucial. Every customer makes a choice of the quality of the product/service they wish to receive in this case; building, bed or plane tickets. PRINCE (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) is a structured method for effective project management (Great Britain. Office of Government Commerce, 2002). PRINCE2 is very flexible and can be tailored to work in any culture; type or size of project; any degree of formality; any type of change (Fox, 2007). The product quality is described in the Business Case illustrating benefits to customers. During Plan, the desired quality criterion is set. The host organization’s management team makes decisions on the tested quality of the project by the project manager; this allows the organization to pre-empt problems and make decisions on problem resolution. PRINCE2 incorporates a quality approach to management and technical processes. It initially establishes customer quality expectations and follows by laying down standards and quality inspection methods to be used and by checking that these are being used (Great Britain. Office of Government Commerce, 2002). The objectives of the Quality Review Technique included in PRINCE2 are; to assess the conformity of a product which takes the form of a document against set criteria; to involve key interested parties in checking the product’s quality and in promoting wider acceptance of the product; to provide confirmation that the product is complete and ready for approval (Commerce, 2009). The project team must prove that their product is complete before handing a complete Work Package to the Project Manager. The quality review holds the user’s quality criteria to confirm the product is complete (Fox, 2007). The purpose of the quality review is to provide product information where a brief summary of the purpose of the product; who needs it, why and what it does etc. and gets answers to major/global questions with the progress of the project. Quality records provide evidence gathered to demonstrate that the planned quality activities have been carried out (Commerce, 2009). Records support the entries made in the Quality Register and assures Project Manager and the Board that; Products are complete; fit for intended purpose; meet quality criteria (alternatively quality failure and corrective action records are available); agreed processes have been conducted; key stakeholders are satisfied (Commerce, 2009). When a product has been approved and met requirement in its Product description, it is good practise to obtain a records. No format is specified of approval records and purely depends upon the level of formality required. A product is approved throughout the life of the project. PRINCE2 uses the acceptance records to describe the approval of the product. These methods are acceptable when buying a bed, as one can assess the quality i.e. appearance, usefulness and robustness. The bed was made in a factory or warehouse hence, the customer has few opportunities to influence the product quality. Although the manufacturer has tried to deliver a bed that fits the purpose of the customer i.e. to sleep comfortably. However services such as purchasing a plane ticket online; is not travelling to whether one intends. Services are provided with customer interaction and cannot be assessed in advance; in other words only when they are being provided. The service one gets travelling on a plane is determined by the aircraft, but the service of purchasing tickets online is also essential to reflect quality. If the quality of the website is not adequate, the company may lose sales due to frustrated customers. The quality of a service depends to some extend on the way in which the service provider can still make changes when the services are being delivered .Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Quality management is the responsibility of everyone working in the organization providing the service (Jan van Bon, 2005). Six Sigma is a quality methodology using statistical techniques to continuously measure, analyse and improve quality which can be applied to any discipline, including service management process based on ITIL. ITIL lacks quality measurement, analysis and a detailed continual process improvement methodology; these are provided by Six Sigma (Rajeev Andharia, 2007). ITIL brings best practices to IT Service Management and Six Sigma provide quality methodology ensuring the processes are followed and quality is constantly measured, reviewed and improved. This service is related to the website where the customer purchases the plane ticket. The website quality is still measured, reviewed and improved as customer expectation increases. Additional features are added to make the website as convenient as possible. ITIL services and quality section addresses the relationship between the quality experienced by the customer’s organization and users, and quality management by the provider of the IT service. Improved customer satisfaction is provided by more professional approach to service delivery. The IT staff working on the website will increase competency, capability and productivity with reducing cost of training for the project. When constructing a building, involves huge utilization of human and technical resources. Project quality management includes the processes and activities of the performing organization that determine quality policies, objectives and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken (Snyder, 2010). Certain assumptions in quality management adopted by PMBOK Guide: A key component to project success is via customer satisfaction; better to plan quality and prevent errors from occurring rather than finding them during inspection (Snyder, 2010). To achieve the position of a manager, one must be strong to perform technical tasks. However a project manager’s job is to encourage the project team to produce high-quality technical work instead of doing it themselves. Quality in PMBOK is not only describes product/service quality but also the quality the staff should be addressed with for their contribution to the project. This is ensured by employees having a decent arrangement of furniture and support equipment they use; and the availability and condition of the equipment and resources (Snyder, 2010). American Society for Quality (ASQ) defines quality assurance as the planned and systematic activities implemented in a quality system so that quality requirements for a product or service will be fulfilled and quality control as the observation techniques and activities used to fulfil requirement for quality. Thus both terms have different meanings ((ASQ)). The overall project management plan consists of a component called the quality management plan, which documents quality assurance, quality control, quality improvement and process improvement. It defines which processes and methods are to be used, how to use them, when to use the, and quality metrics used along them to report on quality. Quality metrics are specific measurements that describe in detail an attribute that wll be measured and the numeric value or tolerance that the result needs to fall within to be accepted (Snyder, 2010). Quality metrics include: A metric ID; item being measured; metric or measurement required; measurement method. The process flow charts, cost of quality decisions, acceptance criteria and information past on from previous projects are later developed into a quality checklist. A simple checklist can be used for equipment check-in and check-out. More complex checklist can be developed prior to launching a complicated and expensive test. Checklists are developed in this process and applied in the Control Quality process (Snyder, 2010). This could simple be to check arriving or departing the construction site. Quality is measured at staff levels whether or not they are receive adequate space to carry out their operation. Their processes are being monitored and reviewed to further be improved.

Conclusion

The purpose of the Quality theme in PRINCE2 is defined and implements to mean a project will create and verify products that are ‘fit for purpose’ (Commerce, 2009). Quality although is considered to me as a ‘standard of excellence’ especially a high standard. At the beginning of a PRINCE2 project of making a bed criteria is set according to customer measurement attributes (acceptance criteria). Management teams only sign-off products when it meets the acceptance criteria. Organizations assume customer needs and manufacture a bed to fit the purpose, but if a customer wishes to buy a high end version, the company has fallen short on its assumptions. ITIL looks at the Infrastructure and the services provided with quality as a measure to always improve. Customer expectations increase gradually hence, quality assurance and quality control are never ending. Although, ITIL only focuses on services and not as much on products therefore it has its own limitations. In which case, it proved efficient for maintaining and improving the website quality but has no effect on the quality of service provided on the plane; for which the ticket is being purchased. PMBOK looks at the project from a broad way and has an impact on the employees as much as the management of the organization. The quality is not only measured for the product/service but also among staff and how they are receiving the equipment and resources – are they of good quality, easily accessed? We can therefore conclude not all quality techniques are effective for any one project.