Process And Quality Of Product

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Project quality is the project that exceeds the customer needs in areas where they feel they have control, as if this can make up for those many occurrences where they have no control. Refer to the ISO 9126; the product quality is an international standard for the evaluation of software quality. The objective of this standard is to address some of the human biases that can adversely affect the delivery and perception of a software development project. The ISO 9126 tries to develop a common understanding of the project's objectives and goals. Quality model is one of the ISO 9126 part which used to classifies software quality in a structured set of characteristics, for example; functionality, reliability, efficiency, maintainability, and portability.

Problem with Project Quality

Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. The project quality is the project that exceeds the customer satisfaction and needs. For the project quality problem, the problem in quality is difference in each project. The difficult measurement of the quality is the major quality problem. In fact, the stakeholder cannot evaluate the result quality until the benefit realization point which is too late to resolve the problem happened. For instance, it is known that the project result cannot be evaluated until near the project end.

Process and Quality of Product

Product quality is focusing on meeting tolerance in the end result of the manufacturing activity. The end result is measured on a standard of "good enough".

Process quality focuses on each activity and forces the activities to achieve maximum tolerances irrespective of the end result.  The goal of process quality is to force narrow variance in product output to be able to expect close tolerances. This focus on process quality typically generates higher product quality as a secondary outcome. In fact, when the improving the process, the product improvement also occur follow. In some case, for instance; the Hawthorne effect, the quality of the product improves just because people only focus on the quality not the process improvement. If the process extends blindly documenting everything which consistently those practices, the quality of the product will be reduce.

The quality process

The quality process is a process for quality improvement and quality assurance. The quality management process is undertaken to ensure that the quality targets identified within the quality review form are achieved by applying clearly defined quality assurance and quality control techniques.

The quality movement impact

The quality movement has been gaining momentum over the last few years. One of the best sign when the quality movement occurs is that the quality experts insisted that the employee did not understand quality unless the employee used only the processes, terminology, and tools. The quality movement had a great benefit for the company that can manage the impact. Moreover, during the quality movement some of the company may train their staff in order to pass through the quality movement period. After the quality movement, the integration of the new way of focusing on the customer needs, satisfaction measurement, and quantities balancing would be discussed in the company.

Discerning scope from quality

Difference between the Product Scope and Project Scope is one of the most confusing topics in the project management. Project Scope includes all the work needed to be done to create a product. The project scope is all about the project, it defines the requirements of products, work required to create the product, and defines what is in the scope and what is out. By the way, the product scope is the characteristics, features, or function of the product. It is the outcome of the project.

Impact of quality in project results

For the impact of quality in project result, the measuring and managing project quality need to be done. In fact, the lack of quality would cause the projects fail to meet the business needs. If the company cannot deliver the needed quality, then even if your project meets time, cost, the project result is fail. Thus, while we realize the benefit as a measurement for the success, the right quality for the right scope is the greatest contributor to the success.

Can it be that difficult to measure quality?

It is very difficult to measure quality because major quality problem because we may evaluate the project result until near the project end. The several solutions to this difficulty, including using the classic Input: Process: Output model as quality measurement, the individual project work package or activity assignment. In order to overcome the problem, we need to assure proper input, specify quality processes, then monitor the results, and correct the processes that produce defects, as well as review the outputs or results. Monitor review outcomes and correct the inputs and processes, as needed.

Measure ease by nature of project

The nature of the project affects Quality measurement difficulty. In "Hard Product" projects, those that produce tangible, physical products, it is easier to review incremental Quality of the results. On the other hand, for "Soft Product" projects are those that produce a less tangible result. For these project types, it is more difficult to measure the quality of the result by reviewing the incremental assignment results—although for this type of project that is an even more important factor. A key measure is defect count, or more appropriately, planned versus actual defect.

Indicators of quality

There are six factors that need to be considered in order to improve the project quality, which are a good plan, appropriate communication, manage stakeholder, constant review, act early and the good measurement. The indicator of quality was used when the defect counts measure of the quality may not available. The quality indicators are statistical measures that give an indicator of output quality. However, some quality indicators also give an indication of process quality. There are several that may used to indicate the quality, for instance; engagement measures, planned versus actual cumulative review count as well as assessment measure. In order to indicate the level of customer acceptance, probable benefit realization, the engagement measure was used as the indicator. Additional, the engagement measure also used to indicate the appropriate customer engagement in activities such as requirements definition, design decisions, as well as the customer satisfaction determination. In order to use the Planned versus Actual Cumulative Review Count as an indicator, the planning for incremental reviews of results are needed.

Managing Quality: Effective reviews

In order to have an effective review, the right participants, the right preparation, and the right process, with external facilitation are required. The reviews are the most effective if all the key project result was complete. The effective reviews should follow these guidelines:

Assure proper preparation: if the Review participants have not studied the materials to be reviewed before the session, their evaluation is suspect.

Review the results, not the performer. We’ve seen too many Reviews that failed to follow this practice, to the extent that the Review feels more like an inquisition.

Find the problems, not the solutions to them.

Assure follow-up on open items. We’ve audited projects that still had review open items at the end.

The Role of Quality Assurance

Quality assurance refers to the systematic activities implemented in a quality system so that quality requirement for a product or service will be fulfilled. But assurance of quality starts with effectively delegating and managing individual work package or activity assignments. It is the systematic measurement, comparison with a standard, monitoring of processes and an associated feedback loop that confers error prevention. This can be contrasted with quality control, which is focused on process outputs. There are two principles for the quality assurance, fit for purpose and right first time. For the fit to purpose, the product should be suitable for the intended purpose. Moreover, for the right first time, the mistakes should be eliminated. The management of the quality of raw materials, assemblies, products and components, services related to production, and management, production and inspection processes are also included in the quality assurance.

Prerequisites of Quality

Given attention to effective Reviews, there is more to managing Quality; especially when you recognize that Reviews merely detect the presence or absence of Quality in the results. The list of the prerequisites of Quality is the list of the factor that we need to consider before the measure of the quality. Those lists are including realistic plans production, customer’s needs, repeatable and repeated processes, competent team member’s engagement, team member ownership, effective informative delegation, plan and staff appropriate reviews, proper testing, documentation, and training.

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Conclusion

The project quality is the project that exceeds the customer satisfaction and needs. For the difference between the process and product quality, the product quality is focusing on meeting tolerance in the end result of the manufacturing activity. The end result is product quality. The goal of process quality is to force narrow variance in product output to be able to expect close tolerances. The quality process is a process for quality improvement and quality assurance. The quality movement has been gaining momentum over the last few years which had a great benefit for the company that can manage the impact. Moreover, for the difference between the Product Scope and Project Scope, the project Scope includes all the work needed to be done to create a product but the product scope is the outcome of the project.

For the impact of quality in project result, the lack of quality would cause the projects fail to meet the business needs. But it is very difficult to measure quality because major quality problem because we may evaluate the project result until near the project end. The using the classic Input: Process: Output model, the individual project work package or activity assignment may used as the quality measurement A key measurement is defect count, or more appropriately, planned versus actual defect. There are six factors that need to be considered in order to improve the project quality, which are a good plan, appropriate communication, manage stakeholder, constant review, act early and the good measurement.

In order to have an effective review, the right participants, the right preparation, and the right process, with external facilitation are required. The reviews are the most effective if all the key project result was complete. Quality assurance refers to the systematic activities implemented in a quality system so that quality requirement for a product or service will be fulfilled. For the conclusion, the quality has great impact on the process result which can be manage by the quality measurement. Now, there is no method to accurate measure or indicate the quality of the process then the study of how to measure the quality in the process is needed.