Part 8:

Project Quality
Management
Project Integration Management
Knowledge Areas
A Knowledge Area represents a complete set of concepts, terms and activities that
make up a professional field, a project management field, or an area of specialization.
Ten Knowledge Areas are used on most project most of the time:
Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Process Human Resources Management
Project Communication Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Project Stakeholders Management
The Project Management Triangle

Time.
The most obvious one. Everything takes time.
Project schedule are set during initiation and planning phases and rarely change
midway.
Cost
Project budgets are typically set prior to projects and rarely change midway.

Scope is about the project itself.

What you add to your project can help make it the best thing out there, but it can
also add time and cost to the project by broadening the scope.
Mapping of Project Management Processes
Each Project Management Process belongs to
One of the Five Project Management Process Groups
One of the Ten Knowledge Areas

Project Management Process Groups

Initation Planning Execution Monitoring and Closing
Control
…
K A
n r Project Quality • Plan Quality Perform Control Quality
Management Management Quality
o e Assurance
w a
l
e
d
g
e …
Quality and Grade : distinct concepts

10€ 1 500 €
Quality and Grade – Example: Mobile phone
Low end product:
No advanced features, but it works.
Never gives any trouble, always works flawlessly, defect free —No problem at all.
This is a high-quality product. Although it is a low-grade product.

High end product

Advanced features: touch screen, face recognition,…
Is not performing well.
The touch screen froze while you are navigating the phone.
The camera is not giving you good quality and stable pictures.
The voice recognition system does not recognize you most of the time.

This is a low-quality product, although it is a high-grade product.

Quality and Grade : distinct concepts
Low-grade product, High-grade product, Low-quality product, High-quality product.
Quality
Quality is conformance to the requirement, and fitness for use. Requirements include product’s and
customer’s requirements.
ISO 9000 defines quality as “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills the
requirements.”
Grade
Grade is “the category assigned to products or services having the same functional use but different
technical characteristics.” (The PMBOK Guide 5th edition)
Grade is a category assigned to the product based on its technical configuration. Products with
different configuration are kept in different grades.
Acceptability
A low grade (low-end) product is perfectly acceptable as long as it fulfills its stated requirements.
A low-quality product is never acceptable and it is always a problem.
Project Quality Management
Project Quality Management goal:
Ensure that the project requirements, including product requirements,
are met and validated.
Functional requirements
Non-functional requirements

Project Quality Management addresses both

The deliverables of the project
The project itself: Planning and time tracking, Budgeting and cost
tracking,…
Functional Vs Non-Functional Requiremets
Example: IT Product or system

Functional Requirements Non-Functional Requirements

Defines the services or functions required by Defines system system/product properties

the customer that must be provided by the like reliability, usability, performance,
system/product response-time,..

Describes what the system/product does or Describes how the system/product behaves
contains

Easy to test Difficult to test

Related to individual system/product feature Related to the system/Product as a whole

Project Quality Management
Project Quality Management applies to all projects, regardless of the nature of
their deliverables.
Quality measures and techniques are specific to the type of deliverables being
produced by the project.
For example, the project quality management of software deliverables will use
different approaches and measures from those used when building a power
plant.
Every project should have a quality management plan.
Project teams should
Follow the quality management plan
Have data to demonstrate compliance with the plan.
Project Quality Management - Overview

Project Quality
Management

8.1 Plan Quality 8.2 Perform Quality

Management Assurance

8.3 Control Quality

8.1 Plan Quality Management

Inputs Tools & Techniques Outputs

1. Project management 1. Cost-benefit analysis 1. Quality management plan
plan 2. Cost of quality 2. Process improvement
2. Stakeholder register 3. Some basic quality plan
3. Risk register tools 3. Quality metrics
4. Requirements 4. Benchmarking 4. Quality checklists
documentation 5. Design of 5. Project documents
5. Enterprise experiments updates
environmental factors 6. Statistical sampling
6. Organizational process 7. Additional quality
assets planning tools
8. Meetings
Plan Quality Management: Inputs
Project Management Plan
Project scope statement, including project description of major project deliverables, and
acceptance criteria.
Work breakdown structure (WBS), including work packages used to measure project
performance
Schedule baseline, including start and finish dates
Cost baseline
Stakeholder Register
Identifies stakeholders possessing a particular interest in, or having an impact on quality.
Risk Register
Contains information on threats and opportunities that may impact quality requirements.
Plan Quality Management: Inputs
Requirements Documentation
Captures the requirements that the project shall meet
Includes and quality requirements.
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Governmental agency regulations.
Rules, standards, and guidelines specific to the application area;
Working or operating conditions of the project or its deliverables that may affect project quality
Cultural perceptions that may influence expectations about quality.
Organizational Process Assets
Organizational quality policies, procedures, and guidelines.
Historical databases
Lessons learned from previous phases or projects.
8.1 Plan Quality Management

Inputs Tools & Techniques Outputs

1. Project management 1. Cost-benefit analysis 1. Quality management plan
plan 2. Cost of quality 2. Process improvement
2. Stakeholder register 3. Some basic quality plan
3. Risk register tools 3. Quality metrics
4. Requirements 4. Benchmarking 4. Quality checklists
documentation 5. Design of 5. Project documents
5. Enterprise experiments updates
environmental 6. Statistical sampling
factors 7. Additional quality
6. Organizational planning tools
process assets 8. Meetings
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques

Cost-Benefit Analysis:

Cost-Benefit Analysis is a a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and

weaknesses of alternatives: Activities, functional business requirements or projects
investments.
It is used to determine options that provide the best approach to achieve benefits
while preserving savings
It compares the cost of the quality step to the expected benefit.

Four step approach:

Step One: Brainstorm Costs and Benefits
Step Two: Assign a Monetary Value to the Costs
Step Three: Assign a Monetary Value to the Benefits
Step Four: Compare Costs and Benefits
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Example:
Purchasing of a stamping press, allowing to produce 100 more units per hour.
The three workers currently doing the stamping by hand can be replaced

Costs Benefits
Purchase 20 000 Increased revenue: 27 000
100 units per hour, 1 shift/day, 5 days/week
Installation 3 000 Quality Increase Revenue 300
Improved reject rate

New operator 8 000 Reduced labor cost : 3 FTE 18 000

Utilities 3 000
Insurance 200
TOTAL 34 200 45 300

(Costs shown are per month and amortized over four years)
Plan Quality Management: Tools and Techniques
Cost of Quality (COQ) : Cost of Conformance + Cost of Nonconformance

Cost of Conformance: All costs incurred by investment in

Preventing nonconformance to requirements
Appraising the product or service for conformance to requirements (Tests, Reviews,
Audits, Inspections,..)

Cost of Nonconformance: All costs due to failure in meeting requirements

Internal failure costs: Found by the project
External failure costs: Found by the customer
Failing to meet requirements (rework).
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Cost of Quality (COQ) – Examples to consider in each area
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Some basic quality tools
 Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Cause and effect diagram – Fishbone diagrams – Ishikawa diagrams

Causes Effect

1 Problem Statement:
Gap to be closed or
Objective to be achieved

2 Identify causes: Ask Why?

Until
# actionable root causes have been
identified or
# resonable possibilities have been
identified
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Cause and effect diagram – Fishbone diagrams – Ishikawa diagrams

Causes Effect
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Identification of root causes : The 5 Whys technique
Principle: Repeatedly ask the question “Why” (five is a good rule of thumb) until
actionable root causes have been identified resonable possibilities have been
identified.

Benefits of the 5 Whys

Help identify the root cause of a problem.
Determine the relationship between different root causes of a problem.
One of the simplest tools; easy to complete without statistical analysis.

When Is 5 Whys Most Useful?

When problems involve human factors or interactions.
In day-to-day business life
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
How to Complete the 5 Whys

1. Write down the specific problem. Writing the issue helps you formalize the
problem and describe it completely. It also helps a team focus on the same
problem.
2. Ask Why the problem happens and write the answer down below the
problem.
3. If the answer you just provided doesn’t identify the root cause of the
problem that you wrote down in Step 1, ask Why again and write that
answer down.
4. Loop back to step 3 until the team is in agreement that the problem’s root
cause is identified. Again, this may take fewer or more times than five
Whys.
 Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
5 Whys – Example : Customers complain about low quality of products
Problem Statement Customers are unhappy because they are being shipped products that
don’t meet their specifications.
1 Why are customers being shipped bad Because manufacturing built the products to a specification that is
products? different from what the customer and the sales person agreed to.
2 Why did manufacturing build the Because the sales person expedites work on the shop floor by calling
products to a different specification than the head of manufacturing directly to begin work. An error happened
that of sales? when the specifications were being communicated.
3 Why does the sales person didn't use the Because the “start work” form requires the sales director’s approval
procedure established in the company? before work can begin and stops it when the director is out of the
office.
4 Why does the form contain an approval Because the sales director needs to be continually updated on sales.
for the sales director?
Root cause: A non-value added signature authority is helping to cause a process
breakdown.
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Pareto Diagrams
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule):
"For many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes"
Pareto diagrams, exist as a special form of vertical bar chart and are used to identify
the vital few sources that are responsible for causing most of a problem’s effects
Example:
XYZ Clothing Store was seeing a steady decline in business.
Result of customer survey
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Pareto Diagrams: First level of analysis
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Pareto Diagrams: Second level of analysis
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Flowcharts – SIPOC Model
Plan Quality Management: Tools a and Techniques
Some basic quality tools
8.1 Plan Quality Management

Inputs Tools & Techniques Outputs

1. Project management 1. Cost-benefit analysis 1. Quality management plan
plan 2. Cost of quality 2. Process improvement
2. Stakeholder register 3. Some basic quality plan
3. Risk register tools 3. Quality metrics
4. Requirements 4. Benchmarking 4. Quality checklists
documentation 5. Design of 5. Project documents
5. Enterprise experiments updates
environmental 6. Statistical sampling
factors 7. Additional quality
6. Organizational planning tools
process assets 8. Meetings
Plan Quality Management: Outputs

Quality Management Plan

Is a component of the project management plan that describes how
the organization’s quality policies will be implemented.
Describes how the project management team plans to meet the
quality requirements set for the project.
The quality management plan should be reviewed early in the project
to ensure that decisions are based on accurate information.
Quality Management Plan: Example of content

Quality objectives of the project

Customer Quality Objectives
Key project deliverables and processes to be reviewed for satisfactory
quality level
Quality standards
Quality control and assurance activities
Quality roles and responsibilities
Quality tools
Plan for reporting quality control and assurance problems
Plan Quality Management: Outputs

Quality metrics describes for identifed project item or product item:

A quality objective
How the control quality process will measure it.
The tolerance - the allowable variations to the metric.
For example, if the quality objective is to stay within the approved budget by ± 10%, the
specific quality metric is used to measure the cost of every deliverable and determine the
percent variance from the approved budget for that deliverable.
 Plan Quality Management: Outputs
Quality metrics – 6 common examples
Metrics Example
Customer Satisfaction Quantify customer opinions Customer Delight Index
Ask them to rate their satisfaction
Failure Rate The reliability of products as measured Annual failure rate of a robot: 0.1%
by the probability of a failure over a indicating that 1 out of 1000 units
period of time. fail in a year.
Mean Time Between Failures The reliability of IT services is often A software service with a mean time
(MTBF) measured as the mean time between between failures of 6 months is down
failures. twice a year on average.
Quality of Service measurement of the overall performance error rates, throughput, transmission
of a service, such as a telephony or delay and availability
computer network
Quality Control results Sampling or testing of manufactured Percentage of items that met the
units or delivered services requirement
Defect Rate The quality of processes or project work Number of defects per 1000 lines of
can be measured with a defect rate code can be considered a quality
metric..
Project Quality Management - Overview

Project Quality
Management

8.1 Plan Quality 8.2 Perform Quality

Management Assurance

8.3 Control Quality

8.2 Perform Quality Assurance
Perform Quality Assurance is the process of auditing

the quality requirements and

the results from quality control measurements

to ensure that appropriate quality standards and operational definitions are

used.
8.2 Perform Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance
Implements a set of planned and systematic acts and processes defined
within the project’s quality management plan.

Builds confidence that a future output or an unfinished output, also

known as work in progress, will be completed in a manner that meets the
specified requirements and expectations.

Contributes to the state of being certain about quality by

preventing defects through the planning processes or by
inspecting out defects during the work-in-progress stage of implementation.
8.2 Perform Quality Assurance
The prevention and inspection aspects of quality assurance should
have a demonstrable influence on the project.

A quality assurance department, or similar organization, often

oversees quality assurance activities.

Quality assurance support may be provided to the project team.

Quality Assurance also provides an umbrella for continuous process

improvement.

Continuous process improvement reduces waste and eliminates

activities that do not add value. This allows processes to operate at
increased levels of efficiency and effectiveness.
8.2 Perform Quality Assurance

Inputs Tools & Techniques Outputs

1. Quality management 1. Quality management 1. Change requests
plan and control tools 2. Project management plan
2. Process improvement 2. Quality audits updates
plan 3. Process analysis 3. Project documents updates
3. Quality metrics 4. Organizational process assets
4. Quality control updates
measurements
5. Project documents
Project Quality Management - Overview

Project Quality
Management

8.1 Plan Quality 8.2 Perform Quality

Management Assurance

8.3 Control Quality

8.3 Control Quality

Control Quality is the process of monitoring and recording results of

executing the quality activities to assess performance and recommend
necessary changes.
The key benefits of this process include:
Identifying the causes of poor process or product quality and
recommending and/or taking action to eliminate them
Validating that project deliverables and work meet the
requirements specified by key stakeholders necessary for final
acceptance.
 8.3 Control Quality

Inputs Tools & Techniques Outputs

1. Project management plan 1. Statistical sampling 1. Measurements
2. Quality metrics 2. Inspection 2. Validated changes
3. Quality checklists 3. Some basic quality 3. Verified deliverables
4. Work performance data tools 4. Work performance information
5. Approved change requests 4. Approved change 5. Change requests
6. Deliverables requests review 6. Project management plan
7. Project documents updates
8. Organizational process 7. Project documents updates
assets 8. Organizational process assets
updates
8.3 Control Quality: Inputs

Project Management Plan

The project management plan contains the quality management plan, which is
used to control quality.
Quality Metrics
A quality metric describes a project or product attribute and how it will be
measured.
Some examples of quality metrics include: mean time between failure (MTBF),
and mean time to repair (MTTR).
Quality Checklists
Quality checklist are structured lists that help to verify that a set of required
steps have been performed.
Quality Checklist: Example
Yes No N/A Comments

Does the project have an approved quality management

plan?
Has the quality management plan been reviewed by all
stakeholders?
Have product quality metrics been established, reviewed,
and agreed upon?
Do all metrics support a quality standard which is
acceptable to the customer?
Do all metrics have agreed upon collection mechanisms?
Do all metrics have an agreed upon collection frequency?
Are all metrics clear, measurable, controllable, and
reportable?
Has a project quality manager been assigned?
8.3 Control Quality: Inputs
Work Performance Data
Work performance data can include:
Planned vs. actual technical performance,
Planned vs. actual schedule performance
Planned vs. actual cost
Approved Change Requests
Approved change requests may include modifications such as defect repairs, revised
work methods, and revised schedule. The timely implementation of approved changes
needs to be verified.
 8.3 Control Quality: Tools and techniques

Inputs Tools & Techniques Outputs

1. Project management plan 1. Statistical sampling 1. Measurements
2. Quality metrics 2. Inspection 2. Validated changes
3. Quality checklists 3. Some basic quality 3. Verified deliverables
4. Work performance data tools 4. Work performance information
5. Approved change requests 4. Approved change 5. Change requests
6. Deliverables requests review 6. Project management plan
7. Project documents updates
8. Organizational process 7. Project documents updates
assets 8. Organizational process assets
updates
8.3 Control Quality: Tools and techniques
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).
Sample frequency and sizes should be determined during the Plan Quality Management
process so the cost of quality will include the number of tests, expected scrap,..
Inspection
An inspection is the examination of a work product to determine if it conforms to
documented standards.
Inspections may be called reviews, peer reviews, audits, or walkthroughs.
Inspections also are used to validate defect repairs
Approved Change Requests Review
All approved change requests should be reviewed to verify that they were implemented as approved
8.3 Control Quality: Outputs

Inputs Tools & Techniques Outputs

1. Project management plan 1. Statistical sampling 1. Measurements
2. Quality metrics 2. Inspection 2. Validated changes
3. Quality checklists 3. Some basic quality 3. Verified deliverables
4. Work performance data tools 4. Work performance information
5. Approved change requests 4. Approved change 5. Change requests
6. Deliverables requests review 6. Project management plan
7. Project documents updates
8. Organizational process 7. Project documents updates
assets 8. Organizational process assets
updates
8.3 Control Quality: Ouputs

Quality Control Measurements

Quality control measurements are the documented results of control quality activities. 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.
Change Requests
If the recommended corrective or preventive actions or a defect repair requires a change to the project
management plan, a change request should be initiated.
Knowledge Areas
A Knowledge Area represents a complete set of concepts, terms and activities that
make up a professional field, a project management field, or an area of specialization.
Ten Knowledge Areas are used on most project most of the time:
Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Process Human Resources Management
Project Communication Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Project Stakeholders Management