Quality

Quality is the degree to which a set of

inherent characteristics fulfils
requirements.
Traditional approaches to quality
The inspection process does not itself add value.
The production of substandard product is a waste of
resources.
Inspection department takes up expensive land and
warehousing space.
Not compatible with just in time, where there is no
time for inspection.
Working capital is tied up.
Quality management systems

Quality management system is the organizational structure

for responsibilities, activities, resources and events that
together provide procedures and methods of implementation
to ensure the capability of an organisation to meet quality
requirements.
Quality assurance and quality control

Quality control is the part of quality management focused on

fulfilling quality requirements.

Quality assurance is the part of quality management focused

on providing confidence that quality requirements will be
fulfilled.
 Given by the project
manager or project
management team

In tandem with
Quality plans Project plans

• the frame work within which • project deliverables.

the work will be accomplished. • allocation of staff.
• timescales of the project.
Project manager must ensure that all
project staff are aware of the existence,
purpose and content of the Project Quality
plan.
Quality plan contents
Introduction.
Project overview.
Glossary of terms.
Product requirement.
Project organisation.
Monitoring and reporting procedures.
Development life cycles.
Quality assurance.
. Testing
Quality documentation.
Passport to success
Procurement.
Sub contractors.
Non-conformance.
Change management.
Configuration management.
Risk management.
Delivery.
 Quality plan contents

Introduction
The introduction should include a definition of the purpose of a Project
Quality Plan and how it fits into the planning and management of a project. It
should also indicate whether the plan is part of the contractual requirement
and, if so, how this has influenced the content and format of the plan.
 Quality plan contents

Project overview
This section contains a general description of the project including the client,
the objectives and the major deliverables of the project.
 Quality plan contents

Glossary of terms
The glossary provides definitions of general terms with particular meanings
used in the plan and any terms specific to the project. This enables the
reader to correctly interpret the contents of the Project Quality Plan.
 Quality plan contents

Product requirement
This is a description of the work to be carried out with a list of times scales,
deliverables and project milestones with appropriate references to relevant
specifications. The description of the work may include areas such as
performance criteria, security requirements, legal constraints and client
standards.
 Quality plan contents

Project organization
This section details the organisation and management of the project,
specifying management roles (with named individuals) and their
responsibilities. This might include:

· contact points for technical information within the client organisation

· required resources and their origin (departments, sub-contractors etc).

 Quality plan contents
Monitoring and reporting
procedures
This section is a description of the procedures that will be in place for
planning, monitoring and controlling the project. This will cross-reference
project standards that define how the plans will be constructed and
presented, how progress will be monitored and slippage addressed and the
frequency and contents of project reports.
 Quality plan contents

Development life cycle

This section will describe the main project phases of systems development,
with details of the :

· start criteria for the phase · standards, methods and procedures to be used
in the phase
· test, inspection and review procedures for the phase · phase completion
criteria.
 Quality plan contents

Quality assurance
Quality Assurance (QA) is concerned with reviewing the project work as it
progresses. It aims to discover errors as early in the project lifecycle as
possible. Reviews may be:

. self-checking
· peer-to-peer review
· subject to formal project review
· subject to formal external review.
 Quality plan contents

Testing
 
The dynamic testing phases (unit testing, system testing, user acceptance
testing etc) will be defined in this section.
 Quality plan contents

Quality documentation
 
It is important that the results of quality assurance and testing are
documented so that quality management can be verified as rigorous and
avoid inadvertent repetition. A simple process may be used, where for each
quality check a form is completed showing:
 
. review date
· deliverable(s) reviewed or tested
· reviewer(s) · description of errors found
· action point(s) for error correction
· severity of error.
 Quality plan contents

Procurement
 
The project may require certain products (for example, hardware) to be
purchased, rather than developed. A process must be defined for effective
procurement. This process will include:
 
· the purchasing policy
· the system for supplier selection and evaluation
· the goods inspection methods).
 Quality plan contents

Sub-contractors
 
The project may require that certain parts of the systems development are
sub-contracted to a separate organisation. This section will describe:
 
· details of sub-contracts
· the system for sub-contractor selection and evaluation
· how work will be distributed to sub-contractors
· how sub-contract work is monitored and quality checked
· acceptance procedures for work produced by the sub-contractor.
 Quality plan contents

Non-conformance
 
The project may have to purchase goods and services that do not conform
to the quality requirements of the project. This section will describe how they
will be dealt with.
 Quality plan contents

Change management
 
Describes the procedures to document and control changes to the scope of
the project. This will include the system for logging change requests, the
method of impact analysis and gaining and documenting the
authorization/approval to apply the change.
 Quality plan contents

Risk management
 
Risk management is concerned with identifying potential problems and
eliminating or reducing the damage the realization of those risks would
cause. Risk assessment and management must be conducted at the start of
the project and also throughout the project lifecycle to ensure that risks are
understood and controlled.
 Quality plan contents

Delivery
 
This section specifies the arrangements for handling, delivering and
installing the deliverables defined in the Product Requirement section of the
Project Quality Plan.
Principles of quality management
Quality has a cost
 Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
CMMI is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the
means to deliver its projects, products and services to the required level of
quality.

CMMI defines five levels of capability maturity that an organisation may attain
in the efficiency and completeness of its working practices.
 Six sigma
Six Sigma is a quality management system (developed by Motorola)
aimed at systematically improving processes as a metric for
measuring defects and improving quality.
The main Six Sigma methodology takes the form of specific
improvement projects that follow a standard five-phase pattern (DMAIC).
These are used to improve an existing business process.

(a) Define the process improvement goals that are consistent with
customer demands and enterprise strategy.
(b) Measure the current process and collect relevant data for future
comparison.
(c) Analyze to verify relationship and causality of factors. Determine
what the relationship is, and attempt to ensure that all factors have
been considered.
(d) Improve or optimize the process based upon the analysis using
techniques like Design of Experiments.
(e) Control to ensure that any variances are corrected before they
result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability,
transition to production and thereafter continuously measure the process
and institute control mechanisms.
Six Sigma requires effective organisation, including the following key
elements

(a) Steering committee nominate process areas for improvement.

(b) Each process area will constitute a separate project and will have its own Six
Sigma project team. The project team will be made up of staff
experienced in the process under review. For smaller scale projects, they
will be the staff actually operating the process.
(c) Project leaders run the project teams and hold varying grades of
qualification, these are:
• Master Black Belt: First and foremost teachers, who
also review and mentor. They are especially skilled in the
statistical techniques involved and will contribute to several
projects simultaneously.
• Black Belt: Leaders of teams responsible for
measuring, analyzing, improving and controlling key
processes that influence customer satisfaction and/or
productivity growth. Black Belts are full-time positions.
• Green Belt: Similar to Black Belt but not a full-time
position, they retain other responsibilities alongside Six
Sigma.