Lesson 7:

Project Quality Management

Carlos Ankora
cankora@htu.edu.gh
 Define project quality management and understand
how quality relates to various aspects of IT projects
 Describe quality management planning and how
quality and scope management are related
 Discuss the importance of managing quality and quality
assurance
 Explain the main outputs of the quality control process
 List and describe the tools and techniques for quality
control,
 Discuss considerations for agile/adaptive environments
 Many people joke about the poor quality of IT products
▪ Most people simply accept poor quality
▪ Quality is very important
 International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
definition of quality
▪ “Totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability
to satisfy stated or implied needs” (ISO8042:1994)
▪ “The degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils
requirements” (ISO9000:2000)
 Other definitions of quality
▪ Conformance to requirements
▪ Project’s processes and products meet written specifications
▪ Fitness for use
▪ Product can be used as it was intended
 Project quality management ensures the project will
satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken
 Project quality management processes
▪ Planning quality management: identifying which quality
standards are relevant to the project and how to satisfy them;
a metric is a standard of measurement
▪ Managing quality: translating the quality management plan
into executable quality activities
▪ Controlling quality: monitoring specific project results to
ensure they comply with the relevant quality standards
 Implies the ability to anticipate situations and prepare
actions to bring about the desired outcome
 Defect prevention methods
▪ Selecting proper materials
▪ Training and indoctrinating people in quality
▪ Planning a process that ensures the appropriate outcome
 Scope aspects of IT projects
Functionality
• degree to which a system performs its intended function
Features
• system’s special characteristics that appeal to users
System outputs
• screens and reports the system generates
Performance addresses
• how well a product or service performs the customer’s
intended use
Reliability
• ability of a product or service to perform as expected
under normal conditions
Maintainability
• ease of performing maintenance on a product
 Quality assurance includes all the activities related to satisfying
the relevant quality standards for a project
▪ Another goal is continuous quality improvement
▪ Kaizen is the Japanese word for improvement or change for the
better
▪ Lean involves evaluating processes to maximize customer value
while minimizing waste
▪ Benchmarking generates ideas for quality improvements by
comparing specific project practices or product characteristics to
those of other projects or products within or outside the performing
organization
▪ A quality audit is a structured review of specific quality management
activities that help identify lessons learned that could improve
performance on current or future projects
 Main outputs of quality control
▪ Acceptance decisions
▪ Rework
▪ Process adjustments
 Basic tools of quality that help in performing quality
control
Cause-and-
effect Control chart Checksheet
diagrams

Scatter
Histogram Pareto chart
diagram

Flowcharts/run
charts
 Many IT professionals think of testing as a stage that
comes near the end of IT product development
▪ Testing needs to be done during almost every phase of the
systems development life cycle, not just before the
organization ships or hands over a product to the customer
 Types of tests
▪ Unit testing tests each individual component (often a
program) to ensure it is as defect-free as possible
▪ Integration testing occurs between unit and system
testing to test functionally grouped components
▪ System testing tests the entire system as one entity
▪ User acceptance testing is an independent test
performed by end users prior to accepting the
delivered system
 Testing alone is not enough
▪ Watts S. Humphrey, a renowned expert on software quality, defines
a software defect as anything that must be changed before delivery
of the program
 Testing does not sufficiently prevent software defects
▪ The number of ways to test a complex system is huge
▪ Users will continue to invent new ways to use a system that its
developers never considered
 Humphrey suggests that people rethink the software
development process to provide no potential defects
when you enter system testing
▪ Developers must be responsible for providing error-free code at
each stage of testing
 Suggestions for improving quality for IT projects
▪ Establish leadership that promotes quality
▪ Understand the cost of quality
▪ Provide a good workplace to enhance quality
▪ Work toward improving the organization’s overall maturity
level in software development and project management
 Cost of conformance plus the cost of nonconformance
▪ Conformance means delivering products that meet requirements and
fitness for use
▪ Cost of nonconformance means taking responsibility for failures or not
meeting quality expectations
 Cost categories related to quality
Prevention cost
• cost of planning and executing a project so it is error-free or within
an acceptable error range
Appraisal cost
• cost of evaluating processes and their outputs to ensure quality
Internal failure cost
• cost incurred to correct an identified defect before the customer
receives the product
External failure cost
• cost that relates to all errors not detected and corrected before
delivery to the customer
Measurement and test equipment costs
• capital cost of equipment used to perform prevention and appraisal
activities
 Agile methods can be used on all types of projects, not
just software development
▪ Several projects use a hybrid approach where some
deliverables are created using more traditional approaches
 Quality is a very broad topic, and it is only one of the
ten project management knowledge areas
▪ Project managers must focus on defining how quality relates
to their specific projects and ensure that those projects satisfy
the needs for which they were undertaken
 Quality is a serious issue
▪ Project quality management includes planning quality
management, performing quality assurance, and controlling
quality
▪ Many tools and techniques are related to project quality
management
▪ Many people made significant contributions to the
development of modern quality management
▪ There is much room for improvement in IT project quality
▪ Several types of software are available to assist in project
quality management