online pmp training material for pmp exam - quality management knowledge area

www.GLOBALSKILLUP.com

PMP® Certification Training!

www.GLOBALSKILLUP.com2

CONNECT WITH US


Quality Management

Chapter 8


Chapter 8Objectives

Understand the different Quality Management Processes

Their Inputs, Tools and Techniques, Outputs

This chapter entails one to understand the various Quality Management aspects required to maintain the desired customer quality.

Driving the project towards the desired outcome while maintaining quality is one of the key to making the project successful!


Project Quality Management includes processes to ensure the project deliverables are in conformance to the project requirements.

Ensuring the Quality and Grade of the deliverables is understood by the team is essential and needs to be detailed in Plan Quality Management.

Quality of the deliverables in the project is the conformance to the Requirements, whereas the Grade of the deliverables is the conformance to the technical characteristics of the deliverables.

Similarly, project deliverables as per needs of the quality conformance need to be detailed with Precision and Accuracy.

Precision: measure of exactness. Ex: Remember a Unit on Scale Precision.Accuracy: measure of correctness. Ex: Remember Dart Board Accuracy of Target.

Knowledge Area: Quality Management


There are 3 Quality Management processes, namely:

1. Plan Quality ManagementPlanning Project Policies, Processes, Procedures which will enable and ensure the Project deliverables are in compliance with the quality requirements.

2. Perform Quality AssurancePerforming Quality Audits to ensure the right set of Policies, Processes, Procedures are used to deliver the desired quality and grade of deliverables with defined precision and accuracy. Quality Control Measurements can be applied to achieve the same.

3. Control QualityProcess of managing the project quality in the defined tolerance levels, control limits and ranges during the project execution.



Some important quality terms used often in different quality approaches.

Customer SatisfactionEnsuring the project requirements are met and at the same time ensuring the project outcome is usable by the end user or the client

Prevention over InspectionQuality should be planned always to be proactive, the cost of prevention of defects is much lesser than the cost of inspection.

Continuous ImprovementThere are multiple Continuous Quality Improvement initiatives possible and depends on the project need to engage the level of quality desired & may follow one of these approaches:Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)Total Quality Management (TQM)Six SigmaLean Sigma

Kaizen(Kai-to alter; Zen-to make better)Continuous Process Improvements (CPI) in any project may be taken up with specially defined approaches as in:

Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3)Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI)

Management ResponsibilityAchieving Quality requires Management participation and support. Management has to take responsibility to ensure the quality is given due diligence without which the quality may cut corners across the project duration due to tradeoffs for customer & market priorities or any other.

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

ISO is an International standards setting voluntary body which develops, publishes and administers the International Standards. Quality Management basic approach outlined by PMBoK® is inline with the ISO.



There are 3 Quality Approaches, namely:Knowledge Area: Quality Management

• Proposed that organizations can increase their quality and reduce costs by CPI (Continuous Process Improvements) and by thinking the entire evolution as a manufacturing system instead of standalone unconnected pieces

W. Edwards Deming

• Proposed the application of Pareto’s(80-20) Principle to Quality as 80% of the quality issues are due to the 20% of the causes.

• Also, developed Juran’s Trilogy:• Quality Planning• Quality Control• Quality Improvement

Joseph. M. Juran

• Proposed the DiRFT (Doing it Right First Time) for the Quality Crisis• Proposed 4 Major Principles of Quality• Quality is Conformance to Requirements• System of Quality is Prevention• Performance Standard = Zero Defects• Measurement of Quality = Price of Non-Conformance

Philip. B. Crosby


8.1 Plan Quality Management

Inputs

•Project Management Plan

•Stakeholder Register•Risk Register•Requirements Documentation

•Organizational Process Assets

Tools & Techniques

•Cost Benefit Analysis•Cost Of Quality•Seven Basic Quality Tools

•Benchmarking•Design Of Experiments•Statistical Sampling•Additional Quality Planning Tools

•Meetings

Outputs

•Quality Management Plan

•Process Improvement Plan

•Quality Metrics•Quality Checklists

•Project Documents Updates

•Integration•Develop Project Management Plan

•Scope•Plan Scope Management•Collect Requirements•Define Scope•Create WBS

•Time•Plan Schedule Management•Define Activities•Sequence Activities•Estimate Activity Resources•Estimate Activity Duration•Develop Schedule

•Cost•Plan Cost Management•Estimate Costs•Determine Budget

•Quality•Plan Quality Management

•Human Resource•Plan HR Management

•Communications•Plan Communications Management

•Risk•Plan Risk Management•Identify Risks•Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis•Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis•Plan Risk Responses

•Procurement•Plan Procurement Management

•Stakeholder•Plan Stakeholder Management

Planning Process

It is the process to establish the Quality Management Plan based on which the Project Quality will be planned, managed and controlled on the relevant quality requirements and standards.

This also helps to document approaches which will guide on how to ensure compliance to those requirements and standards.

Provides opportunity to establish mechanisms to setup process improvements and continuous refinement procedures, define metrics and quality checklists.


Primary benefits of meeting quality requirements include less rework, higher productivity, lower costs, increased stakeholder satisfaction, and increased profitability.

A cost-benefit analysis for each quality activity compares the cost of the quality step to the expected benefit.

Cost Benefit Ratio(CBR) CBR =

Benefit Cost Ratio(BCR) BCR =

How to use CBR & BCR ratios to pick Projects?

Projects are compared for the better benefit amongst a group of Projects. The Project with highest BCR wins or the Project with lowest CBR wins.

For any given project, always pick the projects with benefit or at least the ones which does not incur loss:

BCR Greater than or Equal to 1.0.orCBR Lower than or Equal to 1.0

Cost Benefit Analysis


Also known as 7QC Tools for 7 Quality Control Tools.

Applied to plan Quality & solve the Quality Improvement related issues on the project.

1.Cause and Effect Diagrams2.Flowcharts3.Check Sheets4.Pareto Diagrams5.Histograms6.Control Charts7.Scatter Diagrams

1. Cause and Effect Diagrams (Also known as Ishikawa’s Fish Bone)

The problem statement is kept at the head of the fish and traced backwards to identify the root cause and possible actions.

Identification of the root cause happens based on the repeat question “why” until the root cause of the problem is found.

2. Flowcharts (Process Maps)Flow charts define the end to end flow of the steps and branching possibilities that exist for a process.

Cost estimating is obtained by using the workflow branching logic and associated estimated monetary value for the conformance and non-conformance work.

Seven Basic Quality Tools


Low Website Traffic

Socially networked?

Content

Mobile Devices

Web Site Design

Trad

ition

al M

arke

ting

User

Eng

agem

ent

Socia

l Med

ia O

utre

ach

Easy user navigation?

Appealing Design & Aesthetics ?

Works on Smart devices?

Works on Tabs? Not much content?

Good Quality of Content?

Is website playful to keep user long on website?

Is content and experience user friendly & engaging?

Enough PR Engage?

Traditional Campaigns?

Social Campaigns?

Cause and Effect Diagram(Ishikawa Fishbone Diagram)


Start

End

Production Setup

Production Compliance

Kick start Production

decision

Summation

Re-Planning

Error Type Count(frequency) Weight Score

Design Error IIIII III 12 8 * 12 = 96

Development Error

IIIII IIIII IIIII 6 15 * 6 = 90

Quality ErrorIIIII IIIII

IIIIIIIIII IIII

3 24 * 3 = 72

Integration Error III 15 3 * 15 = 45

Total Score 96+90+72+45 = 303

Are used to organize the facts in a manner that will facilitate effective collection of useful data about a potential quality problem.

They are useful for gathering data attributes while performing inspections to identify defects.

Flowcharts Check Sheets


Pareto Diagrams are visual representation of the entire set of problems which are categorized. Out of the 100% problems, consider to focus efforts to fix on the 80% on the issues.

Focusing on 80% of problems with a small 20% of root causes will yield major improvements.

Pareto Diagrams are based on the Pareto’s law, accordingly to which a relatively small number of causes will typically produce a majority of the problems or the defects identified.

Based on this principle, it is observed that 80% of the problems are due to 20% of the causes.

Analysis Deficit Design Gaps Development Bugs

Architectural Flaws

Quality Gaps Integration Miss Others0

5

10

15

20

25

30

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Pareto Diagram (80-20)

Rate

of

Def

ects

% o

f de

fect

s

Focus Efforts on Top 80% Topics

Pareto Diagrams


This tool illustrates the common causes in any process with a number and relative heights of the bar.

Histogram does not relate with the causes based on the time phased manner. The causes may happen over any duration of time and is not represented in histogram.

Is a graphical representation of any particular nature of element with its wide spread distribution of frequency or occurrence intervals and having the Central tendency.

The Histogram may be ordered or unordered. Below representation is an ordered histogram which represents the central tendency and subsequent dispersed distribution.

Integration Miss Quality Gaps Development Bugs

Analysis Deficit Design Gaps Architectural Flaws

Others0

5

10

15

20

25

30Histogram (Causes for sub standard Product Quality)

Rate

of D

efec

tsHistograms


Any deviations beyond UCL & LCL should be acted upon to ensure the process is brought back to stableness.Process is considered out of control when:

A data point is beyond the Upper or Lower Control Limit, however it is well within the Upper or Lower Specification Limits7 consecutive points above or below the mean of the Chart

Control charts provide a visual representation for review of the goal attainment performance and the deviations of any process to the defined path being stable or not.Upper Control Limits and Lower Control Limits define the process stableness. Any actual values within the UCL & LCL provides a ready answer that the process has been stable and inline with the expectations.

Control Charts

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 220

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

Actual ValueUCL Specification LimitUCL(Upper Control Limit)Planned ValueLCL(Lower Control Limit)LCL Specification Limit

Customer Defined Specifications

Process Owner Defined Limits

3

3


Scatter Plot (Negative & Positive Co-relation)

Negative Correlation - Data trends downward

Positive Correlation - Data trends Upward


Scatter Diagrams (Co-relation Charts)

Negative Correlation Positive Correlation No Correlation

Scatter Diagram or Scatter Plot is a graphical representation that shows the relationship also known as co-relation between data points of variables. This tools aids to study and identify possible relationship between changes observed amongst variables. We also come across basic terms here such as: Negative Co-relation (data points indicating the negative trend) Positive Co-relation (data points indicating the positive trend) No Co-relation (data points distributed across with no clear trend visible) Best Fit Line (diagonal line with data points equally distributed on both sides)


This involves comparing the planned processes to the already existing/used processes which have been considered best practiced processes in any similar relevant project within or outside the organization.

This type of benchmarking ensures that the project processes adopt the best in line and best in industry practices thereby naturally increase the likely hood of becoming the ideally run project success.

Benchmarking


Design of Experiments(DOE)

DOE is conducted to optimize the values and parameters of any production process or product being developed.

DOE is based on the statistical framework and ensures to make multiple variable changes at once to identify the best possible combinations to achieve the desired results.

This drastically helps to conduct the experiments keeping these conditions in mind and target the set or defined cost parameter while achieving the product requirements.

Example: Imagine a jet engine, thousands of variables act in tandem to produce the desired outcome. Ensuring the required output is achieved at optimal use of Jet Fuel is one of the key to high performance engines which is a possibility of design of experiments. This can be soft tweaked and not hard tweaked being considerate of costs involved in experimentation.

Statistical sampling involves picking up a random sample from a large population group of items produced to ensure the Quality is being well maintained.

Example:A leading beverages company uses this technique to ensure the quality of their beverages are in line to the customer expectations. Picking a random sample out of a large produced numbers for a quality check from every lot ensures the lot produced is of the desired quality.

Statistical Sampling


Two type of SamplingAttribute Sampling

Attribute Samples (Yes/No) (Very Good, Good, Neutral, Bad) type of answers for a defined sample set in question for testing.

Variable SamplingVariable Samples (0.1, 0.5, 0.8, 0.95, 0.24) type of variables for a sample set which we are testing.


Other quality planning tools are used to define quality requirements and to plan effective quality.

BrainstormingUsed to generate ideas in group discussion mode.

Force Field Analysis (FFA) – Decision Making

Forces acting for and against Change on a Plan.

Nominal Group TechniqueAllows the idea to be brainstormed in a small group before being reviewed by a larger group.

Quality management and control tools

Can be used to link and sequence the quality activities.

Additional Quality Planning ToolsDriving & Restraining Forces in equilibrium

Equilibrium

Rest

rain

ing

Forc

esDr

ivin

g Fo

rces Plan

or P

ropo

sal o

r Dec

isio

n

How FFA Tool is used in practice for Decisions?

1. Keep Plan or Proposal (Change) or Decision to be arrived in Equilibrium.

2. Look at the Forces acting FOR. Identify and evaluate them.3. Look at the Forces acting AGAINST. Identify and evaluate them.4. Assign a rank for both sides of the Force(say 1-lower to 5-

higher)5. Finally Sum them up and make the decision based on the

highest rank side.


Quality Management PlanQuality Management Plans define how the Organizational Quality Policies and Project quality objectives will be implanted and achieved.

Key Benefit of this process is to ensure to meet project value proposition and reduce costs and rework patterns.

Process Improvement Plans identify the activities and process in the project management through which the value can be enhanced.

Areas which may be considered for such:Process BoundariesProcess ConfigurationProcess MetricsTargets for Improved Performance

Process Improvement Plan

Process Performance

People Tools

Quality


Quality MetricsQuality Metrics are used to measure the outputs of the processes and the outcomes of the procedures followed.

Measuring quality with metrics provide quantitative format to ensure suitable actions, controls or further measures adopted or tweaked to achieve desired state of outcome.

Usually the process are defined in a range of tolerance and any deviations beyond the tolerance levels are acted upon.

Quality Checklists are adopted to ensure the frequently performed tasks and procedures are followed in the precise same manner without taking any deviation and introduce errors.

Checklists are often standardized and ensured they follow the recurring protocols. In some industries, there are pre-defined checklists which are naturally adopted by every project performed in similar.

Quality Checklists


8.2 Perform Quality Assurance

Inputs

• Quality Management Plan• Process Improvement

Plan• Quality Metrics• Quality Control

Measurements• Project Documents

Tools & Techniques

• Quality Management And Control Tools

• Quality Audits• Process Analysis

Outputs

• Change Requests• Project Management Plan

Updates• Project Document

Updates• Organization Process

Asset Updates

•Integration•Direct and Manage Project Work

•Scope•Time•Cost•Quality•Perform Quality Assurance

•Human Resource•Acquire Project Team•Develop Project Team•Manage Project Team

•Communications•Manage Communications

•Risk•Procurement•Conduct Procurements

•Stakeholder•Manage Stakeholder Engagement

Executing Process Perform Quality Assurance to provide the quality of the end product is to the standards defined and expected.

This process ensures audit of the Quality requirements and the results from the Quality control measurements to ensure that the appropriate quality standards and operational definitions are used.

Key Benefits is it helps to ensure the quality processes are adopted and the end product is to the extent of desired quality.

Quality Assurance contributes to processes and mechanisms in place to ensure the final output or outcome of the end product will be a quality product with almost certainty.

It also helps prevent the defects in first place to ensure the end product is of high quality.

As part of the quality assurance, continuous process improvement initiatives are also taken up which naturally increase the efficiency and effectiveness of all processes.


Quality control measurements can also compare the processes used to create the measurements and validate to ensure their level of correctness.

Quality Control Measurements

Acknowledged. Source: http://www.belatrixsf.com


Performing Quality Assurance involves the tools and techniques from the quality planning, quality control such as:

Affinity Diagrams - Organize Large Amounts of disorganized data for groupingsProcess Decision Program Charts (PDPC) - Breaks down tasks into tree hierarchy and ensure the low level risks and issues are identified.Interrelationship Digraphs(ID) - Defines the relationships between complex situations to solve complexitiesTree Diagrams - Breaking into granularities helps think at finer detail.Prioritization Matrix - Each item is given a weight to identify and focus on the items which are more important in nature.Activity Network DiagramsMatrix Diagrams - Tasks are often referred with reference to a relation to each other on parameters.

Affinity diagrams

Process decision program charts

(PDPC)

Tree diagrams

Quality Management and Control Tools

Matrix diagrams

Interrelationship digraphs

Prioritization Matrix

Activity network diagrams


Quality Audit is an independent process to ensure the quality process (which are laid in place to ensure the quality assurance, quality control) objectives as planned are materialized along with any shortfalls being identified including the conformity and compliance gaps.

Audits are also applicable not only to processes, it may be extended to policies, procedures, checklists so on.

Quality Audits are normally performed by an independent Quality team & preferably not same quality team working on project itself.

In large organizations, an independent standalone groups exist to perform random audits and checks which also supplement to identify and share best practices from across the projects, which is beneficial.

Quality Audits are constructive in nature and should be treated for betterment of the shortcomings than the customer finding the shortcomings.

This is performed to identify the root cause of issues, discover underlying cause.

Detailed study of process ensures the process improvements are possible by looking at the betterment of processes, eliminate the non-value add activities and so on.

This also leads to come up with the preventive actions and eliminate any constraint behaviors on certain processes.

Quality Audits Process Analysis


8.3 Control Quality

Inputs

•Project Management Plan•Quality Metrics•Quality Checklists•Work Performance Data•Approved Change Requests•Deliverables•Project Documents•Organizational Process Assets

Tools & Techniques

•Seven Basic Quality Tools•Statistical Sampling•Inspection•Approved Change Requests Review

Outputs

•Quality Control Measurements•Validated Changes•Verified Deliverables•Work Performance Information

•Change Requests•Project Management Plan Updates

•Project Document Updates•Organizational Process Assets Updates

•Integration•Monitor and Control Project Work•Perform Integrated Change Control

•Scope•Validate Scope•Control Scope

•Time•Control Schedule

•Cost•Control Costs

•Quality•Control Quality

•Human Resource•Communications•Control Communications

•Risk•Monitor & Control Risks

•Procurement•Control Procurements

•Stakeholder•Control Stakeholder Management

Monitoring & Controlling Process

It is the process of controlling the quality of the end deliverables across the project.

Quality planned may be monitored across monitoring and controlling group to identify deviations from planned quality assurance processes & control checks.

Key benefit includes the project quality is maintained to the expected grade of quality. Eliminate and or minimize the impact of bad processes along with validation of the project deliverables conformance to the stakeholders or customer requirements.


Chapter 8 - Debrief


THIS BRINGS TO “QUALITY MANAGEMENT” COMPLETION.

From what we have understood so far is:

3 Quality Management Knowledge Area Processes Identified their Inputs, Tools & Techniques, Outputs

Chapter 8


Acknowledgements & Disclaimer

PMI, PMBOK, PMP, CAPM, PgMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP are registered marks of Project Management Institute, Inc.All registered trademarks, symbols, names are marks of their respective owners and acknowledged.

online pmp training material for pmp exam - quality management knowledge area

Leadership & Management