PM ch8

Describe the relationship between Six Sigma and Statistics. What statistical concepts are involved in the Six Sigma philosophy?

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•Define project quality management and understand how quality relates to various aspects of information technology projects

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•Describe how leadership, the cost of quality, organizational influences, expectations, cultural differences, standards, and maturity models relate to improving quality in information technology projects

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•Describe quality planning and its relationship to project scope management

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•Discuss how software can assist in project quality management

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•Discuss the importance of quality assurance

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•Explain the main outputs of the quality control process

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•Summarize the contributions of noteworthy quality experts to modern quality management

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•Understand the importance of project quality management for information technology products and services

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•Understand the tools and techniques for quality control, such as Pareto analysis, statistical sampling, Six Sigma, quality control charts, and testing

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What are the three main outcomes of quality control? Briefly describe each.

Acceptance decisions, Rework , Process adjustments

• prevention cost

the cost of planning and executing a project so that it is error-free or within an acceptable error range

• functionality

the degree to which a system performs its intended function

• maintainability

the ease of performing maintenance on a product

• yield

the number of units handled correctly through the development process

• conformance to requirements

the project processes and products meet written specifications

• system outputs

the screens and reports the system generates

• features

the special characteristics that appeal to users

• quality

the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs or the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements

What Is Project Quality Management?

Emphasize the key terms in this sectionquality, conformance to requirements, fitness for use, quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control. Provide examples of how these terms relate to projects you are familiar with.

Quality planning

For an information technology project, quality standards might include allowing for system growth, planning a reasonable response time for a system, or ensuring that the system produces consistent and accurate information.

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For example, you may have worked on a project that the project team thought was of high quality, but it was not what the customer wanted. Project quality management emphasizes meeting or exceeding customer needs and expectations, so you must focus on understanding the customer's view of quality.

What are the five major cost categories related to quality? Briefly describe each category.

Prevention cost: Appraisal cost: Internal failure cost: External failure cost: Measurement and test equipment costs:

Prevention cost:

Prevention cost: The cost of planning and executing a project so that it is error-free or within an acceptable error range. Preventive actions such as training, detailed studies related to quality, and quality surveys of suppliers and subcontractors fall under this category.

Process adjustments

Process adjustments correct or prevent further quality problems based on quality control measurements. Process adjustments are often found by using quality control measurements, and they often result in updates to the quality baseline, organization process assets, and the project management plan.

Chapter 8:

Quality

Quality assurance

Quality assurance involves periodically evaluating overall project performance to ensure that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards. The quality assurance process involves taking responsibility for quality throughout the project's life cycle.

Quality control

Quality control involves monitoring specific project results to ensure that they comply with the relevant quality standards while identifying ways to improve overall quality. This process is often associated with the technical tools and techniques of quality management, such as Pareto charts, quality control charts, and statistical sampling.

List and briefly describe the three project quality management processes.

Quality planning Quality assurance Quality control

Quality planning

Quality planning includes identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and how to satisfy those standards. Incorporating quality standards into project design is a key part of quality planning.

Quality planning

Quality standards can also apply to information technology services. The main outputs of quality planning are a quality management plan, quality metrics, quality checklists, a process improvement plan, a quality baseline, and updates to the project management plan.

• Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

an award started in 1987 to recognize companies that have achieved a level of world-class competition through quality management

• user acceptance testing

an independent test performed by end users prior to accepting the delivered system

• defect

any instance where the product or service fails to meet customer requirements

• software defect

anything that must be changed before delivery of the program

• run charts

charts that display the history and pattern of variation of a process over time

• statistical sampling

choosing part of a population of interest for inspection

Six Sigma

A large standard deviation means that data is spread out around the middle of the distribution and there is relatively greater variability. Statisticians use the Greek symbol (sigma) to represent the standard deviation.

A normal distribution

A normal distribution is a bell-shaped curve that is symmetrical regarding the mean or average value of the population (the data being analyzed). In any normal distribution, 68.3 percent of the population is within one standard deviation (1) of the mean, 95.5 percent of the population is within two standard deviations (2), and 99.7 percent of the population is within three standard deviations (3) of the mean.

Acceptance decisions

Acceptance decisions determine if the products or services produced as part of the project will be accepted or rejected. If they are accepted, they are considered to be validated deliverables. If project stakeholders reject some of the products or services produced as part of the project, there must be rework.

Six Sigma

An important concept in Six Sigma is improving quality by reducing variation. The term sigma means standard deviation. Standard deviation measures how much variation exists in a distribution of data. A small standard deviation means that data clusters closely around the middle of a distribution and there is little variability among the data.

Analyze

Analyze: Scrutinize process details to find improvement opportunities. A project team working on a Six Sigma project, normally referred to as a Six Sigma team, investigates and verifies data to prove the suspected root causes of quality problems and substantiates the problem statement. An important tool in this phase is the fishbone or Ishikawa diagram.

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Based on Motorola's original work on Six Sigma in the 1980s, the convention used for Six Sigma is a scoring system that accounts for more variation in a process than you would typically find in a few weeks or months of data gathering. In other words, time is an important factor in determining process variations.

Control

Control: Track and verify the stability of the improvements and the predictability of the solution. Control charts are one tool used in the control phase.

Define

Define: Define the problem/opportunity, process, and customer requirements. Important tools used in this phase include a project charter, a description of customer requirements, process maps, and Voice of the Customer (VOC) data. Examples of VOC data include complaints, surveys, comments, and market research that represent the views and needs of the organization's customers.

What are the five phases in the DMAIC process? Briefly describe each one.

Define:,

Improve

Improve: Generate solutions and ideas for improving the problem. A final solution is verified with the project sponsor, and the Six Sigma team develops a plan to pilot test the solution. The Six Sigma team reviews the results of the pilot test to refine the solution, if needed, and then implements the solution where appropriate.

Measure

Measure: Define measures, then collect, compile, and display data. Measures are defined in terms of defects per opportunity.

Rework

Rework is action taken to bring rejected items into compliance with product requirements or specifications or other stakeholder expectations. Rework often results in requested changes and validated defect repair, resulting from recommended defect repair or corrective or preventive actions. Rework can be very expensive, so the project manager must strive to do a good job of quality planning and quality assurance to avoid this need.

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Standard deviation is a key factor in determining the acceptable number of defective units found in a population. Being plus or minus six sigma in pure statistical terms means only two defective units per billion. However, the target for Six Sigma programs is 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

Chapter 8 highlights the importance of quality in information technology projects, defines quality and quality management, and explains the processes of quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control.

The chapter provides several examples of various tools and techniques, such as the Seven Basic Tools of Quality, statistical sampling, Six Sigma, and testing to improve quality

Quality control

The main outputs of quality control include quality control measurements, validated and recommended defect repair, recommended corrective and preventive actions, requested changes, validated deliverables, and updates to the quality baseline, organization process assets, and the project management

Quality assurance

Top management must take the lead in emphasizing the roles all employees play in quality assurance, especially senior managers' roles. The main outputs of this process are requested changes, recommended corrective actions, and updates to organization process assets and the project management plan.

• histogram

a bar graph of a distribution of variables

• normal distribution

a bell-shaped curve that is symmetrical about the mean of the population

• Six Sigma

a comprehensive and flexible system for achieving, sustaining, and maximizing business success that is uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of facts, data, statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing, improving, and reinventing business processes

• internal failure cost

a cost incurred to correct an identified defect before the customer receives the product

• external failure cost

a cost related to all errors not detected and corrected before delivery to the customer

• maturity model

a framework for helping organizations improve their processes and systems

• ISO 15504

a framework for the assessment of software processes developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

• control chart

a graphic display of data that illustrates the results of a process over time

• Software Quality Function Deployment (SQFD) model

a maturity model that focuses on defining user requirements and planning software projects

• standard deviation

a measure of how much variation exists in a distribution of data

• six 9s of quality

a measure of quality control equal to 1 fault in 1 million opportunities

• Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes

• fitness for use

a product can be used as it was intended

• ISO 9000

a quality system standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that includes a three-part, continuous cycle of planning, controlling, and documenting quality in an organization

• design of experiments

a quality technique that helps identify which variables have the most influence on the overall outcome of a process

• metric

a standard of measurement

• Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC)

a systematic, closed-loop process for continued improvement that is scientific and fact based

• benchmarking

a technique used to generate 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

• 5 whys

a technique where you repeatedly ask the question "Why" (five is a good rule of thumb) to help peel away the layers of symptoms that can lead to the root cause of a problem

• unit test

a test of each individual component (often a program) to ensure that it is as defect-free as possible

• rework

action taken to bring rejected items into compliance with product requirements or specifications or other stakeholder expectations

• process adjustments

adjustments made to correct or prevent further quality problems based on quality control measurements

• acceptance decisions

decisions that determine if the products or services produced as part of the project will be accepted or rejected

• conformance

delivering products that meet requirements and fitness for use

• scatter diagrams

diagrams that help to show if there is a relationship between two variables; also called XY charts

• cause-and-effect diagrams

diagrams that trace complaints about quality problems back to the responsible production operations to help find the root cause; also known as fishbone or Ishikawa diagrams

• project quality management

ensuring that a project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken

• flowcharts

graphic displays of the logic and flow of processes that help you analyze how problems occur and how processes can be improved

• quality circles

groups of nonsupervisors and work leaders in a single company department who volunteer to conduct group studies on how to improve the effectiveness of work in their department

• Pareto charts

histograms that help identify and prioritize problem areas

• performance

how well a product or service performs the customer's intended use

• Pareto analysis

identifying the vital few contributors that account for most quality problems in a system

• quality planning

identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and how to satisfy them

• seven run rule

if seven data points in a row on a quality control chart are all below the mean, above the mean, or are all increasing or decreasing, then the process needs to be examined for nonrandom problems

• Robust Design methods

methods that focus on eliminating defects by substituting scientific inquiry for trial-and-error methods

• quality control

monitoring specific project results to ensure that they comply with the relevant quality standards, and identifying ways to improve overall quality

• quality assurance

periodically evaluating overall project performance to ensure that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards

• appraisal cost

the cost of evaluating processes and their outputs to ensure that a project is error-free or within an acceptable error range

The Importance of Project Quality Management?; Students enjoy reading the joke at the beginning of this section. This chapter discusses several difficult concepts

so it might help to start by reading part of the joke in class. Then review the "What Went Wrong?" section to emphasize the importance of having good quality in IT projects. You can also visit a few prominent Web sites on quality, such as www.iso.org.

• quality audit

structured review of specific quality management activities that helps identify lessons learned and can improve performance on current or future projects

• cost of nonconformance

taking responsibility for failures or not meeting quality expectations

• integration testing

testing that occurs between unit and system testing to test functionally grouped components to ensure a subset(s) of the entire system works together

• system testing

testing the entire system as one entity to ensure that it is working properly

• reliability

the ability of a product or service to perform as expected under normal conditions

• mean

the average value of a population

• measurement and test equipment costs

the capital cost of equipment used to perform prevention and appraisal activities

• cost of quality

the cost of conformance plus the cost of nonconformance