The Art of Successful Project Management (PM) begins with Total Quality Management (TQM)

Total Quality Management (TQM)

TQM is a popular customer-based methodology of quality control and improvement derived from Japanese industry since 1950’s. It offers a unique approach for managing quality of a product or process, while looking to customers as the major source of quality definition. In other words, TQM principles are based on customer requirements and standards to establish a continuous and dynamic process for product improvement. The methodology lets create an effective working environment, where every person strives to consistently improve the product or process.

Because TQM is a customer-oriented methodology it requires every project team member to be completely involved in the improvement process. Every employee should focus on improvements while trying to enhance their personal productivity.

Principles of Total Quality Management (TQM)

Total Quality Management contains its own system of productivity tools. The first three principles of TQM are as follows:

• Involvement. It requires everyone in the company to be completely involved and it covers all company activities.

• Customer Set Standards. It requires that the standards are set by customers, and that all practices conform to those requirements.

• Monitoring and Control. It requires that quality is monitored and controlled for optimum results.

Project Management

Project management is the application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve the project objectives. Generally, a project is a unique, transient endeavour, undertaken to achieve planned objectives, which could be defined in terms of outputs, outcomes or benefits.

Principles of Project Management

Project management contains its own principles too. The basic six principles of project management are as follows:

• Articulate Vision and Mission of the Project. For successful execution, every project should begin with the end in mind, which is effectively accomplished by articulating the vision and mission of the project to make it crystal-clear to everyone.

• Set Business Objectives. Establish two to three goals or objectives for the project. It is being implemented to increase sales and profit, customer loyalty, employee productivity and morale, or product/service quality.

• Set Standards of Engagement. Establish, who will be part of the project team? What will be the frequency of meetings? What are the meeting ground rules? Who is the project owner? Who is designated to take notes, and distribute project meeting minutes and action steps?

• Determine Intervention and Execution Strategy. This includes using a gap analysis process to determine the most suited intervention (solution) to resolve project related issues. Quality management concepts can be applied here ranging from a comprehensive "root cause analysis" to simply "asking why five times." Once the best possible intervention has been identified to resolve the issue, the execution strategy for implementing the intervention must be mapped out. This includes identifying who will do what, when, how, and why?

• Achieve Organisational Alignment. Everyone, the project will directly impact must be on board. To achieve organisational alignment, ongoing communication must be employed in-person during team meetings, electronically via email and e-learning (if possible), and through training. The message must include the WIIFM"what's in it for me" at every level; otherwise most stakeholders will not be interested or engaged around the new initiative.

• Set Accountability. Accountability means that consistently, top performers will be rewarded and recognized; while those needing improvement will be coached with specific expectations and consequences clearly outlined.

TQM Implementation Steps in Project Environment

The method of Total Quality Management (TQM) in combination with Project Management ideas can be carried out in 10 basic steps, which are listed below:

• Define the Problem. First, you must define the problem to be addressed by your TQM-driven project. Cause-effect analysis and statistical data can be used for problem definition.

• Develop New Strategic Thinking. Your project team can use brainstorming and brain-writing as effective tools for developing solutions to the defined problem.

• Know the Customer. TQM focuses on customers and their expectations; so you must research the needs and requirements of your customers. Conducting a customer survey, gathering data, and determining who your customers are will be the primary goals at this step.

• Determine Quality Requirements. Results of your customer survey will give you a description of customer needs and expectations. This information will be helpful for you to determine quality standards and requirements for your new TQM-based project.

• Plan for Contingency. As you have a list of quality requirements based on your customers’ needs, now you need to think about potential threats and uncertainties that surround your project and may negatively affect quality levels. You must plan for contingency and develop a risk response strategy to managing risks and eliminating their negative effect.

• Reduce Waste. The TQM methodology requires you to run the project with minimized waste of resources. If you meet this requirement you reduce sources of waste and improve quality of your product/process in a cost-effective way.

• Develop a Continuous Improvement Strategy. There should be a strategy that ensures a continuous improvement process with multiple iterations and “buffers” (safety margins). You need to develop such a strategy.

• Reduce Variations. Total Quality Management offers a set of tools to reduce variations in quality of your product. You can use these tools to optimize use of project resources and minimize the likelihood of quality deficiencies and variations.

• Balance the Approach. Your goal here is to make sure that the implementation process runs smoothly so there’s no lack of resources for every task or procedure of the process. You can reach this goal through continuous monitoring and tracking of your project.

• Apply the Improvement Process. The final step of TQM implementation is to use the improvement process in every facet of your project to start improving quality of your product.