Managing Project Quality

To many project managers, managing project quality is a bit of a mystery. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Being methodical and taking it one step at a time makes it easier. Here are simple, clear steps you can take to set up and manage a quality plan.

Step 1 - Define project objectives with quality and cost in mind. Understanding your project objectives is crucial. Along with knowing that you are going to produce, it is important to explore the level of quality required, in contrast with the money you are willing to spend. For example, stakeholders would likely be happy with word-processing software that is 99.8% error-free and cost $85. While getting a totally error-free word processor would be desirable, having it cost $18,000 a user is unlikely to be viewed as practical. So, talk about the need for accuracy, and the potential costs of errors as you define project objectives.

Step 2 - Research industry and corporate standards. Many businesses are subject to standards for how things are designed, and the degree of error or inaccuracy is considered tolerable. Understand any documented or assumed expectations for your organization, and the expectations of your industry. Reach out to industry associations for more detail, or for education if required.

Step 3 - Identify and interview quality-focused stakeholders. As part of managing stakeholders, identify those that have specific expectations around quality above and beyond documented standards. Finance staff, auditors, government/regulatory authorities, and key customers typically have specific quality-related expectations. Discuss and capture their needs in as much detail as possible.

Step 4 – Apply your standards and expectations and draft quality criteria. Take the understanding you have developed around quality expectations and draft the process you will use to evaluate the quality of your project deliverables. For example, in a marketing campaign project, this might involve the accuracy of target audience profiling, creativity in messaging, and adherence to brand guidelines. In software development, this can be errors per module or compliance with response time expectations.

Step 5 - Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Having quality criteria is important. Establishing those criteria and how you will measure them is vital for success. The measurement process should be easy to capture and understand and reviewed with stakeholders before implementation. For example, in a customer service project, a KPI could be to reduce customer complaint resolution time by 15% from current levels. The process could be to capture the time a phone call starts or a problem is lodged online, until the time the customer acknowledges the problem is solved.

Step 6 – Draft the project’s Quality Plan. Use the information you have gathered in the previous steps and identify the people and processes you’ll deploy to maintain quality standards. This should include inspection checkpoints, testing procedures, and specifically when you will conduct quality audits. It should also document the process by which your final products will be tested, and the conditions for stakeholder product acceptance.

Step 7 - Implement your quality control processes. As the project progresses, identify and correct errors or other deviations from agreed-upon quality standards. Perform inspections, testing, and other activities defined in your quality plan. Execute communication plans to share any issues that arise, as well as the approach to resolve those concerns. Audit the results of remediation activities and share the results with stakeholders. If issues persist, conduct an overall project review. A new set of eyes may spot root-cause weaknesses that can be corrected to restore confidence in your project.

Step 8 - Monitor and seek to improve your quality planning. Consider your quality control processes, as a learning exercise. Current and future projects will benefit from enhanced quality monitoring and control processes. Learn from your quality deviations and strive to improve your quality planning over time.

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Coming Up

Tuesday, Jan 23, 2024 10:00am AEST

Linkedin Live Project Cost Management in the Real World

The techniques project managers are taught for managing costs are sound…in theory. However, cost details that organizations collect for projects, and the timing of receiving financial reports to help project managers are typically nowhere near enough to be helpful. As a result, what we’re taught to do to manage costs isn’t pragmatic. So, what can you do? In this LinkedIn Live session, I’ll be joined by financial expert Susan Hansen and we will discuss practical strategies for proactively managing costs on your projects. Even with the common gaps in financial information, you can still effectively manage project costs. Register and listen in to our discussion, and don’t forget to bring your questions. We’ll answer them live!

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Additional thoughts can be found in my project management and outsourcing classes on LinkedIn Learning, including:

• Project Management: Technical Projects
• Strategic Leadership: Deploying Intelligent Disobedience
• Outsourcing Fundamentals , the first of six courses on outsourcing. This series of courses focuses on defining services, performing service-level?management, and helping figure out what is required to support a business in an outsourcing or service provider scenario.

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This article is part of Bob’s Reflections newsletter series , which discusses project management, outsourcing, and “intelligent disobedience”, a leadership approach. If you want more of this content, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article is posted.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library or check out https://intelligentdisobedience.com/

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