MITM Lecture 7 Advanced Project Management

 People just accept poor quality for IT products  So what if your computer crashes a couple of times? –back up data?  So what if you cannot log on to the company’s intranet? – try again later?  Is quality a real problem with IT projects? – YES / NO??

 Answer is – YES!!!  IT is not just a luxury available in selected homes, schools and offices  Many if not almost all companies provide computers to all staff, 75% homes have computers, people access internet everywhere and anywhere  It took only 5 years for 50 million people to use Internet – twenty five years for 50 million people to use telephone

 Many IT projects develop mission-critical system – used for life and death situations, e.g navigation system in airplane, computer components in medical equipment, revenue generating system for telecommunication and utilities.  When these systems do not function correctly, it is not just a slight inconvenience.

 The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines quality as the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs  Other experts define quality based on  conformance to requirements: meeting written specifications  fitness for use: ensuring a product can be used as it was intended IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 85

 Quality planning: identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and how to satisfy them  Quality assurance: evaluating overall project performance to ensure the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards  Quality control: monitoring specific project results to ensure that they comply with the relevant quality standards while identifying ways to improve overall quality IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 86

 It is important to design in quality and communicate important factors that directly contribute to meeting the customer’s requirements  Design of experiments helps identify which variables have the most influence on the overall outcome of a process  Many scope aspects of IT projects affect quality like functionality, features, system outputs, performance, reliability, and maintainability IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 87

 Quality assurance includes all the activities related to satisfying the relevant quality standards for a project  Another goal of quality assurance is continuous quality improvement  Benchmarking can be used to generate ideas for quality improvements  Quality audits help identify lessons learned that can improve performance on current or future projects IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 88

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 The main outputs of quality control are  acceptance decisions  rework  process adjustments  Some tools and techniques include  Pareto analysis  statistical sampling  Six Sigma  quality control charts IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 811

 Six Sigma is “a comprehensive and flexible system for achieving, sustaining and maximizing business success. Six Sigma is uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of facts, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing, improving, and reinventing business processes.”* IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 812 *Pande, Peter S., Robert P. Neuman, and Roland R. Cavanagh, The Six Sigma Way. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, p. xi

 The target for perfection is the achievement of no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities  The principles can apply to a wide variety of processes  Six Sigma projects normally follow a five- phase improvement process called DMAIC IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 813

IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 814

 It requires an organization-wide commitment  Six Sigma organizations have the ability and willingness to adopt contrary objectives, like reducing errors and getting things done faster  It is an operating philosophy that is customer- focused and strives to drive out waste, raise levels of quality, and improve financial performance at breakthrough levels IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 815

 Joseph M. Juran stated that “all improvement takes place project by project, and in no other way”  It’s important to select projects carefully and apply higher quality where it makes sense  Six Sigma projects must focus on a quality problem or gap between current and desired performance and not have a clearly understood problem or a predetermined solution  After selecting Six Sigma projects, the project management concepts, tools, and techniques described in this text come into play, such as creating business cases, project charters, schedules, budgets, etc. IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 816

 The term sigma means standard deviation  Standard deviation measures how much variation exists in a distribution of data  Standard deviation is a key factor in determining the acceptable number of defective units found in a population  Six Sigma projects strive for no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities, yet this number is confusing to many statisticians IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 817

 Many IT professionals think of testing as a stage that comes near the end of IT product development  Testing should be done during almost every phase of the IT product development life cycle IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 818

IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 819

 A unit test is done to test 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 the end user prior to accepting the delivered system IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 820

 Modern quality management  requires customer satisfaction  prefers prevention to inspection  recognizes management responsibility for quality  Noteworthy quality experts include Deming, Juran, Crosby, Ishikawa, Taguchi, and Feigenbaum IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 821

 Deming was famous for his work in rebuilding Japan and his 14 points  Juran wrote the Quality Control Handbook and 10 steps to quality improvement  Crosby wrote Quality is Free and suggested that organizations strive for zero defects  Ishikawa developed the concept of quality circles and pioneered the use of Fishbone diagrams  Taguchi developed methods for optimizing the process of engineering experimentation  Feigenbaum developed the concept of total quality control IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 822

IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 823

 Several suggestions for improving quality for IT projects include  Leadership that promotes quality  Focusing on organizational influences and workplace factors that affect quality  Following maturity models to improve quality IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 824

 “It is most important that top management be quality-minded. In the absence of sincere manifestation of interest at the top, little will happen below.” (Juran, 1945)  A large percentage of quality problems are associated with management, not technical issues IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 825

 Prevention cost: the cost of planning and executing a project so it is error-free or within an acceptable error range  Appraisal cost: the 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 IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 826

 Online tutorial:  Choose one Quality guru and discuss the theory, initiatives and contributions of this guru with regard to quality. - 1 page  How this guru’s concept is suitable in the PM’s work. – ½ page IT Project Management, Third Edition Chapter 827