Telecommunications Project Management

Quality Management

PERT

QualityISO 9000

“Totality of feature and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs”

Figure 20-1

Quality Control

Equipment designProject quality ≠ Management of operationsTelecom: Service = Product

Project quality and Operations quality boundary unclear

Quality controlVerify project deliverables comply with

standards setTake action if needed

Telecom Quality Control

Overlapping requirements

1. Network operations and maintenance

2. End-user experience Include internal workers

If well executed and follow best practices may still lead to failure

Quality and Innovation

Identify demographics Identify needs →Project specs

Sustaining innovations Oral transmission of knowledge Social interactions

Service platform innovations More involved due to technology leap More uncertainty

Disruptive innovations Customer profile fuzzy & expectations tentative Reinvent the “wheel” Quality decisions pass from engineers to lawyers and accountants

Quality and Cost

Prevention cost – Cost of all activities to prevent known defects from affecting agreed service levels

Appraisal cost – Cost during evaluation of equipment due to inspections, tests, etc.

Failure cost – Cost of experiencing a failure during operation

Quality Examples

PSTNLasts 30 or more minutes & disrupts 1000

subscribersCauses loss of service to a government

response agencyMust report to the Network Reliability

Council any outage that affects 30,000 subscribers >30 minutes

Quality Examples

Enhanced services (data, VoIP)Defined by service level agreements (SLA)More than 5% of active ports unusable for

>30 minutesMore than 10% of active ports unusableQoS agreementsTable 8.1

Service Release Management

Total Quality cost = Prevention cost + appraisal cost + failure cost

<Upper bound cost of qualityAppraisal cost < Prevention cost +

failure costTable 8.2

Quality Plan

1. Quality targets – performance limits within that service will meet sponsor’s objectives

2. Resources allocated for implementation – features & methods to be tested & expected behavior

3. Data collection – what to be complied accuracy & relationship (I.e. hardware failures

not included in software reliability)

4. Data analysis – track project progress

Quality Plan

5. Improvement plan – resolve difference between observed and desired behaviors

6. Communication – inform customer concerning project status

7. Retain methodology and information

Categorization of Defects: Urgency and Criticality

Figure 8.1

Table 8.4

Appraisal

1. Unit/Module Tests

2. Functional Tests

3. Integration Tests

4. Systems/Software Quality Assurance test (SQA)

5. Customer Acceptance Testing

Telecom Non-Incremental Innovation

Figure 8.3

Evaluation of Testing Progress

1. Number of test cases executed, passed, failed and blocked

2. Progress3. Percentage and number of tests passed4. Number of unresolved critical or major defects5. Number of defects without root cause analysis:

could not be solved with available resources6. Turnaround time for defect resolution

When to Stop Testing

Vendor fixed all critical defects discovered and all major defects that do not have acceptable workarounds

Finding of defects is typically zero after all tests

After all tests completed, expected number of critical or major problems less than predefined number

Vendor Management During Testing

Figure 8.10

Total Quality Management (TQM)

System for integrating organizational elements into:DesignDevelopmentManufacturing effortsCost-effective products/services to customer

Externally – Customer oriented & provides customer satisfaction

Internally – Reduces production line bottlenecks and operating costs – improves product quality and organizational morale

Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

Similar to Critical Path Method (CPM)Requirements:

Individual tasks must be clear enough to put in a network (WBS)

Events and activities must be sequenced that allow critical and sub-critical paths (10 - >100)

Time estimates made on a three way basisOptimistic, most likely, pessimistic

Critical path and slack times computed

PERT advantages

Extensive planningNetwork development and critical path show

interdependencies and problems otherwise hidden

Determine the probability of meeting deadlines by developing alternative plans

Ability to evaluate effect of changesLarge amount of sophisticated data presented

in a well-organized diagram

PERT Disadvantages

Complexity adds to implementation problems

More data requirementsExpensive to maintainUtilized most often on large, complex

programs

Network Events and Activities

Event – milestoneActivity – Element of work that must be

accomplishedDuration – Total time required to complete

activityEffort – Amount of work actually performed

during durationCritical Path – Longest path through the

network and determines the duration of the project

Standard PERT terms

Figure 12-1

Gantt vs. PERT Chart

Figure 12-3

Series vs. Parallel PERT Chart

Figure 12-13

Expected Time Between Events

te = a + 4m + b

---------------

6

te = expected time

a = most optimistic time

b = most pessimistic time

m = most likely time

Estimate Total Project Time

σte = b – a

------

6

σte = standard deviation of the expected

time

Figure 12-15

PERT Disadvantages

End-item oriented – removes ability to make decisions

Unless repetitive project – little historical information to base cost estimates of most optimistic, most pessimistic, and most likely

Each division of organization may use its own method for estimating costs