yvette rivers presents: real world quality management
TRANSCRIPT
Real World Quality ManagementDebunking Myths and Practical Tips for
Optimizing Project Quality
Yvette Soliz Rivers, PMP, CQADirector, IV&V and Quality AssuranceFebruary 18, 2015
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• Far too many projects fail to meet business needs.– Solutions riddled with defects that take an unexpected amount of
time, effort, and money to address – Solutions that deliver less value than expected– Solutions inconsistent with business processes and constraints– Solutions that don’t meet real business needs/requirements and
satisfy end users
• In the continuous struggle between quality, cost, and schedule constraints, quality is usually neglected.
Why?Incompetent people? Unrealistic timelines? Bad contractors?
Not really … It’s usually due to …
The Quality Problem
Quality Management Dysfunction.
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Issue 1: Misunderstanding quality and underestimating quality management • Different perceptions of quality—beyond cosmetics and testing • PMBOK Definition: The processes and activities that determine
quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken.
• Lack of good quality management guidance • Project teams frequently underestimate quality management
complexity and effort.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Educate all team members early on QM.• Consider the quality of all project activities and work products. Tie all
QM to meeting business needs and requirements.• Budget and plan to spend at least 35% on QM.
Understanding Quality Management
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Issue 2: Insufficient quality management planning• QM Plans tend to be full of boilerplate.• Teams frequently fail to define quality standards and think through all
aspects of quality that require monitoring and control.• QM planning is usually not collaborative enough.• Sometimes processes are implemented for the sake of process rather
than focusing on value‐added processes.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Identify QM activities for all major work products/deliverables and
major activities and milestones.• Streamline QM processes to eliminate the nonessential. • Anticipate human error, ambiguity, and subjectivity; Address them in
planning and risk management.• Engage team members in QM planning.
Quality Management Planning
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Issue 3: Failing to clearly define project scope• PMBOK describes the “Define Scope” process as the “process of
developing a detailed description of the project and the product.”• Many project teams do not fully define the scope of projects early
which leads to scope ambiguity and failure to meet expectations.• Many focus on the primary end product of the project but they don’t
think through every work product, output, and deliverable that needs to be developed and all activities necessary to properly develop them.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Ensure that project scope statements are detailed and clear.• Define SMART requirements for all scope components.• Do not rely on documentation alone to communicate project scope.• Engage stakeholders in scope definition.• Analyze assumptions in scope definition.
Project Scope Definition
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Issue 4: Ambiguous acceptance criteria• Most project teams do not define clear and comprehensive
deliverable acceptance criteria.• The resulting ambiguity allows for multiple interpretations of
expectations, significant wasted effort and rework, and failure to meet expectations.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Specify measurable criteria by which deliverable quality will be
assessed and accepted.• “Deliverables” can be services or milestones.• Do NOT assume that requirements = acceptance criteria.• Understand that some level of subjectivity is inevitable.• Obtain consensus early.• Remember that “perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Acceptance Criteria
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Issue 5: Failing to define, monitor, and control quality metrics As Peter Drucker said, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”
• Project teams rarely define metrics for tracking and reporting quality performance throughout the project. When they do, it is frequently subjective.
• As a result, senior management isn’t aware of quality deficiencies until late in the project when correction costs are greater.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Define objective quality performance measures to track throughout
the project.• Include quality performance metrics in routine status reporting
provided to senior management. • Foster awareness of impact across triple constraints.
Quality Performance Metrics
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Issue 6: Inadequate understanding of the business need and processes• A common root cause of quality issues is failing to thoroughly define
current business processes as an input to requirements definition.• Project requirements are also frequently too ambiguous to ensure
proper implementation, testing, and traceability.• Frequently the most involved team members are not those with the
greatest understanding of existing and future business processes.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Assign experienced personnel to develop detailed and comprehensive
business process diagrams and narratives.• Verify business process definition.• Ensure that requirements consider the implications
of all business processes.
Understanding the Business Need
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Issue 7: Subjective quality reviews• Document reviews are usually subjective. As a result, reviews are not
thorough and not tied to the business need/requirements.• Feedback is frequently arbitrary which can lead to multiple cycles of
unnecessary effort and rework.• Feedback is frequently focused on easily identifiable cosmetic issues
rather than tackling the more difficult task of assessing whether or not the deliverable achieves the quality standards.
• Document reviews are also frequently rushed.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Conduct deliverable reviews using predefined deliverable review and
acceptance criteria. Trace it all to meeting the business need.• Schedule realistic review timelines.• Document output of review cycles.
Quality Review Approach
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Issue 8: Delayed focus on quality• Project teams frequently don’t start focusing on quality until late in
the life cycle or until there’s an obvious problem with quality.• The longer quality management activities are delayed the greater the
impact to project performance.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Spread quality management effort throughout the life cycle with a
heavy allocation early in quality management planning with substantial activities for every major milestone.
• In routine status reports, include a section to identify quality management activities performed during the prior period.
• Implement Agile principle of testing early and often.
Quality Management Timing
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Issue 9: Failing to involve the right people at the right time• Most organizations have some degree of personnel resource
constraints but they fail to proactively mitigate the risks associated with these constraints.
• Far too often, personnel with critical insight and perspectives get deeply involved in the project way too late—after key project activities or work products are completed. This results in either significant rework, additional costs, and/or solution failures.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Dedicate subject matter experts to projects or, at minimum, to critical
project activities. If this is not feasible, ACCEPT THE REALITY that the schedule will be delayed and/or rework will be necessary.
• Collaborate with SMEs and stakeholders early on to identify and document the best people to be involved in each stage of the project, including deliverable reviews.
Personnel Participation
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Issue 10: Insufficient time spent on quality• Teams almost never plan to spend as much time on QM as required.• Sometimes they figure this out well into the project and have to
spend even more time to achieve quality standards. Sometimes they don’t and it impacts the quality of project outcomes.
• A 2014 World Quality Report published by Capgemini and HP (from survey of 1500+ CIOs) identifies average spending on testing alone as 26% of the total IT budget and expects this to increase 29% by 2017.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Plan to spend at least 35% of total effort on quality‐related activities.
Unfortunately, there are no magic universal numbers for this because it depends on the project scope and complexity.
• Include contingency/reserve time in QM activities.• Track time spent on quality‐related activities.
Use metrics as lessons learned for continuous improvement.
Quality Management Effort
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Issue 11: Delayed end user exposure to work products• Failure to share work products in progress and allow end users to
engage early in the life cycle delays the verification of business needs and the inevitable identification of issues.
• The more end users and stakeholders are exposed to visual, hands‐on, and collaborative interaction with works in progress, the more they will be able to fully understand the business need and the extent to which the work products meet the business needs.
Real World Quality Management Tips• During project scope definition and scheduling, plan for as many end
user engagement activities as possible—Demos, mockups, conference room pilots, pilot releases, trials, user testing, training, etc.
• Consider implementing Agile principle of frequent delivery of products with iterative releases.
End User Engagement
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Issue 12: Failure to embrace positive change • Some teams do not understand that change requests are good
sometimes! It’s not scope creep if the modification addresses the business need in a better way.
• Many times, organizations do not fully understand what they need when they initiate a project. Comprehensive definition and planning cannot anticipate everything.
• A high‐performing team is open‐minded about opportunities for improvement and quickly adapts to implement changes that will improve project outcomes.
Real World Quality Management Tips• Embrace change management for value‐added improvements.• Obtain buy‐in from senior management early.• Anticipate change and plan for contingency time
and budget.
Adaptability and Agility
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Questions and Discussion