PMP Exam Preparation

Project Quality Management

Sudhakar Reddy Kanchi; M.Tech (IIT), PMP
02-Nov-2010
 Agenda

• Project Quality Management - Definition

• Quality Management Processes
– Plan Quality
– Perform Quality Assurance
– Perform Quality Control
 Project Quality Management - Definition

• Project Quality Management includes the processes and activities

of the performing organization that determine quality policies,
objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the
needs for which it was undertaken.

• What is Quality?
– Degree to which project fulfills the requirement; i.e. conformance to
requirements
– Fitness for purpose
 Project Quality Management – Definition (contd …)

Modern quality management complements project management.

Both disciplines recognize the importance of

1. Customer satisfaction : This requires a combination of

conformance to requirements and fitness for use
2. Prevention over inspection:
3. Continuous improvement: The plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle
is the basis for quality improvement as defined by Shewhart
and modified by Deming
4. Management Responsibility:
Project Quality Management – Processes

… what are project quality requirements

8.1 Plan
Quality … determines which quality standards should be used
… determine how to satisfy these requirements and
standards

process of auditing the quality requirements and the results

8.2 Perform from quality control measurements to ensure appropriate
Quality quality standards and operational definitions are used.
Assurance Purpose is to Provide confidence

The process of monitoring and recording results of executing

8.3 Perform the quality activities
Quality Purpose is to assess performance and recommend necessary
Control
changes.
Plan Quality - Inputs

.1 Scope statement contains acceptance criteria

.2 Ask customer what their definition of quality is
.3 & .4 Quality should be consider when there is change
.5 Contains info on threats and opportunities that may impact
quality requirements
Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques

.1 PM weighs benefits versus cost of meeting quality

requirements

Different from Marginal analysis, which is about

incremental benefit Vs incremental cost
Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques
Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques

.3 Control charts used to determine whether or not a

process is stable or has predictable performance

Used to monitor repetitive activities

 Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques

Control charts shows

the variation in a
measurement during
the time period that
process is measures
Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques

.5 Design of Experiments is a statistical method for identifying

which factors may influence specific variable of product or
process
… is used during plan quality process to determine number
of tests and type of tests and their impact on cost of quality
Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques

.7 … is a graphical representation of process

Shows activities, decision points and order of

processing
Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques

.8 examples of quality management methodologies

are Six Sigma, CMMI, MBNQA
Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques

.9 - Brainstorming
- Affinity diagrams
- Force field analysis
- Nominal Group Techniques (NGT)
- Matrix diagrams
- Prioritization of Matrices
Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques

Force Field Analysis: used in decision making

Plan Quality – Tools & Techniques

.1 Quality Management Plan describes how the

project management team will implement quality
policy
Perform Quality Assurance – Inputs

.4 … are results of quality control activities

Perform Quality Assurance – Tools & Techniques

Quality audit is a structured, independent review to

determine whether project activities comply with
organizational and project policies
Audit Objectives:
• Identify good practices being implemented
• Identify gaps/shortcomings
• Share good practices from similar projects
• Identify good contributions, lessons learned
Perform Quality Assurance – Tools & Techniques

Process Analysis follows steps outlined in the process

improvement plan to identify needed improvements
Perform Quality Control - Definition

… what are project quality requirements

8.1 Plan
Quality … determines which quality standards should be used
… determine how to satisfy these requirements and
standards

process of auditing the quality requirements and the results

8.2 Perform from quality control measurements to ensure appropriate
Quality quality standards and operational definitions are used.
Assurance Purpose is to Provide confidence

The process of monitoring and recording results of executing

8.3 Perform the quality activities
Quality Purpose is to assess performance and recommend necessary
Control
changes.
Perform Quality Control
Perform Quality Control - Seven Basic Tools of Quality
Perform Quality Control - Seven Basic Tools of Quality
Perform Quality Control - Seven Basic Tools of Quality

1. Flowcharting: to identify potential process improvement

opportunities
2. Histogram: Vertical bar chart showing how often a
particular variable state occurred (un-ordered)
3. Pareto Chart: type of a histogram, ordered by frequency
(rank ordering)
4. Run Chart: a line graph that shows data points plotted in
the order in which they occur. It’s a control chart without
displayed limits
5. Scatter diagram: show relationship between two
variables
Perform Quality Control – Sampling, Inspection

.8 Statistical Sampling: involves choosing part of a

population of interest for inspection

Sample frequency and sizes should be determined during

the Plan Quality process so the cost of quality will
include the number of tests, expected scrap, etc.

.9 Inspection: examination of a work product to

determine whether it conforms to documented standards
Project Quality Management – Processes and Relations
 Quality Vs Grade | Precision Vs Accuracy

• Quality is “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics

fulfill requirements”
• Grade is a category assigned to products or services having the
same functional use but different technical characteristics.
• While a quality level that fails to meet quality requirements is
always a problem, low grade may not be.
• Precision and accuracy are not equivalent. Precision means the
values of repeated measurements are clustered and have little
scatter.
• Accuracy means that the measured value is very close to the
true value.
• Precise measurements are not necessarily accurate.
 Quality Management – PMI’isms

• The project manager should recommend improvements to the

performing organizations standards, policies and processes
• Quality should be considered whenever there is a change to any
component of the project constraints
• Quality should be checked before an activity or work package is
completed
• Some of the quality activities may be done by a quality assurance and
quality control department
• The project manager must
– Spend time trying to improve quality
– Determine metrics to be used to measure quality before the project work begins
– Put in place a plan for continually improving processes
– Make sure authorized approaches and processes are followed
 Quality Management – Some important terms

• Gold Plating (GP): Giving extras to customer. PMI doesn’t recommend.

Is GP against policies like “meeting or exceeding customer
expectations”? NO.
• Prevention Over Inspection: Quality must be planned in, not inspected
in.
• Marginal Analysis: Refers to looking for the point where the benefits
received from improving quality equals the incremental cost to achieve
that quality. Is this same as Cost-Benefit Analysis?
• Continuous Improvement (or Kaizen): small improvements in quality
• Just in time (JIT): decreasing inventory cost
• Total Quality Management (TQM): Introduces quality aspects into
every process of an organization.
• Responsibility to Quality: every one in the organization is responsible
 Standard Deviation (or Sigma)

You may need to memorize below values

Sigma = (O-P)/6
 Quality Gurus

 14 steps for TQM

 PDCA cycle

 Statistical process control

 Quality Gurus

 80/20 rule
 Advocated top management involvement
 Defined quality as “fitness for use”

 Advocated prevention over inspection and

“zero defects”
 Advocated top management involvement
 Defined quality as “conformance to
requirements”
Sample Questions – Quality Management
Process Analysis is a function of:
A. Performance Analysis
B. Quality Metrics
C. Process Improvement Plan
D. Quality Improvement Plan

C. A is incorrect as it relates to performing measurements

to present performance. B is incorrect as it relates to the
specific measurements that shall be performed on the
project work in order to measure quality. C is correct
because process analysis is simply execution of the steps
outlined in Process Improvement Plan D is incorrect
because Process Improvement Plan is not a part of
Quality Improvement Plan (per PMBOK)
Sample Questions – Quality Management
Root Cause Analysis relates to:
A. Process Analysis
B. Quality Audits
C. Quality Control Measurements
D. Performance Measurements

A. The option B is incorrect because a Quality Audit is to

identify inefficiencies, non-compliance in project activities.
It does not necessarily identify the root cause.
Sample Questions – Quality Management
Trend Analysis is often performed using:
A. Cause and Effect Diagram
B. Control Charts
C. Pareto Chart
D. Run Chart
E. Scatter Diagram

D. Run Chart shows the past pattern of variation. Trend

Analysis involves forecasting the future trend based on
past performance.
Sample Questions – Quality Management
A Pareto diagram can be best described as:
A. Cause and Effect Diagram
B. Scatter Chart
C. Control Chart
D. Histogram

D. Note that Pareto diagram is not the best tool for root-
cause analysis. It mainly helps the project management
team to quantify and categories the defects/issues
according to sources (e.g. engineering defects, acoustic
defects, setup problems, etc)
Sample Questions – Quality Management
A planning phase for an engineering component
generated 80 engineering drawings. The QA team
randomly selected 8 drawings for inspection. This
exercise can BEST be described as example of:
Inspection
Statistical Sampling
Flowcharting
Control Charting

B. "Inspection” is what the team is doing on individual

drawings; however, the entire exercise of random selection
and inspecting a work product is known as “Statistical
Sampling”
Sample Questions – Quality Management
Which of the following according to the PMBOK is
described as, "a category or rank given to entities
having the same functional use but different technical
characteristics?"
A. Grade
B. Quality
C. Flow design
D. Benchmark

Ans: A
Sample Questions – Quality Management
Joe is a project manager on an industrial design project. He has
found a pattern of defects occurring in all of his projects over the past
few years and he thinks there might be a problem in the process his
company is using that is causing it. He uses Ishikawa diagrams to
come up with the root cause for this trend over projects so that
he can make recommendations for process changes to avoid this
problem in the future. What process is he doing?

A. Perform Quality Planning

B. Perform Quality Assurance
C. Perform Quality Control
D. Qualitative Risk Analysis

Answer: B
Joe is doing root-cause analysis on process problems, that’s Quality
Assurance. Remember, Quality control is when you are trying to find
problems in your work products through inspection. Quality Assurance
is when you are looking at the way your process affects the quality of
the work you are doing.
Sample Questions – Quality Management
Which is the BEST definition of quality?

A. A product made of very expensive materials.

B. A product made with a lot of care by the team who
built it.
C. A product that satisfies the requirements of the people
who pay for it.
D. A product that passes all of its tests.

Answer: C
Quality management is all about making sure that the product you are
building conforms to your customer’s requirements. If you have done
a good job of gathering and understanding those requirements, all of
the measurements you take on your project should help you see if
what you are building will make your clients satisfied in the end.
Sample Questions – Quality Management
Which of the following is not a tool or technique of
the Perform Quality Control process?
A. Inspection
B. Quality audits
C. Pareto charts
D. Statistical sampling

Answer: B
Quality audits are when your company reviews your
project to make sure that you are following all of the
processes in your company correctly. They are a tool of
the Perform Quality Assurance process.
Sample Questions – Quality Management
Which of the following best describes the Plan-Do-Check-Act
cycle?
A. Invented by Joseph Juran, it’s a way of tracking how soon
defects are found in your process.
B. Also called the Deming Cycle, it’s a method of making small
changes and measuring the impact before you make wholesale
changes to a process.
C. Made popular by Phillip Crosby in the 1980s, it’s a way of
measuring your product versus its requirements
D. It means that you plan your project, then do it, then test it, and
then release it.
Answer: B
The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle is a way of making small
improvements and testing their impact before you make a
change to the process as a whole. It comes from W.
Edwards Deming’s work in process improvement.
Sample Questions – Quality Management
A company uses a management technique that employs
quality assurance techniques to continuously
improve all processes. This is called:
A. Just In Time Management
B. Kaizen
C. Ishikawa Diagrams
D. Inspection

Answer: B
Kaizen is a Japanese word that means “improvement” - and it’s also a
management technique that helps your company use problem-solving
to constantly find new ways to improve. Kaizen focuses on making
small improvements and measuring their impact. It’s is a philosophy
that guides management, rather than a particular way of doing quality
assurance.
THANK YOU