Quality and continuous improvement

0:00Sara: Welcome to Project Management Exam Prep.

0:02This episode is about quality and continuous improvement: delivering what people

0:07need, and getting better as you go. Every project management exam tests it.

0:12Leo: You will learn how the three bodies frame it, how to plan and check quality,

0:17what it costs, and a loop for improving.

0:21We finish with a drill, so keep a pen ready.

0:23Sara: Let us start with the three lenses. What does IPMA® say?

0:28Leo: IPMA®, the International Project Management Association, sets out its standard in

0:33the Individual Competence Baseline, the ICB4.

0:38Its element on quality covers two sides: how the project works,

0:41and what it delivers. You plan quality, check it as you go, and get the result accepted.

0:48Sara: And PMI®?

0:49Leo: PMI®, the Project Management Institute, publishes the PMBOK® Guide,

0:54its guide to the project management body of knowledge.

0:58In the eighth edition, quality is a principle: build it into processes and deliverables.

1:04The outline of PMI®'s Project Management Professional exam, the PMP®,

1:09has one task on quality and one on continuous improvement.

1:13Sara: And APM?

1:15Leo: APM, the Association for Project Management, publishes the APM Body of Knowledge.

1:21Its quality section covers planning, assurance, control and continuous improvement.

1:27The syllabus of APM's Project Management Qualification, the PMQ,

1:31asks how quality indicators relate to the business case.

1:36Sara: Where do the words differ?

1:38Leo: In three places. First, assurance. APM keeps quality assurance,

1:43a project activity, apart from project assurance, which the organisation imposes

1:48to give the board confidence.

1:50Sara: Second?

1:51Leo: Control. The PMBOK® Guide's eighth edition has no process called control quality.

1:59Deliverables are checked under monitor and control scope.

2:03APM keeps the name quality control, and the ICB4 speaks of verification.

2:10Sara: And third?

2:11Leo: Tolerance. In the PMBOK® Guide, it is how far a quality measure may vary.

2:17For APM, it is the room delegated to the project manager.

2:21Sara: What is the core, whichever exam you take?

2:24Leo: Three ideas. One: quality means fit for purpose.

2:30It meets the agreed requirements, and it works for the people who use it.

2:34Two quality pioneers put it in different words: Philip Crosby stressed conformance

2:39to requirements, and Joseph Juran fitness for use.

2:44Aim for the quality this project needs, not the highest.

2:48Sara: Two?

2:49Leo: Plan quality before the work starts. Agree which standards apply.

2:55Give each deliverable acceptance criteria: the checks it must pass to be accepted.

3:01Then write the quality plan: which reviews and tests, who does them and when,

3:06and who signs off. Tie each quality indicator to a benefit in the business case.

3:12Sara: Does that change in agile work?

3:14Leo: The rhythm changes. In linear work, the criteria are signed off early,

3:19and the big checks come at phase ends. In iterative work, quality is checked in

3:24every iteration, against a definition of done: a checklist every item must pass

3:29to count as finished.

3:31Sara: And three?

3:33Leo: Keep improving: a lessons-learned review at each phase end, or a retrospective after

3:38each iteration. A lesson counts only when someone owns an action.

3:44Sara: Now the models, both on free sheets in the description.

3:48How does assurance differ from control?

3:51Leo: Assurance looks at the process: are we working the way the quality plan says?

3:55It uses audits and reviews, and aims to prevent defects.

4:01Control looks at the product: does this deliverable meet its acceptance criteria?

4:07It uses tests and inspections, and finds defects.

4:11Sara: And verification and validation?

4:14Leo: Verification asks: was it built as specified?

4:18The project checks it, starting early. Validation asks: does it meet the real need?

4:23The users or the client check it, and it ends in formal acceptance.

4:28Sara: How do you argue for the money?

4:30Leo: With the cost of quality. Armand Feigenbaum described its groups in nineteen fifty-six.

4:37Getting it right costs prevention and appraisal: training, reviews and tests.

4:43Getting it wrong costs internal and external failure: rework before delivery,

4:48and fixes and complaints after it.

4:51Sara: An example?

4:52Leo: Say a team spends ten thousand euros on getting it right, and fifty thousand on

4:58getting it wrong. It adds ten thousand of prevention, so getting it right now costs

5:03twenty thousand, and its failures fall to twenty thousand.

5:07The total falls from sixty thousand to forty.

5:10Sara: So more prevention always pays?

5:14Leo: Only up to a point, which the PMBOK® Guide calls the optimal cost of quality.

5:17The tools for finding causes, the cause-and-effect diagram, the Pareto chart and

5:23the control chart, have their own episode.

5:26Sara: And the loop for improving?

5:28Leo: Plan, do, check, act, or PDCA. Walter Shewhart described the idea in nineteen thirty-nine.

5:35W. Edwards Deming taught it in Japan from nineteen fifty, and later preferred study

5:40to check. Plan: a target, and one change to test.

5:45Do: try it on a small scale. Check: compare the result with the target.

5:51Act: adopt it as the standard, or adjust it and go again.

5:55Sara: An example?

5:56Leo: Say service-desk staff ask many questions about one chapter of their guide.

6:02The team rewrites it, aiming to halve the questions.

6:06Two staff try it for a week, and the questions halve, so the rest is rewritten too.

6:12A retrospective is also a small loop: one change, tried in the next iteration,

6:19and checked at the next retrospective.

6:22Sara: How does this change between Mid-level and Senior?

6:26Leo: First, the two levels. They are this series' own labels.

6:29Mid-level means leading moderately complex projects, the level of IPMA® Level C and

6:35PMI®'s PMP® exam. Senior means leading complex projects and people,

6:41the level of IPMA® Level B and of APM's chartered status, Chartered Project Professional.

6:48At Mid-level, you run quality well on one project.

6:52Take Parking Permits Online, a city project that moves resident parking permits

6:57online in eight months. The project manager, Anna, agrees acceptance criteria with

7:03the steering group. The city's team checks each supplier delivery against them.

7:08Before go-live, the wardens' supervisors try the handheld check in the street.

7:14Sara: And at Senior level?

7:15Leo: You design quality for many parties. Take One City Account, a thirty-month city

7:21project that brings fourteen online services under one login,

7:25led by Anna some years later. Two suppliers and nine system owners each bring their

7:31own procedures. Anna agrees one common standard with the steering board,

7:36and independent reviews report to it before each gate.

7:40After each group of services goes live, the lessons change the standard.

7:45Sara: So the Senior answer is about the system.

7:48Sara: Now the drill. A city is moving resident parking permits online.

7:53A supplier builds the screens in two-week timeboxes.

7:57In each of the last three timeboxes, the city's testers sent back four of the twelve

8:01finished items. Most failed the same way: a screen reader, which reads a screen

8:06aloud, could not read the forms. Each return takes two days to fix.

8:11The supplier says its own tests pass. What do you do?

8:15Leo: Pause and write your answer. You have forty-five seconds.

9:03Sara: First, the numbers.

9:06Leo: Four returns of two days make eight days of rework in every timebox.

9:11The testers catch the faults, so control works.

9:14But the same fault keeps coming back, so the process fails: a job for assurance.

9:20Sara: And the moves?

9:21Leo: Find the root cause with the supplier: its tests skip accessibility.

9:26Add an accessibility check to the definition of done.

9:29An automated check takes three days to set up, once.

9:33If it cuts the returns from four to one, it saves six days in every timebox.

9:38The shortcut: prevention pays when it costs less than the failure it removes.

9:42Three days against six, so it pays in the first timebox.

9:46Then check that it worked.

9:48Sara: What lifts that to Senior?

9:50Leo: Agree a tolerance with the steering group: more than one return in twelve,

9:54two timeboxes in a row, goes to them. Weigh the trade-off openly:

9:59one slower timebox now protects the date.

10:01Treat it as a process problem, not anyone's fault.

10:05And write the lesson into the city's standard.

10:07Sara: How do the exams ask this?

10:11Leo: IPMA®'s written exam asks for open answers; at Level B it may be oral.

10:17IPMA®'s certification also includes an interview, where assessors ask about your

10:21own projects, so note one corrective action and its root cause.

10:25The PMP® exam uses scenarios, and questions built on a case study or a chart.

10:32APM's PMQ asks for short written answers, such as how quality control tests outputs

10:38against the acceptance criteria.

10:40Sara: Let us recap.

10:42Leo: One. Quality means fit for purpose: the agreed requirements, and real use.

10:50Sara: Two. Plan it first: acceptance criteria, a quality plan and, in iterative work,

10:57a definition of done.

10:58Leo: Three. Assurance checks the process, to prevent defects.

11:03Control checks the product, to find them.

11:06Sara: Four. The cost of quality: spend on getting it right, until more no longer pays.

11:13Leo: And five. Improve in small loops: plan, do, check, act.

11:19Every retrospective ends in an action.

11:22Sara: The model sheets and the study handout are linked in the description.

11:26Next time: risk, opportunity and issues.