Project Quality Management

Q1. Discuss some of the examples of poor quality in information technology projects presented in the
What Went Wrong? section. Could most of these problems have been avoided? Why do you think
there are so many examples of poor quality in information technology projects?
Answer: Many of these problems could be avoided by performing better quality management. One
problem is that software and hardware is hitting the market too fast, so people selling these might be
more concerned about money than safety or wellbeing of the consumers or the company in the long
term.

Q2.What are the main processes included in planning project quality management?
Answer: The project quality management processes include planning quality, performing quality
assurance, and performing quality control.
* Planning quality: identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and how to satisfy
them; a metric is a standard of measurement
* Performing quality assurance: periodically evaluating overall project performance to ensure the project
will satisfy the relevant quality standards
* Performing quality control: monitoring specific project results to ensure that they comply with the
relevant quality standards

Q3.How do functionality, system outputs, performance, reliability, and maintainability requirements

affect quality planning?
Answer: All of these factors affect quality planning because they will drive the requirements that need to
be met to ensure quality.
* Functionality is the degree to which a system performs its intended function
* Features are the systems special characteristics that appeal to users
* System outputs are the screens and reports the system generates
* Performance addresses how well a product or service performs the customers intended use

Q4. What are benchmarks, ad how can they assist in performing quality assurance? Describe typical
benchmarks associated with a college or university.
Answer: Benchmarking (see also Reid, this issue) is a term that is now widely used within the quality
arena. Benchmarking involves comparing a set of products or services against the best that can be found
within the relevant industry sector.
The European Benchmarking Code of Conduct defines benchmarking as being the process of identifying
and learning from Good Practices in other organizations (The European Federation of Quality
Management, n.d., p. 1). The Public Sector Benchmarking Service in the United Kingdom describes
benchmarking as involving:
Regularly comparing aspects of performance (functions or processes) with best practitioners, identifying
gaps in performance, seeking fresh approaches to bring about improvements in performance, following
through with implementing improvements, and following up by monitoring progress and reviewing the
benefits. (Public Sector Benchmarking Service, n.p.)
OReagain and Keegan (2000) have described the four steps involved in benchmarking as: 1)
understanding in detail ones own processes; 2) analyzing the processes of others; 3) comparing your
own performance with that of others analyzed; and 4) implementing the steps needed to close the
performance gap. However, as often happens when a term comes into everyday use, some of the
original precision of its meaning is lost. Within the higher education sector in Australia, the term
benchmarking is now sometimes used to refer to processes that are more concerned with the other
quality functions.
In the area of distance education, various sets of guidelines have been produced to support good
practice (Twigg, 2001). Having reviewed the literature on guidelines, the Institute for Higher Education
Policy produced a set of 24 benchmarks by which success in the online delivery of programs could be
judged (Phipps and Merisotis, 2000).

Q5. What are the three main categories of outputs for quality control?
Answer: Acceptance decisions
Rework
Process adjustments

Q6. Provide examples of when you would use the seven basic tools of quality on an information
technology project.
Answer: To locate the root cause of a system problem, determine if a process is out of control, to
perform trend analysis and forecast future outcomes, to analyze how problems occur and how processes
can be improved.

Q7. Discuss the history of modern quality management. How have experts such as Deming, Juran,
Crosby, and Taguchi affected the quality movement and todays use of Six Sigma?
Answer: These experts have made quality a visible criterion that companies strived to achieve. Awards
have been established to seek quality and reward those who have achieved it. Quality projects have
been used to meet customer expectations instead of only company needs. A wider scope of what quality
is and isnt has been developed to provide benchmarking criteria for businesses. Pointing out the cost of
poor quality will give motivation to companies and increase their desire for quality. U.S. businesses
observed BOTH the emphasis on quality in other nations AND those nations successes in the
marketplace. It was the economic success attributable to the emphasis on quality that made U.S.
companies sit up and take notice.

Q8. Discuss three suggestions for improving information technology project quality that were not made
in this chapter.
Answer: Some ideas would be providing better training for people in information technology to produce
better quality, providing incentives for meeting quality goals, establishing minimum quality requirements
for specific IT products, and so on.

Q9. Describe three different types of software that can assist in project quality management.
Answer:
Bug tracking software- A software were bugs are reported, tracked and then resolved.
Collaboration software- A software that team members and the project manager use in order to
exchange information about the project, and where team members facing challenges on their
tasks can ask for help from other team members, or where team members building upon code
that is written by other team members can inform the latter about errors in their code, or where
testers can inform developers about their bugs.
Automated testing software- While there is no substitute to human testing to ensure a very
stable end product, automated testing can weed out the most obvious or common bugs and will
make the human testing less stressful.