Project Quality Management, Second Edition

Why, What and How

Kenneth Rose

• Publisher: J. Ross Publishing
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781604277500
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Project Management
• Index: Business

Project Quality Management: Why, What and How, Second Edition demonstrates how to implement the general methods defined in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge—Fifth Edition (PMBOK Guide) and augments those methods with more detailed, hands-on procedures that have been proven through actual practice. This edition presents case examples that illuminate the theory of quality planning, assurance, and control with real-world narratives, including situation, analysis, and lessons learned. It also provides course discussion points and practical exercises at the end of each chapter. In its first edition, Project Quality Management was the recipient of the 2006 PMI David I. Cleland Project Management Literature Award. The award-winner offered project managers a specific, succinct, step-by-step project quality management process found nowhere else. This second edition features updated and enhanced material that meets the needs of practitioners, trainers, college instructors, and their students! Course instructor material is also available.

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Appendix 1. Case Study: Dakota Wireless Network

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Background

The State of Dakota seeks to increase the investment of new business in the state by providing the best wireless communications environment in the country. Dakota has vast land areas suitable for high-tech business, but its limited communications infrastructure inhibits development. State planners realize that high-tech businesses depend on virtual teams supported by robust communications capabilities. The state recently issued a request for proposal (RFP) for the Dakota Wireless Network (DWN) with the following performance-based specifications:

a.Design, install, and maintain a digital communications network that will allow—

(1)Cell phone services for all state residents and businesses from any habitable point within state borders.

(2)Wireless Internet connections for all state residents and businesses from any habitable point within state borders with download speeds of at least 200 Mbps at all times.

(3)99.99966 percent system availability at all times.

b.Design and install network in a manner that minimizes environmental impact and community intrusion.

c.Plan, prepare, conduct, and analyze public comment sessions as required.

d.Design and prepare promotional media items intended to attract new business development to Dakota because of the unique capabilities of the DWN.

e.Develop a course of instruction on “Virtual Teams for Project Management” that may be adopted without modification by all state colleges and universities as a three-credit undergraduate course.

f.Develop and present as required a four-day seminar for professionals on “Virtual Teams for Project Management” that awards three undergraduate credits recognized by the American Council on Education.

g.Comply with all applicable federal and state regulations.

The Project

Your company, JCN Networks, was recently awarded a five-year contract for the Dakota Wireless Network based on a specific proposal that took no exceptions to the RFP.

You were notified Sunday night by e-mail from the CEO that you have been selected as project manager. Key members of your project team have also been selected. Two of the six participated on the proposal team. They will all meet with you Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. in the conference room at corporate headquarters in Sioux River Station.

This book has free material available for download from the
Web Added Value™ resource center at www.jrosspub.com

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Appendix 2. Project Training

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Training is an important matter related to project quality. Inadequately trained project teams cannot be expected to perform in the stellar ways organizations and clients expect. Project managers should keep in mind that training is a means to an end, not an end in itself. This fact is often ignored by typical training measures of effectiveness such as the number of people trained or the amount of money spent on training.

Before getting to training itself, consider the larger issue—the end for which training is one of the means. The “end” is a quality workforce: a collection of people with the right skills available in the right place at the right time. There are several means by which a project manager may achieve this overall goal.

Internal Assignment

This is the fastest and probably least expensive way of building a project team. It is widely used for internal projects; that is, those performed by internal resources for an internal need under a project charter. It is also fraught with difficulty.

The big benefit is that the people are generally immediately available. The big problem is that the pool of potential team members is limited to those who are available. Everyone wants the best possible employees on their team. The best possible employees are always in high demand and usually fully booked. They are often not available or available only on a part-time basis. Part-time participation can be helpful as it adds a high level of expertise when needed, but it can also be problematic as it disrupts communication and work relationships.

The employees in the available pool may not be those with exact-match skills. A project manager may have to make do with “close enough” for the time being and deal with skill enhancement later.

The employees in the available pool may be available for a reason. The good reason is that they have successfully completed work on a closing project and need a new work assignment to maintain employment. The not-so-good reason is that their performance on their current project is in some way deficient. Not bad enough for disciplinary action or formal termination, but bad enough that their current project manager wants to cut them loose and pass them along to another project.

New Hires

This is the slowest and most expensive way of building a project team. It takes a long time and a lot of work to develop job descriptions, place announcements, identify candidates, conduct interviews, and complete all the associated human resources paperwork. And once you make a hire, that’s it; there is no easy way to turn back if you decide that you did not make the right decision.

There is a degree of uncertainty in new hires. In spite of detailed résumés and comprehensive, sequential interviews, employers are never really sure about what they are getting. For that reason, personal referral is the most frequently used method of identifying and obtaining new hires. It’s a rule of thumb among job seekers that you will probably be hired by someone “who knows who.”

Project managers must exercise a little caution in personal referrals. The result may be a good personality match and a confidence-based relationship, but the ability to do the job should be the primary consideration. Consider the company that just won a contract to perform work at a client location several hundred miles away from headquarters. They send an experienced manger from headquarters to be the site manager and to build a project team. The manager has been around a while and has many professional contacts, including several at the new location. He contacts them and hires them as first-tier managers. These new managers, in turn, contact people with whom they have worked and whom they trust and hire them as the core staff. All is well and the team is off to a good start. Over time, the work requirements grow and the technical expertise and skills required soon exceed the capabilities of the original hires. But now the manager is stuck. These people are personal friends. He lured them away from secure jobs to join his team. He cannot terminate their employment because they can’t do the job. He must train them up to the performance level required.

Personal referral is a quick and popular method for building effective teams. But in the end, hiring decisions must be rational and unbiased, based on the needs of the project.

Contract Labor

This is a quick way of getting temporary access to highly specialized skills or more general skills that are needed on a short-term basis. These types of needs are better met through a contract for a specific period than by hiring a new employee who may have to be terminated when the need no longer exists.

It is also a good model for organizations whose ongoing work consists of intermittent, unpredictable, short-term efforts. The labor force required can be brought to bear when necessary and not used when not necessary, unlike full-time employees who draw resources whether they are working on project tasks or not.

Contract labor may allow a trial period for potential new hires. A project manager could bring a candidate on-board as a contractor, either individually or through a temporary employment agency, and subsequently offer them a full-time job if things work well.

Training

Training is the classic method of improving the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the existing workforce. Project managers should apply training with care. They should not adopt an attitude of, “We’ve got a problem, and let’s throw some training at it.” They should not select and require training based on a seductive course title or an attractive promotional brochure. When selecting and applying training, a project manager should ask and answer several key questions.

1. What are the tasks required to be performed?
2. What are the skills required to perform those tasks?
3. To what degree do those skills exist in the current workforce?
4. What training is required to bring the skills up to the needed level?
5. What is the best source of and method for that training? (Conduct the training)
6. What was the effect of the training on the skill level in the workforce?
7. To what degree has the new skill level improved performance of the required tasks?

These questions are not easy to answer. Taken as a group, they can be rather intimidating. Questions 6 and 7 are absolutely essential but almost never asked or answered. But they are all important. They are the foundation for training as a means of improving project performance, not just training for training’s sake.

Several methods of training are available to project managers. There is no “one size fits all.” They are all dependent upon the situation and the people involved.

On the Job Training. This is a quick way of bringing a new member of the project team up to speed. It is also dangerous. Training while you work can establish bad habits that are difficult to diagnose and correct later on. Training by watching someone else may be little more than learning that person’s errors and repeating them.

Training by Internal Staff. A project manager could tap into experts on the project team to present short seminars or “brown-bag” lunches that address a specific, short topic. This may have a positive team-building effect in that experts on the team are sharing their expertise with others for the overall benefit of the organization. On the other hand, subject matter experts are not necessarily the best teachers. Or, if the training includes short performance exercises, critiques of those exercises by the expert may generate hard feelings or resentment.

Online Training. This is a good delivery method for training matters of knowledge acquisition and is usually not expensive. It is good for small numbers of students or even individuals in remote locations. Because the training can be accessed at any time, it is good in situations where students are expected to complete the training on their own time or on paid time after-hours. A good example of this type of training is a class to prepare for the PMP^® Certification Exam. The task is simply a matter of acquiring new knowledge and feeding it back during the exam. Concepts are not complex and shared, personal experience by either an instructor or other students has no relevance. Additionally, most courses—online or distributed on CD-ROM—include sample questions that mimic what is likely to be encountered on the exam. Students can drill these questions repeatedly and practice in the same way they will have to perform during the exam, which is administered online.

Instructor-Led, Classroom Training. This is the most expensive training of all. It requires time by the students that takes them off project work and is usually high-priced because of the associated costs for the delivering organization. It is the right delivery method—even the best method—for matters of skill refinement or knowledge acquisition involving novel or complex concepts. For matters of skill refinement, students get hands-on experience. Novel or complex concepts may be explored under the guidance of an expert instructor who can answer questions and clarify any confusion. Working with others, sharing their experiences, and learning from them in a practical sense can be far more beneficial than the solitary experience of an online course. Project managers may be able to reduce overall costs by bringing an instructor to the ...