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Quality Management in Small Projects

Delivering as per customer / user requirement is known as Quality Management. Even in small project quality management is also highly required because the customer will derive benefits for the organization from this.

Author: John Neve

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Quality Management simply means delivering to the customer / user what they need and expect. Even in a small project, the primary reason for the project's existence is to produce some form of change for the customer, based on which the customer will derive benefits for the organisation.

Surely the customer should, therefore, play a fundamental part in defining what is required and confirming that this is being delivered by the project.

Because of the dependence of the customer on the project's outcomes, this aspect of project management should never be excluded from the project manager's responsibilities. The PRNCE2TM approach to quality management is straightforward when explained simply, and all steps should be applied within every project - although a small project may be able to dispense with much of the detail.

This is the best practice approach to quality management, expressed simply!

Firstly, discuss the customer's quality expectations with them to gain a good idea what the project is expected to provide. Depending on this discussion, it may be that a particular way of delivering the outcome is mandated or preferred. For example, if the customer would like a state-of-the-art multi-floored office building, and internally we can only provide the skills to carry out small building works, then the project approach will need to include outsourcing and sub-contracting.

Once the customer's quality expectations have been established, refine these to provide an unambiguous set of measurable acceptance criteria which will be used by the project manager in planning the project and at the end of the project to form the basis of the customer's acceptance that the project has delivered everything required to the specification required.

Agree which standards and systems from 'business-as-usual' quality management are to be followed within the project and who carries responsibility for quality management within the project, and formally document the customer's quality expectations and acceptance criteria.
All if this information is encapsulated within the project quality plan.
On many occasions, such a plan will contain many 'standard' sections - in small projects establish a 'template' project quality plan to simplify this step.

Make sure that there is a jointly understood product description for each major deliverable to be produced during the project's life. This should be agreed between the customer and those responsible for providing the deliverable and include a statement of the product's purpose, to minimise misunderstanding, and details of exactly what quality criteria must be met before being accepted by the customer during testing / quality checking (quality control).

Plan who is to be involved in quality checking and how they are going to perform this checking when the detailed stage or team plans are produced.
Keep a record of the planned quality check in some form of quality log.

When the plan is executed and the product tested / reviewed / quality checked, keep a record of the check and its result in the quality log.
This information will act as valuable progress indicators for all involved.

At the end of the project, ensure that all acceptance criteria have been met and that all quality checking has been satisfactory.

For purposes of control, each product description should be baselined (a safe, frozen copy taken) once the plan has been authorised which will produce the product, and the product itself should be baselined once it has been accepted during a quality check.

Any changes to a baselined product description or accepted product would require a request for change to be authorised by the project board or change authority.

Any problems which imply that a product will fail to meet its quality criteria should be handled as an off-specification. If a product cannot be fixed to comply with it's quality criteria within quality tolerance, or such a fix would cause the project manager to exceed his/her authority in terms of tolerance for decision-making delegated by the project board in terms of time, cost, scope or the level of risk within the project, or the likely benefits to result during or following the project, must be escalated for a decision by the project board. The project board may offer a concession to the project manager, in which case no corrective action is required.

(For further detailed information, please refer to the following processes in the PRNCE2TM manual - Starting up a Project (SU) - SU4 Preparing a Project Brief, SU5 Defining Project Approach, Initiating a Project (IP) -
IP1 Planning Quality, Planning (PL) - PL2 Defining and Analysing Products, Managing Stage Boundaries (SB) - SB1 Planning a Stage, Controlling a Stage
(CS) - CS1 Authorising a Work Package, Managing Product Delivery (MP) - MP1 Accepting a Work Package, MP2 Executing a Work Package, Closing a Project
(CP) - CP1 Decommissioning a Project.)

About Author

John Neve is a Project Management Consultant Trainer in NES AIM Academy. NES AIM Academy is an Accredited Training Organisation for PRINCE2TM, APMP, Managing Successful Programmes & ITILR. For more information visit www.nesaimacademy.co.uk

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Quality Management in Small Projects