Manage ICT Project Quality

ESTABLISH ICT PROJECT
GOVERNANCE
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Contents
ASSESSMENT TASK 1.................................................................................................................3
1. Explain the Total Quality Management theory.......................................................................3
2. Explain the ISO:9001:2008 Standards and why an organisation may choose to adopt these
standards......................................................................................................................................3
3. Describe the Six Sigma methodology and its relationship to quality assurance.....................4
4. Describe the cost benefit analysis and its role in quality assurance........................................4
5. Describe the use of cause and effect diagrams for quality control..........................................4
6. Describe the purpose of a Quality Management Plan and how it is used as a project tool.....5
7. Key role and four responsibilities of a project manager in relation to quality........................5
8. Explaining the use of the Plan Do Check Act cycle as a continuous improvement method
and each of the steps....................................................................................................................5
9. Explaining the concept of benchmarking as a continuous improvement tool.........................6
10. Explaining two benefits of brainstorming as a continuous improvement tool......................6
11. Explaining problem-solving steps you can use for most problems.......................................6
ASSESSMENT TASK 2: PROJECT QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN PROJECT................7
Determining quality requirements...............................................................................................7
Email to the CEO.........................................................................................................................8
Determining quality requirements...............................................................................................9
Email to the CEO.......................................................................................................................10
ASSESSMENT TASK 3...............................................................................................................11
Quality assurance audit..............................................................................................................11
Short report on the implementation of project quality processes..............................................13
Email to the project team...........................................................................................................14
ASSESSMENT TASK 4...............................................................................................................14
Project quality management evaluation report..........................................................................14
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Project Evaluation Report Template..........................................................................................15
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ASSESSMENT TASK 1
1. Explain the Total Quality Management theory
Total quality management is referred as the systematic and participating approach to
planning and executing a continuous process of improvement in the organisation. This approach
emphasizes on determining issues, developing commitment, promoting open decision making
process among workers and exceeding the expectations of customers. For effective execution of
total quality management approach, there are some steps which are very crucial for its successful
implementation. It includes commitment as well as understanding from employees, positive
improvement culture, constant improvement in process, emphasis on customer requirements and
effective control. Total quality management is an amalgamation of various steps. Application of
this approach will help an organisation in improving quality of its operations and accomplishing
growth and success in the market. Its execution provides various benefits to company in terms of
higher profitability, enhanced market image, strengthen competitive position, elimination of
waste and errors, improved employee morale, better cost management and many others.
2. Explain the ISO:9001:2008 Standards and why an organisation may choose to adopt these
standards
ISO 9001:2008 is a standard of quality management system which was first published in
year 1987 by international organisation for standardization. The main purpose of designing this
standard is to assist organisations in ensure that all the requirements of stakeholders and
customers are meet by them. Big companies of all types and sizes can be certified by ISSO 9001
standard. It can be utilised by service or manufacturing organisations as it assures quality for all
the interested parties which are included in in business entities that are certified. This standard is
considered as the main factor for operating businesses in markets all over the world as well as
improving the competitiveness. It specifies the need of quality management system where a
company requires to depict its ability to offer products that meet consumer and applicable
regulatory and statutory requirements consistently. An organisation may choose to adopt this
standard as it helps in maintaining and improving quality management system and assure
conformity with stated quality policy of organisation.
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3. Describe the Six Sigma methodology and its relationship to quality assurance
Six sigma is a statistical based approach and constant improvement methodology that
eliminates defects from service, process or product. This approach was developed on the basis of
quality management fundamentals. Sigma depicts the population standard deviation that is a
measure of variation in collected data set regarding the process. This approach helps in managing
the processes of business more effective. Along with developing a culture dedicated to constant
improvement of process, this approach offers tools which declines variance, eliminate defects as
well as assist in identifying the main cause of error which ultimately enable organisation to
develop better services and products for consumers. It is highly related to quality assurance as it
helps in reducing defects and errors and improving the quality of processes that leads to enhance
the capability of business processes. It maximizes the performance and declines in process
variation that assist introducing defects and improving quality of products.
4. Describe the cost benefit analysis and its role in quality assurance
Cost benefit analysis is referred as a systematic approach to estimate weakness and
strengths of alternatives utilised to identify options that render best approach to accomplish
benefits while preserving savings. It may be utilised to compare potential or completed cause of
actions or to determine value in opposition to cost of decision, policy or project. Use of cost
benefit analysis will help the organisation to make important decisions. It assists team members
to determine the best and highest return on investment on the basis of resources, cost and risks
involved. By offering an unclouded view of decision's consequences, benefit cost analysis is an
invaluable tool in formulating business strategy, making resource allocation, or evaluating new
hire or purchase decisions. In assuring quality of a project, cost benefit analysis helps in taking
appropriate decisions to ensure that benefits from alterations outweigh the cost.
5. Describe the use of cause and effect diagrams for quality control
The cause and effect diagram is referred as a tool that assist in think through the cause of
an issue thoroughly, involving its probable root cause. It is a diagram that depicts the cause of an
event and is utilised in product development and manufacturing to outline distinct steps in
process, depicts where the issues of quality control might arise as well as identify which
resources are needed at specific times. By making use of a structured approach, this diagram
assists in determining the cause of quality characteristic. By assisting in determining the major
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causes and depicting the most fruitful areas or fields for further investigation. It assistant
understanding the issue more clearly that help manager in controlling quality of the process.
6. Describe the purpose of a Quality Management Plan and how it is used as a project tool
Quality management plan is a plan which is important to determine the way an
organisation will execute a plan for assuring quality and quality control. It can help the project
manager in defining what quality means for project as well as outline a model for them in order
to ensure that quality is carried on throughout. It defines the acceptable level of quality along
with the way a project can ensure that level in its work processes and deliverables. The main
purpose of quality management plan is to explain that how quality will manage throughout the
complete life cycle of a particular project. It also involves the procedures and processes for
ensuring planning of quality, quality assurance and control. This plan helps in ensuring
successful achievement of goals of a project by ensuring delivery of quality output. In the
particular project, it is used as a project tool as it helps in determining the acceptable level of
quality of project.
7. Key role and four responsibilities of a project manager in relation to quality
The project manager plays a key role of excellent innovator and entrepreneurial thinker
while managing the quality of a project. While playing this role, there are few responsibilities of
project manager which are required to be satisfied, these responsibilities are:
 Resource planning – Project manager is responsible to plan that which resources are
required and in what amount so that quality of the project is not compromised.
 Developing a budget – It is a responsibility of the project manager to develop a budget in
such a way that the planned quality is satisfied without any cost constraints.
 Monitoring employee’s performance
 Motivating the project team
8. Explaining the use of the Plan Do Check Act cycle as a continuous improvement method and
each of the steps
Plan Do Check Act cycle is a continuous improvement method which is used by business
organisations to manage the change and issues in their operations. This method has four stages
each of which is explained below:
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 Plan – In this stage, problem or opportunity is being identified for which hypothesis is
developed as a plan to check or test the hypothesis.
 Do – At this stage hypothesis is being is tested on a small scale to measure the results.
 Check – The results are studied at this stage in order to measure the effectiveness to
identify whether summation or hypothesis is being accepted or not.
 Act – If the hypothesis is accepted that the plan is implemented at this stage.
9. Explaining the concept of benchmarking as a continuous improvement tool
Benchmarking is a concept that acts as a tool to continuous improvement. In this concept,
performance of an organisation or a project is compared with a best project. Here, the best
project acts a benchmark and organisation attempts to develop their project which is similar to
the quality level of best project. If the benchmarked criteria have been satisfied then that project
is considered as a benchmark for future and by this a continuous improvement cycle is
developed.
10. Explaining two benefits of brainstorming as a continuous improvement tool
 Brainstorming is a tool of continues improvement which results in the benefit of team
work The process of brainstorm involves extensive thinking, researching and interaction
by the way of which the skills of team working are improved in project management
team which helps in continuous improvement.
 This tool of brainstorming also helps in gaining the ideas from outside the project
management team which brings outside the box ideas which helps in continuous
improvement.
11. Explaining problem-solving steps you can use for most problems
Problem solving is a process of attempting to resolve an issue, few steps which are used
usually for this process are:
 The first and foremost step is to identify the issue and understand each and every aspect
of that problem.
 Second step is to list the all possible solution which can be used to resolve the identified
issue.
 Next step is to evaluate all the options by using techniques such as pros and cons.
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 Next step is to select the most appropriate option among all the identified options so that
it can be used for implementation.
 Lastly, the implementation will be monitored and a follow up will be taken to identify
any possible contingencies.
ASSESSMENT TASK 2: PROJECT QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN
PROJECT
Determining quality requirements
Introduction
The Native Bush Spices Australia is a small medium size organisation which operates in
selling organic native food products within Australia. This company has the objectives for next 3
years that includes increasing their sales and creating brand awareness, developing a broader
product range and expanding into new markets like Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. Currently,
this organisation has a website having only 4 pages. In order to ensure effective expansion, this
company has decided to develop a new website. This project of developing a new website is
crucial for the expansion of this company due to which, this brief report is developed for the
purpose of communicate quality objectives and standards to the CEO which are required to be
complied in this website.
Native Bush Spices Australia is depending on the project of new website development due
to which it is even more important to develop this brief report so that all quality requirements are
fulfilled.
Proposed quality objectives
As it has been mentioned that the appropriate and suitable website development is crucial
for the business expansion of Native Bush Spices Australia, using the quality standards
knowledge, few quality objectives are proposed that are significant to be gained so that the
website can further help in the objective of expansion of business. These quality objectives are:
 Entire cost of website development should not exceed to $11000.
 The project team of website development should include project manager, project team
member, senior manager and senior management team. This team will ensure that project
status is updated regularly and the desired plan is followed effectively.
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 All the benefits, inputs and outputs of the website project must be pre identified and then
be updated regularly so that any variation in the desired plan can be identified at initial
level.
 Another quality objective is to develop the website user friendly so that people can
recommend it and the popularity of the website can be boosted through mouth publicity.
Proposed quality standards
There are few quality standards which are required to be satisfied while implementing the
project of new website development so that all the above objectives can be fulfilled. These
quality standards are QS1, QS8, QS9, QS13, QS27 and QS37.
 The first quality standard which is required to be fulfilled is QS1 which states that the
project objectives must be aligned to organisational objectives. The objective of Native
Bush Spices Australia is to expand their business and this objective is aligned with the
aim of the website of being user friendly.
 Quality standards 8 and 9 are to make sure that the budget allocated is sufficient for the
project and this budget should be not constrained. The budget of developing website is
11000 which is appropriate for developing a website.
 Another quality standard is Q13 according to this; Native Bush Spices Australia should
make sure that all the employees and project team members have clarity about their role.
 QS27 is also a proposed quality standard as it can help in detecting prior issues in the
project.
 Lastly QS37 is proposed to make sure that it design of website is administratively
maintainable.
Email to the CEO
To project team,
A Briefing Report having quality objectives and standards for the project management of website
development is attached. Kindly review this report thoroughly and provide your feedback.
Regards,
Project manager
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Determining quality requirements
Purpose
The objective behind developing this quality management plan is to communicate quality
standards and metrics which are required to be satisfied while implementing the project of
website development. This plan will ensure that every project team member have well
knowledge about the quality requirements of the project and the constraints of the project. This
plan will be communicated to the project team so that their views about Quality Assurance and
Control Mechanisms can be gained and discussed. This plan will provide quality role of each
member.
Quality objectives
The quality objectives for the project of website development includes expansion of
business, development of a user friendly website, expansion in foreign nations and satisfied
customer experience through website.
Quality Standards and Metrics
 The website must ensure quality standard of fast loading so that metric of prompt
loading can be satisfied.
 The website must be accessed through mobile as well and metric of mobile friendly must
be satisfied.
 Tracking enabled is another quality standard that must be satisfied with metric of hourly
tracking of website.
 Another standard is SEO enabled so that when a user searches the text “gourmet foods”,
the website link must be in the list of first page in the search engine.
 Email marketing is also QS which has the metric that states at least 10% customers are
attracted through this QS.
 Strong security with the metric of bot confirmation so that data of consumers can be
secured.
 Accessibility is also a quality Standard along with the metric which states that the
website must be accessed through every operating system.
 Another QS of website is that there must be all important links at the home page of
website. This QS has a metric of effective page layout.
 Website must be user friendly. This QS’s metric states effective text, font and content.
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 Website must have a search button which can fulfil the metric of saving time.
Quality Assurance and Control Mechanisms
 Checklist
 Histogram
 Control Chart
Quality roles and responsibilities
The role of responsibility to ensure effective quality of the website development will be in hands
of Project manager and the team, operational manager and the team.
Quality methods, techniques and tools to resolve quality issues
Methods, tools and techniques which can resolve quality issues in website development
include Just-In-Time, quality circles, inspection, statistical quality control and total quality
management.
Quality control and assurance problem reporting
The quality of the website development will be controlled by regularly updating the
progress of website using checklist. In case of any problem in the development of website is
noticed then it will be reported to CEO.
Email to the CEO
To project team,
A Quality Management Plan having all the aspects of project management of website
development is attached. Kindly review tis report thoroughly and provide your feedback. Also,
we would like to discuss this aspects further in a meeting with the project team members.
Regards,
Project manager
ASSESSMENT TASK 3
Quality assurance audit
Project outcomes to date and effectiveness of quality management processes and
procedures
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In this quality assurance report, the quality of the website project will be assessed and
audited by comparing the quality requirements with the quality performance of the project. The
quality requirements include the targets and objectives for the outcomes. Few of these objectives
are compared with the actual quality performance below:
The project team of website development has the objective to launch a high quality,
accessible and user friendly website in the desired budget of $11000. According to the project
finances report, it has been seen that total of $9700 are already spend on the development and
launch of website and there are still two milestones left to be acquired which are website training
and hosting for the first year. By analysing this budge, it has been seen that the actual
performance of the project is not similar to the project requirement as the costing of the project is
$1200 ahead of its budget.
Another target outcome of the project of website states that the website will be completed
in its 3 months of commencement. This project requirement can be compared with the project
outcome by analysing the project schedule. According to this schedule, the website project is
started by 4 June and will be completed by 1st October which implies there is a variation between
the project requirement and project outcome as the project outcome of completion of website
will not be completed in 3 months after its commencement.
The quality management processes and procedures which are used for the completion of
the project are effective but there are few variations due to which effectiveness of these
procedures are questioned. According to the interim project status report, the website developer
has been done a mock due to which a formal feedback has not yet received due to which both
time and budget of the project are expected to overrun. These issues decrease the effectiveness of
quality management processes and procedures.
Quality Control
A quality control refers to the procedure which quality of a project is controlled in order
to ensure that required quality has been acquired by the project team. Quality control is required
to be accessed at the end of the project completion so that it can be identified that whether there
were any variations between the agreed quality specification and actual quality status of the
project or not. In this case of Native Bush Spices Australia, the quality control can be accessed
by determining that whether project has been done according to the quality specifications or not.
The agreed quality specifications of this project were:
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 The project will be completed on time within the budget of +/- 10%. Observing this
quality specification, the final project status report is assessed according to which the
website project is completed in $15,200 which is 39% over budget. So, it can be said
that quality of the project was not well control.
 Another quality specification states that project management methodology is adhered
effectively. This specification is well controlled by the project team of this company
along with which purpose deliverables are also achieved and website is a user friendly
website as the feedback from users are positive.
So, it can be said that besides the overrun of budget, all the other aspects of project
development were effectively achieved.
Variance
In every project, there are some causes due to which variance between the expected and
actual output are observed. In this project of website development of Native Bush Spices
Australia, these variances are analysed below:
 The foremost cause behind variation in quality metric was the budget overrun by website
developer, shopping cart and Google analytics plug in and training. Each of this cause has
resulted overrun of the budget.
 Another cause which caused variation in quality metric is formal feedback. Due to the
mock of website developer, project management team was unable to get formal feedback
in order to move on.
Recommendations
The variations which are caused in the project of website development can be eliminated by
resolving the causes of each variation. Recommendations in order to eliminate each variation are
as follows:
 For the variation in which feedback has not been gained from website developer, project
manager can write an email to website developer in order to gain a formal feedback. By
this way, not only the feedback will be received but the expectation of delay in project
will be eliminated.
 The budget of the project of website development has been seen to overrun. In order to
control; the costs, project manager can reduce the training costs as by this the costing will
not extend the level of budget.
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 A variation of time has also been observed according to which there is a possibility that
the project will not be completed in the time of 3 months after the commencement of
website development. In order to eliminate this variation, it is recommended that project
manager should increase the roles and responsibilities of the project team members so
that the timely completion of the project can be done.
Short report on the implementation of project quality processes
Performance against Quality Objectives
The quality objectives for website development project are mentioned in the quality
management plan. According to this plan, the performance against quality objectives is not as
effective as it was expected. The main objective in quality management plan mentioned that the
budget of website development should only be overrun within the 10%. But the final
performance report shows that the project has overrun by 39%. The budgeted costs of this project
were 11000 but the completion of the project was done in 15200. Even after implementing cost
cutting in the area of training, a new expense incurred against videos due to which budget
resulted in overrun.
Apart from the budget, the project has been completed has per the quality objectives as
the methodology selected is effectively used by this company. All the quality standards for this
project are also satisfied. Also, the website is resulted to be a user friendly website which implies
that most important quality standard of this company has been achieved.
Performance against Quality Standards
Quality standards which were proposed to be followed in the project of website
development include QS1, QS8, QS9, QS13, QS27 and QS37. The first standard stated that the
project objectives and organisational objectives must be aligned. And as the objectives of both
the aspects are to expand the business, it can be said that performance of project management
team was up to the mark of quality standards. Similar to QS1, all other quality standards are also
effectively satisfied by this company leaving QS 8 and 9. Both of these standards are related to
the allocation of sufficient budget for the project so that it must not be constrained. But while
observing the actual performance, it has been clearly seen that the budget has be exceeded by
39% which is beyond the limit of acceptance (10%).
Recommendations and Lesson Learned
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The quality metrics are the specifications which were suggested for the website
development. All of these metrics are satisfied by the performance as the website fast loads the
pages, it is has universally accessible interface which can be accessed from mobile phones as
well. There are few recommendations which are suggested above for this project management,
for each of those recommendations, there are certain steps which are necessary to be undertaken:
 In order to control the budget of a project, it must be ensured that valid monetary
resources are given for a project. For this purpose, a contingency fund must be made so
that project must not overrun.
 For the recommendation which states to increase the roles and responsibilities of team
members, it is important to held valid team meetings.
Email to the project team
To project team,
A quality assurance audit report having variation between the expected and actual quality along
with recommendations for those variations is attached. Kindly review tis report thoroughly and
provide your feedback.
Regards,
Project manager
ASSESSMENT TASK 4
Project quality management evaluation report
Interim Project Status Report
The interim project status regarding the new website development is given according to
the agreed communication processes. The project team agreed with the schedule of the project at
the outset and it is commenced with the meeting with the developer of web site in order to
discuss briefly about the website. According to the schedule of project, no further meeting was
conducted with the web site developer. The project is in progress and the first mock-up of web
site was done. But, the project manager has not been able to get formal feedback in order to carry
on the project further. Apart from this, after reviewing the interim project status report, it has
been found that the budget for the project is overrun.
Final Project Status Report
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By reviewing the final project status report, it has been found that the new website is
alive now. A very positive feedback has been recorded from the staff members regarding the
content and look of new website. The user friendliness and accessibility of website has also been
referenced by the feedback. Because of highly professional website developers and designers, it
becomes easy to deal with them and the website is developed successfully. The training was
conducted in reduced budget was also successful in addressing the training requirements
identified. All the communication regarding the project including internal meeting,
communication and status reports occurred as agreed. By reviewing the final project status
report, it has also been found that the budget overrun by $4200 as the budgeted expenses for the
development of website are estimated as $11000 but the actual expenses goes to 15200 dollars.
The expenses of hosting remain the same, the training expenses are less than budgeted expenses,
but in website, shopping cart and Google analytics plugin and training, the expenses increase
from the budgeted expenses.
Project Evaluation Report Template
Performance against Quality Objectives:
The performance of the project against the objectives of quality is good. All the quality
objectives of the project are met and the website is developing successfully. There is positive
feedback get on the content and look of website. However, the cost of the website is exceeded by
$4200 from the estimated cost.
Performance against Quality Standards:
The performance of project is as per the set quality standard. All the activities of project
are done as per the set quality standards. This assists in ensuring the successful completion of
project within the specified time. However, the budgeted cost of the project exceeds.
Recommendations and Lesson Learned:
In order to ensure that all the activities of project are performing appropriately, the project
manager must take feedbacks on regular basis so that the project of development of new website
does not fall too far behind the developed schedule. Apart from this in order to stay within the
budget, it is necessary to ensure that all the costs are set by taking into consideration all the
aspects so that an appropriate budget can be formulated and all the activities can be done within
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it. In addition to this, in order to ensure the successful completion of project within the specified
time frame, project manager must ensure that the responsibilities of each member are delegated
appropriately.
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