PM FPX 5333 Assessment 3 Quality Plan Analysis and Quality Assurance Plan

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Capella University

PM-FPX5333 Project Budgeting, Procurement, and Quality

Prof. Name:

Date

Quality Plan Analysis and Quality Assurance Plan

The Nearlyfree.com New Employee Orientation (NEO) project has surpassed its initial budget and is at risk of failing. The current quality plan of the company did not identify all necessary resources nor define the project’s quality adequately. This document will evaluate the existing quality plan and pinpoint the project’s failure areas.

Quality Standards

Quality management standards outline the requirements, specifications, guidelines, and characteristics that products, services, and processes must consistently meet to ensure they:

• Meet expectations for quality,
• Are fit for their intended purpose, and
• Satisfy user needs.

Standards are a critical component of quality management systems (Quality Management Standards, n.d., para. 3). ISO, as part of the ISO 9000 family of standards, has developed ISO 10006, which offers ‘Guidelines for quality management in projects’ (Harding, 2004). These quality standards align with the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) Project Quality Management Standards and can also be seen as “the extent to which a set of characteristics meet the required needs” (ISO, 2020).

Analyzing Product Quality

The quality plan of NearlyFree.com is compared against ISO’s recommended standards. The ISO 9001 certification is based on eight Quality Management Principles established by ISO/TC 176, an international body responsible for maintaining ISO’s quality management standards. These principles guide organizations in improving their performance (British Assessment Service, 2018, para. 1).

The eight ISO 9001 Quality Management principles are:

1. Customer Focus: Emphasizing quality and customer satisfaction. In this project, the staff members being trained are considered the customers.
2. Leadership: The Project Manager and Project Sponsor are identified as the project leaders.
3. People Involvement: The roles and responsibilities within the project have not been clearly defined.
4. Process Approach: Multiple planned testing cycles should be included in the process.
5. Systemic Approach to Management: Managing multiple processes as a cohesive system to enhance efficiency.
6. Continual Improvement: Enhancing organizational flexibility, performance, and ability to embrace new opportunities.
7. Factual Approach to Decision Making: Utilizing a data-driven, logical approach for decision-making.
8. Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relations: Strengthening the relationship between the company and its suppliers.

Recommendations

Based on the evaluation of the eight ISO quality standards and the current quality statement of the project, the following recommendations are made:

• Define key events, timelines, and milestones with critical suppliers to prevent interruptions during time-sensitive phases, improving supplier relations.
• Develop and adhere to a consistent workflow for systems to align with the systemic management approach.
• Clearly define all leaders and their roles throughout the project phases, ensuring that more than one individual is responsible for quality sign-off.
• Identify key influencers and their roles in the quality process.
• Schedule meetings with key leaders to discuss project progress and plans that support effective decision-making.

Implementing these recommendations will help the project meet the ISO quality principles.

Quality Assurance

Quality assurance (QA) involves systematic processes to determine if a product or service meets specified requirements (Gillis, 2019, para. 1). A QA review identified failures needing attention, highlighting that the Cost of Quality (CoQ) is currently double the project budget. A new Quality Assurance Plan should be developed.

Cost of Quality

Cost of Quality (CoQ) refers to a methodology for assessing the extent to which resources are used for preventing poor quality, appraising product or service quality, and addressing internal and external failures. This information helps organizations identify potential savings from process improvements (Cost of Quality (CoQ), n.d., para. 1).

CoQ includes costs related to:

1. Prevention
2. Appraisal
3. Internal Failure
4. External Failure