Initial Postings:
Read and reflect on the assigned readings/videos for the week. Respond to both the below:
- Based on the different concepts covered, choose one topic area to explore further. Conduct online research related to that topic across at least two articles. Post a summary (2-3 paragraphs) of these learnings to further educate your peers on the subject.
- Provide a graduate-level response to one of the following questions:
- Choose a control chart and provide an example from an online source and explain how to interpret the results.
- Why would you accept some risks rather than at least mitigate them?
- Elaborate on the differences between risk and issue. Do both have owners? Can an issue be a risk or vice versa?
Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student's own words - do not provide quotes nor use ChatGPT or other tools to write on your behalf!
Your initial post should be at least 450+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced). Post the actual body of your paper in the discussion thread then attach a Word version of the paper for APA/Plagiarism review.
Module Overview:
Meeting quality expectations of the stakeholders and end customer is of high priority for the project team. The last thing we want is to spend a lot of effort on deliverables only to have them not be accepted due to not matching quality standards. During project planning, the team should have identified what quality expectations are for the project. During project control, the team will monitor that such expectations are being met using various tools. In addition, the team will continually monitor risks to see if any changes need to be made to the risk register (which was created during Planning) or if any new risks form as we progress through the project.
Module Objectives:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Students will be able to create control charts to monitor project quality
- Students will understand the cost of quality as it impacts the success of a project
- Students will understand the importance of continued risk monitoring and updating risk logs.
- After analysis of risks, students will understand how to mitigate and properly log the status of risks using project software.
Learning Materials:
Controlling Quality
Project quality should be consistently considered through the monitoring and controlling processes (as remember how quality can be sacrificed based on the triple constraints). Quality should be defined by the customer of the project as they are ultimately taking ownership of the project after it completes. There are many approaches to tracking quality; including Deming's 14 Points for Management, Juran's 10 Steps to Quality Improvement, or Crosby's 14 steps to Quality Improvement. Take a moment to google a couple of these to learn about how they can be integrated with managing quality in a project. Large projects may even embed within them a Quality Assurance policy and team; which includes formal activities and processes that attempt to ensure that deliverables and decisions meet the required quality level. Quality audits, which offers an independent evaluation of how a project is conforming to quality, may also occur. Finally, there are many tools that project teams can use to monitor quality. Some of these tools include: Cause-and-Effect Analysis, Pareto Analysis, Histograms, Scatter Diagrams, Control Charts, and more.
Review this video on quality tools.
Risk Management
An important aspect of monitoring and controlling the project is keeping aware of risks that could derail the project. Every project has some level of risk, which the project team needs to manage. The team members work to identify the probability of a risk occurring and the consequence it would have on the project. During project planning, a thorough risk analysis is completed to identify risks; however, during project control, the team should continually monitor existing risks as well as watch for the potential for new risks to appear. Note though we often think of risks as negative, risks can also be positive, where the team would work to enhance such. Essentially, they need to limit the impact of the negative risks while increasing the influence of positive ones.
A number of methods, both qualitative and quantitative, are available for identifying risks including: Brainstorming, expert opinion, past history, and multiple assessments. Synergy among group members may also create a wider range of risk identification. However, there are shortcomings to these approaches. It may be difficult to come to an agreement or consensus in such processes due to conflicting opinions and personal issues. Brainstorming, expert opinion, and multiple assessments may also prove difficult when reaching consensus, due to egos/authority issues and functional biases (when members of different departments are present). When the Delphi technique is employed, many of these issues are resolved because members do not meet face-to-face. The process becomes anonymous, thereby reducing the interference of egos and personal problems. Past history is a unique approach compared to the other three. It uses historical facts to reach conclusions, which removes many obstacles created by the other techniques. The benefit of risk identification through past history is that, if past projects were well documented, information related to similar projects can easily be found and project teams can avoid pitfalls by learning from the mistakes of others.
Once risks are identified, the project team determines a reasonable estimate of the likelihood of each of these risk events occurring. The team will conduct a risk impact matrix similar to the one shown here. The matrix would reflect all identified project risks with each prioritized according to the probability of its occurrence along with the potential consequences for the project should the risk occur.
[Image unavailable: Risk chart]
One way to manage risks is through a risk register. In the risk register we identify the risks and include the following:
- Description of the risk
- Probability or likelihood of occurring (scored on a scale 1-5)
- Consequence/Impact to the project (scored on a scale 1-5)
- Cost the risk would cause to the project if occurs
- Risk Owner (who is responsible on the project to monitor the risk)
- Risk Response (how will the team limit (or enhance if a positive risk) the risk from occurring)
- Risk Score - computed by taking the Consequence multiply by the Probability.
Project members should review the risk register at least weekly, primarily focusing on risks that have a high score. The team may find that as the project progresses, certain risks are no longer applicable or new ones may show up. New risks will also pop up throughout the project, so the team should challenge each other to think as they progress through project deliverables if any new risks are developing. Having appropriate risk responses are important as they identify how you may mitigate (take steps to reduce the risk from occurring), transfer, or even accept the risk.
Learn more about risk management - qualitative and quantitative analysis via watching this video.
References
Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.). Project Management Institute.