Lesson 17: Quality, Part 2

Based on AXELOS PRINCE2^® material. Reproduced under licence from AXELOS. All rights reserved.
Note: PRINCE2 2017 edition is now called PRINCE2 6th edition.

00:06 – Welcome back. Our next scenario is where we have a project where the Senior User advises the Project Manager to focus more on quality towards the end of the project because that’s where the product will be handed over to the customer and that’s where it’s more important.
00:22 – Is that appropriate for the Senior User to advise the Project Manager to do?
00:28 – Well, first of all, the Senior User is probably not the expert in quality management, but the Project Manager has to know way more, and on the other hand, we can do it at the end, but it would be too expensive for a normal project.
00:43 – It’s much easier and less expensive if we do it continuously.
00:48 – Why is that? Can you give an example? What does that mean?
00:51 – Because we’re building different pieces of a product one after the other, sometimes in parallel, but anyway, we are finishing different elements during the project and if we don’t do the quality management activities during the project, then something may not be working properly and then other products that are based on this product may be affected. Of course, yeah.
01:15 – So if you want to place it at the end, then we will have to fix a chain of products instead of one and that’s too expensive and takes a lot of time. Yeah. The cost will go way up, yeah.
01:27 – So, we have to think about quality actually from the very beginning of the project and that’s where we create the Project Product Description and PRINCE2 says, and all quality guides say, it’s much easier and cheaper to correct quality issues early in the project rather than trying to wait until the very, very end of the project or when actually the users are already using them. So, that’s not a good idea.
01:50 – And low-quality products will drive users crazy and from a business point of view, the users will have a lower chance of realizing the benefits, so we don’t want to do that either.
02:01 – There’s even more than that, in IT projects, sometimes people use test-driven development.
02:09 – In case you don’t know, especially if you’re not working in IT environment, that’s where we design the tests before starting to build the product.
02:19 – Well, in a normal project, we still define the quality activities and specify the quality criteria beforehand, but that’s a step more than that. We also create the test scripts in the automated system before starting to develop.
02:34 – So these test scripts are actually like quality definitions because if they pass it Yeah, they’re a criteria.
02:40 – It’s a criteria, yeah, built into the test. Yeah. Okay. That’s good.
02:45 – So that’s always a good practice and Agile systems are talking about it all the time, the fact that you shouldn’t leave the quality activities for the end of the project, and one thing to support it is that when you leave the quality activities or even the user acceptance testing for the end of the project, that’s where you’re late and everyone is pushing you to deliver the project as soon as possible and you have to cut some of your quality activities, but if you do it continuously during the project, you will always have the same ratio of quality activities. Okay.
03:23 – So, next question then, we’ll move on.
03:26 – Quality responsibilities should be taken seriously by everybody in the project and this, of course, starts with the Project Board.
03:33 – So the next scenario based on this is the Senior Supplier is an external account manager, so they have got lots of experience and they, the Senior Supplier, will provide the customer’s quality expectations and acceptance criteria for this project because they have lots of experience. Is that an appropriate thing for them to do?
03:54 – I don’t think so. Why not? Because they’re the supplier and we’re talking about customer quality acceptance, that’s from the user type of people. Okay. Or business type of people. It has to come from that side.
04:07 – Now we can have technical people in the supplier side who help them define the tests. Yeah, yeah.
04:17 – But, yeah, the main idea for the tests should come from the customer side, I think.
04:23 – Yeah, correct, yeah, you’re right. Go back to you.
04:27 – Yes, the Senior User should be responsible for providing the customer quality expectations and the acceptance criteria.
04:33 – The Senior Supplier can provide information to support this, as you mentioned, in the discussions where the Team Managers or the experts can come in and give extra information to help define the product descriptions.
04:48 – Our next question, the next scenario.
04:51 – In the Initiation Stage, the Executive says that they will be responsible to confirm the acceptance of the Project Product Description at the end of the project.
05:01 – Is that a good idea? Is that appropriate for them to do that?
05:05 – I see two problems. One is that you mentioned at the end of the project.
05:10 – It’s better if you do it continuously during the project, especially at the end of the stages, and the other thing is that the Executive may not be the best person for doing that.
05:21 – We have User Representatives in the project. Okay. Yeah, maybe that’s the problem.
05:26 – Maybe I went a bit fast with the question. Okay. So I’ll read the question again? Alright. I’ll listen.
05:32 – Yeah. The Executive will be responsible to confirm acceptance of the project product.
05:36 – So it’s a once-off thing at the end of the project. It’s not all of the time. Confirm it. So I’m giving you yeah.
05:46 – Okay. So the answer was no the last time and now I’ve read the question again, so the answer could be … You want me to say yes.
05:57 – Yeah. But why do you think that’s?
06:00 – Maybe the idea is that we have local acceptances coming from user’s or the customer’s side and then we want to make sure that we have all the acceptance for every piece of the product.
06:13 – Yeah. I’ll give you another clue. It’s part of the handover.
06:15 – At the very end of the project, it’s part of the handover.
06:19 – Okay. So the Executive confirms that it is accepted properly.
06:25 – Yeah. One of the things that they do is just to confirm that everything is okay and the user has received it and the product and everything is okay, but all the documentation should be supplied, of course, by the Project Manager and they just want to confirm that it’s handed over. That’s what I’m getting at.
06:40 – It could be done by the Senior User. Why is it by the Executive?
06:44 – Because, I suppose, they’re accountable for the project. Okay.
06:50 – Yeah. They’re the one who is behind the budget.
06:53 – So, yes, the Executive here in this case just wants to confirm that the main product was delivered and even though the way I, of course, raised the question, you probably think it’s more of a quality question.
07:04 – So we see this as more of a contract point of view, you know, more than a quality point of view and perhaps that’s where you went off in one direction because I came at it from a quality point of view, but that’s how questions will be raised. Okay.
07:20 – So if the product is accepted then, the supplier can be paid and users can start using the product to start realizing the benefits.
07:27 – So they’ve got no excuses anymore, they’ve got to go ahead and use the product.
07:31 – Our next scenario. During the Starting Up a Project process, the Project Manager will hold a number of workshops and they will invite different people such as users to extract the customer quality expectations and the acceptance criteria.
07:46 – Now, is this appropriate or should the Senior User team or role already provide these requirements upfront?
07:57 – I don’t know what PRINCE2 says, but I always say that the Project Managers should facilitate this or the project management team.
08:05 – Instead of expecting people such as Senior Users or User Representatives to give you the information, just ask them questions and translate them to the type of information you need.
08:16 – For example, the acceptance criteria. That’s my idea. How is it in PRINCE2?
08:23 – Well, before I answer, I want to ask another question.
08:26 – You would think that normally a Project Manager is there to facilitate and they would, in the real world, they will bring in a business analyst and they would extract.
08:36 – Why isn’t that mentioned in the PRINCE2 manual?
08:40 – Well, in the past, a business analyst was a role really limited to IT projects unfortunately. Oh, okay.
08:48 – Yeah, and PRINCE2 wants to be a generic project management methodology.
08:52 – Maybe that’s why it is removed. Even I remember in DSDM, there is a role of business analyst in DSDM and it has many responsibilities.
09:03 – Even he is responsible for composing the Business Case, if I’m not wrong.
09:09 – Also, the items that we’re going to create, but anyway, in the previous versions of DSDM, I exactly remember that it said that this role is needed when you have IT projects.
09:22 – So even they believe that it’s not needed in other types of projects, but nowadays many people are starting to think that we need to have business analysts in every type of project, and I really think it’s a great idea.
09:37 – The first time I realized it was when I was just curious and I started reading the BABOK, Business Analyst Body Of Knowledge.
09:48 – That’s probably the most important, most popular resource for business analysis, and it was great.
09:55 – I loved it. That’s extremely helpful for a Project Manager and there’s a huge overlap between what we do in project management and what is defined in business analysis.
10:05 – So what happens is that this body of knowledge for business analysis actually adds more expertise to a certain part of project management activities for us.
10:19 – Yeah. You also mentioned it was quite agile in its approach as well.
10:22 – It was not stiff where everything had to be done at the beginning, all the requirements had to be done at the beginning, but business analysis is something which is done throughout the project.
10:31 – So in that case, it would fit very well in PRINCE2. It’s really continuous, yeah, yeah.
10:36 – So there’s a lot to do there and that’s one of the things that I hope will change in the future.
10:43 – We will have more business analysis experts in projects.
10:47 – Also, we have new publications and new certificates for that in PMI. Okay, alright.
10:54 – Following that new trend. I think that’s important.
10:58 – The other problem, exactly related to your previous question is that in many companies that do IT projects, they already have business analysts. Yeah.
11:08 – But many of them, really what they do is that they go to different people, talk to them, and ask them for different things and they just take notes, and if there’s a problem, they will go back and ask the question again. They just transcribe.
11:24 – That’s not business analysis. The business analyst gets data, analyzes them, and turns them into information that we need in the project. Never expect the people. In the Product Descriptions.
11:37 – For example, yes. Never expect people outside the project management Domain.
11:45 – domain to give you the exact information you need to use.
11:51 – Yeah. They know it from their point of view. Yeah. From more of a functional point of view.
11:54 – Yeah. Use their information, use their expertise, and then create the information that you need.
12:00 – That’s my idea. Okay. Alright. So the Senior User may have a good idea of the requirements, but they have no experience of putting this on paper, especially in a way that perhaps other people can understand or developers or people who want to create the products.
12:13 – So, they need help to put this into documents such as the Project Product Description and the Product Description documents, and the Project Manager is there to facilitate these workshops, extract this data, invite along the correct Team Managers who have the correct expertise to help to extract that data and then give feedback on what’s possible and not possible.
12:38 – So, we don’t build a huge scope or try to build something that we can never build.
12:43 – Our next scenario. So here we have a project where the Project Manager has very little domain knowledge, so not much knowledge about the expertise in that domain, let’s say.
12:54 – The Project Manager informs the Project Board that they will need support of Team Managers, in other words, the subject matter experts, to help document the product descriptions.
13:04 – Is that an appropriate thing for the Project Manager to do or should we get another Project Manager for that project?
13:11 – That’s a great question. I believe that it’s absolutely okay and that’s the right way.
13:16 – The Project Manager facilitates, they bring in experts from different areas, and generate the information they need.
13:25 – Again, in the past, the Project Managers used to be experts, technical experts, who were promoted to be Project Managers, so they already knew all of that. Yeah.
13:37 – But nowadays we try to turn project management into a profession and when we do that, they won’t … Discipline, yeah.
13:43 – Yeah. They won’t know all the technical aspects.
13:47 – They just facilitate, bring in people and let them generate the information that are needed for the project, and I always say that there are three types of people when it comes to project management.
13:59 – One type say that the Project Manager should know the technical aspects of the project. That’s very old-fashioned.
14:06 – The second type say that they don’t have to know the technical aspects, but it’s a good idea if they do. Yeah. That’s PMI. Okay.
14:15 – Strangely enough, that’s what PMI says, and there’s a very small third group who say that it’s even better for the Project Manager if they don’t know the technical aspects.
14:26 – That’s for really, really interesting people. Okay.
14:32 – Like me, but that’s important because when you are the Project Manager and you know the technical aspects and you see that some people are doing it incorrectly or not perfectly, you can’t stop yourself. Yeah.
14:49 – You will get yourself involved.
14:51 – You start coding at night or you use yourself as a buffer to catch up, which of course is the wrong thing to do.
14:57 – Yeah. I’ve been there. I know how it works. You just can’t stop that.
15:02 – So, what happens is that you get yourself involved in the technical aspects, into the day-to-day activities, and you will forget about project management activities. That’s a problem.
15:12 – Okay. Good. So, yes, this is a good idea for the Project Manager, a little domain knowledge to invite people who have actually that knowledge and can bring it to the project and create better product descriptions. So, it’s a good idea.
15:27 – Our next scenario. During a large data mining project, the Project Manager is really very busy in the Initiation Stage and they ask a Team Manager for help, so to help them prepare and maintain the Quality Register and the quality records because this takes some time and it’s very important for the project.
15:46 – Is that an appropriate thing for the Project Manager to ask a Team Manager to do?
15:52 – Doesn’t it create conflict of interest? Is it possible? Yes, and why? How do you see that?
16:00 – Because the Team Manager is leading the team that is creating the product and the quality of that product will be registered there, so Yeah, yeah.
16:12 – So what would you say? No? Well, there’s a conflict of interest, correct, but it’s also not part of the job description for a Team Manager to help out either the Project Manager.
16:20 – There is a role for that and it’s called Project Support, and that’s the role that should be going on.
16:26 – So what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to mix roles and that’s not a good idea.
16:31 – What if we say that the same person can have both roles?
16:34 – Both the Team Manager role and the Project Support role?
16:38 – Okay. Now you’re trying to catch me out, which is not very fair because this is live television.
16:42 – Okay, no, it’s a good point. There then, we go back to your first one, which is conflict of interest.
16:48 – Conflict of interest, yeah. Because the Team Manager could be creating a product to get a quality test and then they have access to the Quality Register. That just doesn’t go. Okay.
16:58 – So, in fact, then the Project Manager should not be asking a Team Manager for help with this.
17:03 – They should be asking Project Support and in fact, the Team Manager should have no direct access to the Quality Register, I mean no edit access. They can probably review it, but no edit access.
17:16 – The Team Manager … what? Coffee?
17:19 – I’ve got one more thing to say and then we will go. Oh, sorry.
17:23 – So, the Team Manager is basically, remember, they’re responsible for producing the products to the quality level expected and that’s what they should be focused on.
17:33 – Now ask the question again? Now we can focus on having coffee.
17:35 – Yeah, good, okay. Alright. See you in a while.

We’ll continue the Quality theme in the next lesson.

Scenarios/questions we’ve discussed in this lesson

Scenario: During a project, a senior user advises the PM to focus more on quality towards the project handover in the CP process, as users want a quality product. Is this appropriate to focus more on quality towards the end of a project?
Scenario: A senior supplier on a project is an external account manager from the main supplier used in the project and has lots of experience with similar projects. This senior supplier will therefore provide the customer’s quality expectations and acceptance criteria for the project product description. Is this appropriate?
Scenario: During the initiation stage of a project, the executive says they will be responsible for confirming acceptance of the product at the end of the project, as they want to make sure it is delivered as expected. Is this appropriate?
Scenario: During the SU process of a project, the PM will hold a number of workshops with users to extract and document the customer’s quality expectations and acceptance criteria. Is it appropriate for the PM to do this, or should the senior user provide this information up front?
Scenario: The PM informs the project board that they will need the support of team managers to document the product descriptions, as they are subject matter experts. Is this appropriate, or should the PM get more help from the senior user?
Scenario: During the initiation stage of a large data mining project, the PM asks a team manager to help prepare and maintain the quality register and the quality records as they do not have the time to do this work themselves. Is this appropriate?

Lesson 17: Quality, Part 2

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