Lesson 19: Quality, Part 4

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 – So welcome back to the Quality Theme.
00:09 – Just to let you know that the fly has been coaxed out of the room and no flies or insects have been damaged in the making of this film. Okay? Yeah.
00:19 – So our next scenario is where a Project Manager wants to introduce the following system for quality reviews. So they have thought about this, and what they want to do is organize product review meetings with users, so regular product review meetings, and go over the product acceptance criteria and offer a demo of the new products being created.
00:41 – Then after the meeting, type up the minutes of the meeting and include any user feedback and confirm that products have been accepted and so on.
00:49 – Is that an appropriate thing to do or is the Project Manager perhaps missing something in that approach?
00:57 – Sounds really good to me. I don’t know if they’re missing something.
01:02 – What are they missing? They’re not missing anything.
01:06 – They have really tailored the approach to suit themselves and it’s very in line with what PRINCE2 actually tries to get across. Okay.
01:13 – So there’s no catch there. You asked the question. Yeah.
01:16 – Asked what’s missing there. Yeah. Nothing. Alright.
01:20 – So, the Project Manager has a number of options for how they want to get products signed off and get products demo’s to users and so on, and for proof that everything has been handed over correctly, again they have a number of different options. They can use minutes of meetings, which they have used in this example, perhaps emails from the person who did the quality check on the document that says that product X has passed the quality test.
01:46 – They can ask for a signed form or even go and gather a certificate, let’s say, if they’ve got an outside product in order to make sure that it has a lasting life of 21 years, so we need a certificate to show that, so we can bring that in as well.
02:02 – It’s good for the Project Manager to have a system for this or a process for this and this, of course, should be defined in the QMA document and the Project Manager should be consistent as well, so always use a similar approach.
02:13 – That makes things more smoother. Now the next question.
02:17 – The Quality Assurance person or the role, the Quality Assurance role, advises the Executive and the Project Manager that according to their interpretation of PRINCE2, that the quality review technique meeting must meet …
02:30 – sorry, quality review technique should be used during a PRINCE2 project.
02:36 – Is that appropriate for the Quality Assurance person to say?
02:40 – So we have two questions combined here.
02:43 – One is if it is necessary to have quality review technique and the second one is that if it’s a good idea for the Project Assurance to tell them that Don’t worry about the second one there. Focus on the first one.
02:55 – Okay. The second one was easier. Yeah. I want to say that, yeah, that’s a good idea. Yeah.
03:01 – Because it’s about the way we work and that’s a good thing for the Quality Assurance to remind people how to work. Alright, yeah.
03:08 – Now, for the first one. Is it necessary to have quality review technique in a PRINCE2 project?
03:15 – Is it necessary or just highly recommended? I would say it’s necessary.
03:23 – Okay. PRINCE2 says that it’s a good idea to use the quality review technique and if you don’t have another review technique in place, then you should use it, but if you do have another similar approach, then obviously use that one.
03:37 – So the QR technique is not mandatory and as I said before, whatever system you use for reviewing products, it should be documented in the QMA document.
03:49 – The next scenario. Quality Assurance person again advises the Project Manager that the QR …
03:59 – the quality review technique has certain benefits.
04:02 – By using it, it can bring certain benefits to the organization during the project.
04:07 – So I’m going to read out four and one of these or two of these may be incorrect. Okay? Alright.
04:12 – Good. So the first one is improves stakeholder engagement.
04:17 – Second one, improves quality culture.
04:21 – Third, guarantees that the products will pass the quality tests, and four, helps to improve the overall documentation of quality in the project.
04:31 – So did you spot any of these that might be incorrect?
04:35 – They all seem fine to me except for the third one. Which was?
04:40 – The guarantee, we cannot guarantee that it will pass. Of course.
04:43 – We want to know if it passes the quality tests.
04:47 – Yeah. And again be careful of the word “all.” So let’s look at them again.
04:51 – So improve stakeholder engagement. That’s correct because it tells everybody about the importance of quality, and getting people involved to do their work. It improves the culture, which is very similar actually to stakeholder engagement, and it improves the overall documentation is correct because people will spend more time creating this because it will be read and used and filed, and used in the future, so that’s important as well.
05:19 – Now guarantees that products will pass the quality tests. Of course not, that’s impossible.
05:24 – It can help a lot to improve because people will spend more time discussing quality and the people who develop the products will be focusing on meeting the quality requirements, so it can help a lot, but it cannot guarantee. And the last one?
05:38 – That was it. We discussed the I did the four. All four of them? Yeah. Okay. I think so.
05:42 – What was it about the culture?
05:45 – It also helps to improve the culture as well, the quality culture.
05:49 – I mean what does it mean by the quality culture?
05:52 – I think the goal of PRINCE2 is to make everybody aware that we’re trying to produce usable products and maybe in the requirement stage of the project, it’s up to the team and Project Manager to drag a lot more information out, to keep asking questions, to keep asking why, why, why, and the Senior Users might get annoyed. They’ll say, “Well, these are my requirements.
06:12 – Just go ahead and I want to use the product. Get back as quick as possible,” but they may not know that by asking better information, this is quality data which we can use. I’ll give you an example.
06:24 – I think we used this example already. Let’s say if the user says, “I would like to have fast results when I do a search on my new application I’m going to get.” Okay, so they have a good understanding of what fast means to them, but to everybody else in the whole world, they have got no idea what fast means. So let’s define it.
06:41 – So how can we ask another question in order to define that requirement a bit better?
06:46 – And that question can be, “What is fast for you? How many seconds? Is it 10 seconds? 15 seconds?” “No, no, it’s 2 seconds.” Okay, let’s write that down as a quality criteria and include it, and so then the people would appreciate that these questions are asked and they’ll give a lot more information." Can we say that the quality culture, the correct quality culture is for everyone to participate in the quality activities?
07:13 – Yeah, and to realize what it is and how important it is and how we’re tracking it and how to demo it even to show it. Yeah.
07:22 – Good. So staying on the topic of quality review technique, there’s a small project and the Senior User decides to take on the role of both Chair and Review.
07:36 – So there are four roles in a quality review meeting, but they want to take on the Chair and the Review.
07:41 – Is that a good idea or not? It’s the Senior User.
07:47 – Somebody from the user side. It’s a good thing for the Senior User to do the review because that’s a type of user acceptance test and they know a lot. Yeah, it’s good, yeah.
07:57 – So for the reviewer, that’s a good thing. For the Chair, now it depends on what exactly the Chair does in PRINCE2 review technique. What does it do?
08:07 – Okay. It’s supposed to be an independent person who sets up the meeting, makes sure that everyone is available, perhaps sends out a reminder of what the acceptance criteria is going to be discussed at the meeting beforehand and make that available, but this is supposed to be independent and not either trying to shove products through or not, you know, or trying to get more out of it. So that’s the workshop facilitator. Yeah. Okay. So Doing the facilitation role. Yeah. Therefore, the Chair is focused on the context of the workshop and the Reviewer is focused on the content of the workshop.
08:42 – In other resources, it’s really recommended to keep them separate. Okay.
08:48 – Because it might be distracting for the person.
08:51 – It’s not forbidden for the same person to do both of them, but it’s a bad idea actually.
08:57 – Alright, bad idea, alright. Yeah. This actually also relates to another question in that there are four roles in a quality review meeting, but they can be combined, two of them can be combined. So we can have a quality review meeting with just two people.
09:11 – So if we know which roles can be combined, then we can answer this question.
09:16 – That’s the idea. Okay. How is it? Okay. I can see that.
09:20 – So a quality review meeting, as I said, can be carried out by a minimum of two people.
09:24 – So one can take the Chair and Reviewer, that’s what the Senior User was trying to do, and the other is a presenter and administrator taking notes.
09:32 – So that could be like somebody from the team side, so they will take notes on what has been going on.
09:38 – Okay. So it is possible or is a good idea in this case.
09:42 – So the minimum is having two people, one from the supplier’s side and one from the customer’s side.
09:47 – The one from the customer’s side also manages the workshop and the one from the supplier’s side takes notes as well. Takes notes, yeah.
09:54 – Because that’s difficult and boring. Yeah.
09:58 – But often time you might automatically think that the facilitator takes the notes, but no, that’s not correct.
10:03 – Yeah. Yeah. So that’s the confusing part. Alright.
10:07 – Now let’s look at an example of where the Project Manager is trying to find people to take on the quality review roles for the quality review meeting.
10:17 – So the Project Manager knows that they must have an independent person to do the Chair.
10:21 – So they cannot do this themselves because it’s not fair because it’s their interest, there would be conflict of interest.
10:26 – So they agree with another Project Manager, who works in a different project, that they come and chair their meetings and they will go and chair their meetings.
10:37 – So, is that an appropriate thing to do?
10:40 – I think that’s a great idea, it’s a great practice, because the Chair is working on the context of the workshop and has to be independent and the other Project Manager doesn’t know a lot about that project, doesn’t have a direct interest. Yeah.
10:55 – So, that’s a good idea. They’d be more independent.
10:58 – Yeah, and also they probably know how to facilitate because that’s one of the things we expect from a Project Manager. Yeah.
11:04 – You know, it’s not only about planning and that type of thing. Facilitation skills.
11:08 – Yeah. And they can also learn from each other.
11:11 – That’s true. Yeah. It spreads quality awareness as well.
11:14 – So, that’s logical, what you say. What do you think PRINCE2 says in this situation?
11:20 – I expect it to say the same thing. Alright, good, good. Does it? Yes, it does actually.
11:24 – It even goes a step further. It even says that you can use other Project Managers or other Team Managers from other projects as well to do the chairing of those meetings, and this can all help, of course, to build awareness around quality as well. So it is a good idea.
11:43 – Next one. I think this is the last one on the quality review meeting, which you’ll be happy about. Oh finally!
11:49 – The reviewer notifies the chairperson who organized the meeting.
11:52 – So the reviewer comes from the Senior User side, let’s say.
11:56 – So they notify the chairperson that they’re going to be or two days before the meeting that they’re not going to be able to make it.
12:02 – So the chairperson would like to continue with the meeting and they said, “Well, okay. Just send over a list of questions that you were going to ask and I will represent you during this meeting.” Is that an appropriate thing for the chairperson to do according to PRINCE2?
12:19 – I don’t like it because the main goal of the workshop is for people to make sure that the product has the right quality, and it’s about the quality of the quality review technique.
12:32 – So, it’s not about doing things as quickly as possible.
12:36 – It’s about the insurance we have there … assurance we have there.
12:39 – So, I would say no. Find a way to bring the person and do a real quality review.
12:45 – Okay, alright, alright. In this case then, the manual PRINCE2 would differ slightly from you.
12:50 – It goes off-track. What a pity. Yeah.
12:53 – So, the chairperson can represent the reviewer.
12:57 – So the chairperson can ask for a list of questions and represent them at the meeting.
13:01 – However, another better idea would be to ask the Senior User to send another person in their place with the questionnaire and to go through it.
13:09 – So that would be better. Yeah, that’s better. Yeah. Okay.
13:12 – So now a question on quality tolerances.
13:15 – The scenario is we’re in a project and we’re at the end of the second stage, so in the Stage Boundary process, and the Executive sees that the tolerances for time, cost and risk are in the Project Plan document, but quality tolerances are not there. So they say to the Project Manager, “Can you also put the quality tolerances in the Project Plan?” Is this an appropriate thing for the Executive to ask or even for the Project Manager to do?
13:44 – Okay. There’s a table in the manual.
13:48 – You can always check to answer questions like this because tolerances are in different documents in PRINCE2. Yeah.
13:55 – And it may be a little difficult to remember, but for example, when you want to think about it like this, is the Project Plan the right place for the Stage Plan, the right place for quality tolerances and, well, you have to start thinking, is it one tolerance for everything or we have tolerances for separate products and, well, the answer is usually that it has to be for separate products.
14:21 – So we cannot put it in the Stage Plan or Project Plan.
14:24 – It has to be in the Product Description. Yeah.
14:29 – But anyway, you won’t have a problem about this.
14:32 – You can always check the table in your manual to answer this.
14:36 – Yeah. It’s a good idea to look at that, the table. Okay.
14:40 – So, the Executive is not 100% correct in this case.
14:43 – He is correct in saying that tolerances for time, cost, and risk should be in the Project Plan, but quality tolerances are defined in the product description themselves.
14:52 – So that’s the Project Product Description in the SU process and then all the other product descriptions we create for other products.
14:59 – So maybe it’s a good idea to send this Executive on a PRINCE2 course.
15:06 – Next one. So this is one where, yeah, it’s an exercise.
15:11 – So I don’t know how you want to play with this, but it’s an exercise and you can participate if you wish. I’ll try my best. Okay.
15:17 – But it’s mostly for you, the viewer. So I want to do an exercise on quality criteria.
15:23 – So our scenario is we have a couple from the UK with two young children, let’s say 9 and 10, a boy and a girl, and they want to go on a driving holiday in the north of Italy for two weeks.
15:34 – Now they’re going to fly from the UK to Milan and they’re going to rent a car, and I would like you to specify the quality requirements or specify the requirements for that car that they would get that would meet their expectations for two weeks and allow them to be able to use it, okay?
15:54 – So the guy might like to order a Ferrari, but there’s only two seats, so that’s not possible, that would be a bad experience for the whole family.
16:01 – So, take about 5 or 10 minutes to list what you would think are all the quality requirements that they would have, okay?
16:10 – Can you try out something in the meantime while they are doing that?
16:14 – Yeah. Well, it has to have enough space for the people and the luggage and everything. Okay.
16:22 – It has to be comfortable because it’s a long drive.
16:25 – Yeah. They’re going to drive all around the north of Italy, yes, yeah.
16:29 – Yeah. Then, we need to define what we mean by comfortable.
16:32 – So about the chairs, how smooth it goes. Yeah. It’s the summer as well, so Oh, yes. Air-conditioning is also helpful, very helpful. Yeah.
16:44 – And if it’s me, I would say automatic gear box. Yes, okay. I’m very lazy.
16:49 – Yeah, because going up the mountain roads, you don’t want to be always changing gears.
16:51 – Yeah. So automatic would be very nice. Yeah.
16:56 – And, well, if you don’t have a separate navigation system, then you may have to look for a car that does have a navigation system. Yeah.
17:08 – Also it’s a good idea to have a car that is easy to fix if you run into any problems on the road.
17:16 – Okay. So a local Italian car would be good. That would be a good idea, yeah.
17:21 – But if you get a German one, they won’t break down.
17:25 – Sorry, any Italians listening. I’m sorry, please excuse me.
17:31 – You also need some level of entertainment.
17:36 – So, maybe good speakers and a media player inside the car. You have two kids in the car, yeah.
17:41 – Also maybe, yeah, a video player for the kids in the back.
17:45 – Alright, well, that’s good. So let me just go through the ones … Was that enough?
17:48 – Yeah, yeah, it’s enough. Okay. So let’s see how the persons at home did as well.
17:51 – So I’ve written down the following. Air-co, I divided it, I’m also using the MoSCoW technique, so Must-Have and Should-Have as well. So the Must-Have’s are definitely air-co, that’s for sure.
18:03 – A Must-Have is a breakdown service as well, so as part of the agreement for renting a car.
18:08 – So if we do have a problem we get a replacement immediately because we’ve only got two weeks and we don’t want to spend a day on the side of the road or two days on the side of the road. It will really affect our holiday.
18:19 – Three would be USB connections for the kids in the car to recharge their phones while they’re viewing something.
18:26 – Four would be lots of room for luggage. These are all Must-Have’s, so they’re not in a particular order. They’re just all a must.
18:33 – Five is the one you mentioned in the beginning, a place for five people, so we have enough room then for four kids. Yeah? I thought there were four of them.
18:42 – Yeah, okay, but if it’s for five people car, then they have a bit more … They reproduce during the vacation?
18:47 – No, just a little bit more room. They won’t be crammed inside the car, you know. Okay.
18:51 – A model volume might be, that’s a type of car with a bit more space on the inside, and also have, out of the following, less than 35 Euro a day.
19:02 – Now it may seem a bit funny to put that in as a requirement, but it is a requirement and it’s a quality requirement that the car has to cost less than the stay.
19:11 – Other things then what you Should-Have could be automatic.
19:14 – It doesn’t have to be, but it’s nice to have.
19:16 – In your case, it would be definitely because you have one at the moment.
19:20 – Other one could be it has to be 2000 cc because you’re going up and down mountains.
19:25 – So it has to be fairly powerful. I have no idea what it is. I don’t know cars.
19:28 – And the other one could be a good Bluetooth stereo system.
19:32 – The reason why it’s not mandatory for me or a must is because the kids have their own hi-fi stuff they’re carrying in their ear, so it’s not really that important. Anyway, they listen to other music.
19:43 – So, it’s not really that important. Alright.
19:46 – Okay, so the focus in here is on fit for purpose.
19:49 – So we want to define a product that when we arrive, we can use a car and it’s fit for our purpose for two weeks.
19:55 – So that’s a good example of gathering requirements and we can have a product that we can use very well.
20:02 – The other important thing here is to understand the purpose because for different purposes Yes, of course.
20:08 – there are different things that fit.
20:10 – That’s very important because many people have an abstract idea of quality, the absolute quality that can apply to everything, but that is not the case is a project management system. No, no.
20:23 – We start with the customer quality expectations, which is related to the purpose of the product, and then we try to make it practical by defining the quality criteria, acceptance criteria. Yeah.
20:37 – Which one do you use? Quality criteria or acceptance criteria in PRINCE2?
20:42 – Acceptance criteria is used in the main product, but it’s more like a checklist which we use when we hand over at the end of the project, and quality criteria is used for each product description. Okay.
20:54 – It’s confusing. You should actually call it Main Product Description, but okay. Well.
20:59 – And that’s something that doesn’t that PRINCE2 doesn’t get across very, very well, is how that quality is done.
21:05 – So that example is a good one, but I really learned how PRINCE2 quality works when I did Scrum and I said, “Oh,” because you have your Post-It, which is your product, and on the back, you have all your quality requirements, but these are actually all requirements as well and if you think about it like that, it makes it much easier to think what PRINCE2 is trying to get across.
21:27 – Yeah, but it may be a little more difficult in other types of projects.
21:31 – Yes, yes, yeah. Maybe I’m simplifying it. Yeah.
21:34 – But it was very useful, that approach, the Scrum approach to quality.
21:42 – Okay. I think it’s time for Another coffee.
21:47 – Coffee, yeah. Alright. Great. See you.

The next lesson is the last one about the Quality theme!

Scenarios/questions we’ve discussed in this lesson

Scenario: The PM introduces the following system for quality reviews. They organize product review meetings with users, go over product acceptance criteria, and offer demonstrations. Then they write up the minutes of the quality review meeting and include user feedback. Is this appropriate, or should they sign a separate form?
Scenario: The quality assurance person advises the executive and the project manager that according to PRINCE2, they must use the quality review technique during the project. Is the quality assurance person correct?
Scenario: The quality assurance person advises the PM that the Quality Review technique has benefits such as the following:
- It improves stakeholder engagement.
- It improves the quality culture.
- It guarantees that products pass quality tests.
- It helps to improve quality documentation. Are all these benefits correct?
Scenario: In a small project, the senior user role decides to take on the role of both the chair and review roles during a quality review meeting. Is this appropriate?
Scenario: The PM finds it difficult to find a person to chair the quality review meetings. They agree with another PM to chair each other’s quality review meetings. Is this appropriate?
Scenario: A quality review meeting is being planned. The reviewer notifies the chairperson 2 days before the quality review meeting that they will not be able to make it. The chair role does not want to move the meeting and they ask the reviewer to send in a list of questions so that they can represent the reviewer at the QRT meeting. Is this appropriate?
Scenario: At the end of the second-stage boundary process, the executive sees that the tolerances for time, cost and risk are in the project plan but the quality tolerances are missing. Therefore, the executive asks the PM to add quality tolerances to the project plan ASAP, as this is a risk for the project. Is this appropriate?
Scenario: A UK couple and their two young kids wish to have a driving holiday in the north of Italy for 2 weeks. They intend to fly from the UK to Milan and then rent a car. Specify their quality requirements for a car so the car is fit for purpose for their vacation. Add about eight quality requirements. (Take 5 to 10 mins to do this.)

Lesson 19: Quality, Part 4

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