Tracking and Monitoring
To assess project performance, the project manager looks at the past and into the future. Looking at the past, or tracking, gives the project manager an understanding of where the project is currently and uncovers any problems or oversights. Looking into the future, or monitoring, gives the project manager an understanding of where the project will be in the future based on previous performance to date. Together, tracking and monitoring enable the project manager to “get a bearing” on the project and steer it in the right direction.
Tracking and monitoring play a key role in certification, especially if time-to-market is essential. If tracking and monitoring reveal a negative condition, the project manager can quickly determine if and what action is necessary to improve project performance.
Contingency Planning
As mentioned earlier, the project manager performs a risk assessment. Not only is the risk assessment necessary for estimating and scheduling, it is also important to respond appropriately to circumstances not directly incorporated in the project plan.
Contingency planning enables the project manager to respond to an expected circumstance that had a low likelihood of occurrence (e.g., failure to imple ment certain quality control processes).
Replanning
Occasionally, circumstances arise on a project that were not anticipated and renders the plan obsolete. Replanning then becomes necessary. But replanning is not free. It
slows the momentum of the project, reduces production, increases costs, and adds anxiety to team members. It is important, therefore, that the project manager determine the impact of replanning before taking such a drastic action.
LEADING
Although listed as the fourth function of project management, it is by no means the least important. Arguably, it could be the most important for it is the only function that occurs simultaneously with the other functions.
Leading a project requires:
§ Providing vision
§ Communicating
§ Maintaining direction
§ Motivating
§ Being supportive
§ Building a team atmosphere
Providing Vision
The project manager leads by giving team members a sense of purpose and direction.
To some extent, the project manager does so by developing an SOW and a schedule.
The project manager must also continuously “paint” that vision in the minds of the project participants.
This is no small task for a project manager of an ISO 9000 project. Because of the length of the project and the nebulous nature of “certification,” people have a difficult time keeping the vision clearly in the forefront. The project manager must assume the responsibility for keeping that vision ever present in everyone’
s mind.
Communicating
People on the project team must be continually kept abreast about their own work, in particular, and about the project, in general. The project manager plays the central role to keep communications ongoing. To some extent, the project manager does that by holding meetings, distributing the project manual, and publishing responsibility matrices.
Communicating for ISO 9000 projects is not, however, as easy as it might seem. The number of participants can be large and their backgrounds diverse, especially as the size of the organization to be certified increases. The project manager must then be able to communicate the same messages to different audiences.
Maintaining Direction
Plans serve absolutely no function unless people follow them. The project manager leads by following up on whether the project occurs according to plan. However, the project manager also ensures that all activities focus on achieving the goals and objectives of the project. The project manager does that largely by holding status review meetings, collecting information about status, and taking necessary corrective actions.
ISO 9000 projects can easily succumb to scope creep, that is, expanding the boundaries of what a project must accomplish. Because QC processes can span multiple functions and organizations, the scope is easily expanded. The project manager must constantly perform “stewardship” to ensure that the project does not go beyond its original intent.
Motivating
First and foremost, the project manager motivates people. Motivation is difficult because the project manager frequently lacks direct control over people. For example, if many team members work in a matrix environment, the project manager lacks control. In addition, the project manager often deals with individuals and groups with greater “rank” or authority. Motivation best occurs if all the key players participate in planning, organizing, and controlling the project.
Being Supportive
The project manager facilitates by removing obstacles that hinder achieving goals and objectives. These obstacles might be something as tangible as acquiring better software or as ambiguous as political interference in the performance of specific tasks. In other words, the project manager leads by establishing an atmosphere where people can perform at their best by building an infrastructure to execute the plan.
Building a Team Atmosphere
Finally, the project manager leads by ensuring that all the people work together. On an ISO 9000 project, the number of participants can be large, especially if an entire organization seeks certification. The project team, sponsor, and customer must work together to have a successful project. To a large extent, the project manager leads in this regard by ensuring all the major participants are involved in planning and controlling the project.
POOR MILEAGE?
ISO 9000 certification is becoming popular throughout the world, in general, and the IS community, in particular, is starting to give it the same attention as it did with the SEI CMM. Ironically, many IS organizations strive for quality in an unqualitative way.
They pursue certification like a poorly tuned engine; very little mileage is gained per the amount of gas consumed. The IS organization may reach its destination but at a
price that far exceeds the value of the results attained. Project management is the tune-up that many ISO 9000 projects need to improve the mileage.
NOTE
1. Quality Progress, October 1995, pp. 71–72
Chapter 11: SEI CMM or ISO 9000: Which Is Right for Your Organization?
Polly Perryman Kuver
OVERVIEW
There are two methodologies that organizations are using to declare their commitment to quality. These methodologies are ISO 9000 and SEI CMM. While these methodologies may not be thought of as tools, they each possess the characteristics of tools. That is, they are used to construct, maintain, and refine the essential ele ments of quality for products produced in an environment. Both the ISO
9000 Standards and the SEI CMM provide separate and distinct sets of guidelines for attaining and measuring quality. As such, each of them in their own way has caused the redefinition of quality.
No longer is quality considered an illusive term in the software community, promised by many, delivered by few. Quality is no longer just about testing software. Both the ISO 9000 Standards and the SEI CMM set forth guidelines that force the establishment of processes and procedures that extend well beyond testing and even beyond the MIS, IT, IS, and data processing organizations.
Each of these sets of guidelines, while developed independently of each other, is designed to resolve specific proble ms for the developers and customers. Both sets of guidelines are based on the premise that if an organization has good business procedures that can be reviewed, assessed, and graded, then the organization can be determined to produce quality products. The question it raises is: Do process and procedures, even when adhered to, really ensure quality? The answer is, unrefutably, no.
Managing quality goes beyond the institutionalization of processes. While a good quality management program will have defined and repeatable processes, what must really be defined are the quality goals as they pertain to a company’
s specific
business. That means that before quality processes are defined, the company will have performed the analysis necessary to determine what the characteristics and attributes of quality are for their products, their customers, and their environment.
The success of the quality program will lie in the clear definition of productivity and quality goals, a solid explanation of the value in achieving the goals, and both formal and informal communication about all the aspects of the goals. The approach for any quality program must be commitment, consistency, and willingness to continuously improve.
To really have an active and successful quality management program, the culture of the company must be aware of the investment that will be required and the benefits of the program to them. This is accomplished by defining and measuring quality in products and people as well as processes. All of this has to be done considering the environment in which the company operates and the nature of the competition. The inherent danger in using ISO Standards and the CMM lies in producing the procedures and the paperwork that allow certification or rating to be granted without
providing the education and integrating the processes into the corporate culture to ensure real quality.
Unfortunately, as consumers demand more proof of quality, organizations feel pressure to achieve the ISO 9000 certification or SEI CMM rating in order to make the company look good. More and more organizations are trying to determine how to make either or both of these quality management structures work for them.