Do It Right

Vincent is a Senior Project Management Consultant and e-Learning Developer.

  Requirements Management   ProjectsAtWork  

Most would say it is a project’s team members, not the project manager, who create a quality product. They believe that quality means doing quality work, or, that it can be tested in. But, in fact, the project manager has a lot to contribute towards a quality product, starting with the schedule and communication.

It is incumbent on the project manager to assure the delivery of a quality end product. An unfortunate reality is that many projects fail because the quality of the end product is not acceptable. However, few project managers have direct experience in a quality role. So here we will address what a project manager can do to assure that quality is built in.

What is quality?

A fairly common definition of quality comes from management theorist Philip Crosby, who was quality control manager of the Pershing missle program: Quality is conformance to requirements. It is a well-known definition, with a few words that are catchy and easy to remember. However, if you asked what “conformance to requirements” really means, you would probably get some hesitation or a blank stare. Most would expect it to be self-explanatory, in which case, they don’t really understand it.

The key word in this definition is requirements. Crosby means a lot more than just a specification or a feature list describing the end product. Rather, he is talking about all …

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