8.1.1 Inputs to Quality Planning

.1 Quality policy. Quality policy is "the overall intentions and direction of an organization with regard to quality, as formally expressed by top management" [4]. The quality policy of the performing organization can often be adopted "as is" for use by the project. However, if the performing organization lacks a formal quality policy, or if the project involves multiple performing organizations (as with a joint venture), the project management team will need to develop a quality policy for the project.
  Regardless of the origin of the quality policy, the project management team is responsible for ensuring that the project stakeholders are fully aware of it (e.g., through appropriate information distribution, as described in Section 10.2).

.2 Scope statement. The scope statement (described in Section 5.2.3.1 ) is a key input to quality planning since it documents major project deliverables, as well as the project objectives that serve to define important stakeholder requirements.

.3 Product description. Although elements of the product description (described in Section 5.1.1.1 ) may be embodied in the scope statement, the product description will often contain details of technical issues and other concerns that may affect quality planning.

.4 Standards and regulations. The project management team must consider any application area-specific standards or regulations that may affect the project. Section 2.5.1 discusses standards and regulations.

.5 Other process outputs. In addition to the scope statement and product description, processes in other knowledge areas may produce outputs that should be considered as part of quality planning. For example, procurement planning (described in Section 12.1 ) may identify contractor quality requirements that should be reflected in the overall quality management plan.

8.1.2 Tools and Techniques for Quality Planning

.1 Benefit/cost analysis. The quality planning process must consider benefit/cost tradeoffs, as described in Section 5.2.2.2 . The primary benefit of meeting quality requirements is less rework, which means higher productivity, lower costs, and increased stakeholder satisfaction. The primary cost of meeting quality requirements is the expense associated with project quality management activities. It is axiomatic of the quality management discipline that the benefits outweigh the costs.

.2 Benchmarking. Benchmarking involves comparing actual or planned project practices to those of other projects to generate ideas for improvement and to provide a standard by which to measure performance. The other projects may be within the performing organization or outside of it, and may be within the same application area or in another.

.3 Flowcharting. A flowchart is any diagram that shows how various elements of a system relate. Flowcharting techniques commonly used in quality management include:

   Cause-and-effect diagrams, also called Ishikawa diagrams or fishbone diagrams, which illustrate how various factors might be linked to potential problems lems or effects. Figure 8-2 is an example of a generic cause-and-effect diagram.

   System or process flowcharts, which show how various elements of a system interrelate. Figure 8-3 is an example of a process flow chart for design reviews.

  Flowcharting can help the project team anticipate what and where quality problems might occur, and thus can help to develop approaches to dealing with them.

.4 Design of experiments. Design of experiments is a statistical method that helps identify which factors might influence specific variables. The technique is applied most frequently to product of the project (e.g., automotive designers might wish to determine which combination of suspension and tires will produce the most desirable ride characteristics at a reasonable cost).
  However, it can also be applied to project management issues, such as cost and schedule tradeoffs. For example, senior engineers will cost more than junior engineers, but can also be expected to complete the assigned work in less time. An appropriately designed "experiment" (in this case, computing project costs and durations for various combinations of senior and junior engineers) will often allow determination of an optimal solution from a relatively limited number of cases.

.5 Cost of quality. Cost of quality refers to the total cost of all efforts to achieve product/service quality, and includes all work to ensure conformance to requirements, as well as all work resulting from nonconformance to requirements. There are three types of costs that are incurred: prevention costs, appraisal costs, and failure costs, where the latter is broken down into internal and external costs.

8.1.3 Outputs from Quality Planning

.1 Quality management plan. The quality management plan should describe how the project management team will implement its quality policy. In ISO 9000 terminology, it should describe the project quality system: "the organizational structure, responsibilities, procedures, processes, and resources needed to implement quality management" [5].
  The quality management plan provides input to the overall project plan (described in Section 4.1, Project Plan Development) and must address quality control, quality assurance, and quality improvement for the project.
  The quality management plan may be formal or informal, highly detailed, or broadly framed, based on the requirements of the project.

.2 Operational definitions. An operational definition describes, in very specific terms, what something is and how it is measured by the quality control process. For example, it is not enough to say that meeting the planned schedule dates is a measure of management quality; the project management team must also indicate whether every activity must start on time, or only finish on time; whether individual activities will be measured, or only certain deliverables, and if so, which ones. Operational definitions are also called metrics in some application areas.

.3 Checklists. A checklist is a structured tool, usually item specific, used to verify that a set of required steps has been performed. Checklists may be simple or complex. They are usually phrased as imperatives ("Do this"!) or interrogatories ("Have you done this"?). Many organizations have standardized checklists available to ensure consistency in frequently performed tasks. In some application areas, checklists are also available from professional associations or commercial service providers.

.4 Inputs to other processes. The quality planning process may identify a need for further activity in another area.