CHAPTER 2
Project Quality Initiation
A project normally begins with a potential project being identified. For our purposes, it does not matter where the idea originated—just that there is a potential project. Project quality initiation, therefore, begins with the identification of a potential project and ends with a signed authorization to proceed. Initiation is defined in the PMBOK© Guide as “the process of formally recognizing that a new project exists or that an existing project should continue into its next phase.”1 Project quality initiation is the first stage of the five-stage project quality process model, as depicted in Figure 2-1.
The quality context of the model shows that both the organization and the environment can impact the project. While some projects involve the interface of the organization and the environment, the five-stage structure of project processes usually remains the same. Whether the project involves organizational change or organizational stability, Figure 2-2 identifies the flowchart of activities entailed in this stage.
As discussed in Chapter 1, an effective project participant needs an understanding of the four quality pillars and an ability to use various project quality tools to complete specific project quality activities. These pillars, activities, and tools facilitate the movement from the initial identification of a potential project to the signed authorization to proceed with a project. Table 2-1 categorizes the project quality pillars, activities, and tools for the quality initiation stage into a project factors table.
This chapter will follow the order of project quality pillars and their sequenced activities in Table 2-1: (1) customer satisfaction, (2) process improvement, (3) fact-based management, and (4) empowered performance. These are the same four pillars of project quality introduced in Chapter 1. The first number of the listed activities corresponds to the appropriate project quality pillar, e.g., Activity 1.1 is associated with Pillar 1 and Activity 2.1 is associated with Pillar 2. The second number refers to the typical approximate chronological sequence of its execution within the pillar’s domain, although this sequential order may well vary with different projects, organizations, or industries. For example, 1.1 Assign Sponsor, normally comes before 1.2, Select Project Manager.
FIGURE 2-1 Five-Stage Project Quality Process Model
FIGURE 2-2 Project Quality Initiation Flowchart
TABLE 2-1 Project Quality Initiation Factors Table
| Pillars | Activities | Tools |
| 1. Customer Satisfaction | 1.1 Assign Project Sponsor 1.2 Select Project Manager 1.3 Identify and Prioritize Customer Expectations 1.4 Align Project with Organizational Objectives 1.5 Select Core Team Members 1.6 Determine Team Operating Principles |
Participant Readiness Assessment Participant Readiness Assessment House of Quality Participant Readiness Assessment |
| 2. Process Improvement | 2.1 Adopt or Develop Quality Policy 2.2 Flowchart the Overall Project 2.3 Identify Assumptions and Risks 2.4 Establish Knowledge Management Processes |
Flow Chart PDCA Model |
| 3. Fact-Based Management | 3.1 Agree to Make Fact-based Decisions 3.2 Identify Lessons Learned from the Past 3.3 Collect and Share Project Quality Initiation Lessons Learned |
Modes of Knowledge Conversion Plus Delta Model |
| 4. Empowered Performance | 4.1 Develop Ethical Work Culture Values 4.2 Select Project 4.3 Formally Commit to Project |
Ethical Work Culture Assessment Project Charter |
We have aimed our descriptions of the various activities at “middle of the road” projects. A leader of a complex, large, or unfamiliar project may need to use more detailed techniques. Likewise, a leader of a short, simple, familiar project may be able to streamline the techniques. We feel that a skilled leader can use our in-between level as a starting point and scale up or down. We also believe that leaders of even the smallest projects should understand the need for each activity we list before they streamline or they are likely to miss some essential project quality management activities.
FIRST PROJECT QUALITY PILLAR: CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Project quality initiation begins with the identification of internal customers or prospective project participants. This is often an iterative process. It starts with identifying a project sponsor and a project manager. These individuals should then work with the external customers to identify and prioritize expectations and to ensure that the prospective project is aligned with organizational objectives to avoid suboptimization. Once this process is complete, the sponsor and project manager will know enough to select the project’s core team members. The core team, with the project manager’s guidance, will then determine the team’s operating principles.
1.1 Assign Project Sponsor
The project sponsor, usually assigned by top management, will mentor the project manager and champion the project, help the project manager secure resources, and help remove obstacles to project progress. The sponsor should be a primary stakeholder. The sponsor needs to sell the project to top management. Often the sponsor is the person who most wants the project to be performed and will be the catalyst for proposing the project and getting it selected.
One tool for determining the project quality readiness of project sponsors, managers, and other key individuals is the Project Quality Participant Empowerment Readiness Assessment (PERA) Instrument included as Appendix A. The PERA measures the perceived relative level of technical task maturity, administrative psychosocial maturity, and participant moral maturity that prospective sponsors, managers, and team members have. Using a 360-degree feedback process provides a broader set of judgments that is more likely to select and support project participants who will successfully complete projects.
1.2 Select Project Manager
The project manager will be operationally responsible for most of the project planning and execution. The project manager, selected after PERA feedback, is the operational driver of the project who is charged with the responsibility to complete the task. He or she uses a variety of management styles to ensure project success by addressing levels of technological uncertainty, system complexity, and professional ethics compliance. To reduce risks to project quality, it is advisable to select a competent, experienced project manager along with a competent, experienced project sponsor. Joining a rookie sponsor with a rookie project manager raises the risk of project quality problems. Both the selection and conduct of the project sponsor and project manager will set an example for the remainder of the project participants.
1.3 Identify and Prioritize Customer Expectations
Project customer satisfaction is the primary strategic focus of the quality initiation stage. Working toward this goal requires identifying and prioritizing customer expectations. Doing so in turn requires extensive collection and analysis of customer feedback data.
Start by learning the customer’s working environment and the intended use of the project’s output. This may involve visiting the customer. It is important to remember that different users within the customer organization may have different expectations. The customer’s expectations (and, therefore, project requirements) will flow from the intended use to which the customer applies the project output.
Very early in the quality initiation stage, the project manager must understand and anticipate, at least at a high level, what the customer expects from the project. This is both to determine whether this potential project makes sense and should be selected, and to serve as the basis of more detailed understanding later.
One quality tool for identifying customer expectations and translating customer priorities into project specifications is the project house of quality, depicted in Figure 2-3.2
Building the house of quality for a project entails six basic steps:
Identify the customer’s project desires/expectations
Identify project technical features/specifications
Determine the relative strength of relationships between the customer’s expectations and project specifications, and interrelationships between project specifications
Conduct an evaluation of competing existing and potential projects
Obtain customer importance rankings to indicate relative priorities for determining key project selling points in comparison to competitive projects
Design in project specification priorities as voiced by the customer.
The project house of quality can also be used for several essential checks that the project team should perform on the customer’s expectations. These checks include completeness, accuracy, consistency, traceability, and whether a particular expectation is mandatory or optional.
1.4 Align Project with Organizational Objectives
Organizational strategic priorities vary over time; successful projects are usually those that are aligned in a timely fashion with prioritized organizational objectives. Organizational generic strategic objectives include:
Broad target cost leadership
Broad target differentiation
Narrow target focused low cost
A combination of low cost and high quality.
FIGURE 2-3 Project House of Quality
“Broad” and “narrow” targets refer to the competitive scope of business strategies, while “focused” refers to the niche segments of quality features (differentiation) or low expenditure (cost leadership). Projects that are congruent with cost-cutting business priorities, quality-differentiation business priorities, or some combination of cost/quality tradeoffs are aligned with system priorities and avoid wasteful suboptimization. In effect, while a large number of creative projects may be feasible, only those projects that are aligned with organization system objectives are worth initiating.
Project managers, therefore, must be adept at identifying and defining high-level business-related priorities and system criteria for success. They must be able to clearly communicate the business justification for the project, articulate stakeholder expectations, and build consensus around the scope and value of the project. This project alignment process is the precursor to selecting core project team members.
1.5 Select Core Project Team Members
A high-level understanding of external customer expectations and alignment with organizational objectives are the requirements that must be achieved with project resources. It is now time to select the core team members using the PERA feedback tool.
A project team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are equally committed to a common purpose, goals, and working approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Furthermore, a core project team differs from an ad hoc team in that the former ensures continuity of membership, preserving intact the resources of team talent from the beginning to the end of the project.
Ideally, these members will include a representative from most of the major disciplines that will be needed on the project; these core team members should be assigned for the entire project for the sake of continuity. When project team members are selected, consideration should be given to their individual personalities and the job responsibilities they will have, as well as to the interaction among various team members.
One common denominator on most projects is that time is at a premium. Therefore, it makes sense to ensure that project team members learn various time and stress management skills for coping with multiple priorities and deadlines. The project manager needs to ensure that team members have had similar project experience or be prepared to train them.
1.6 Determine Team Operating Principles
To maximize project performance, minimize conflicts, and generally make project work more enjoyable, the core team members will often determine team operating principles. Operating principles are guidelines and may be considered a charter for team interaction. A team charter is a document issued by the team outlining the conditions under which it is organized and defining its operational rights and privileges. It normally consists of a team values statement, a team mission statement, short- and long-term goals for team members, and a team operating agreement. Operating principles include how the team members will respect quality processes, how they will treat each other, team meeting planning and discipline, completion of work assignments, decision-making, and conflict resolution.
Some project teams that have worked together previously or that work for organizations with well-developed team methods may need only a few minutes to reaffirm existing team-operating principles. Others may need considerably more time to develop these guidelines. In any event, a team that functions well together is essential for achieving quality on any project. An explicitly endorsed team charter and explicit operating principles can be powerful guidelines and standards for quality team productivity.
Now that the needs of the customers are aligned with organizational priorities, key participants are selected, and operating principles are established, we turn our attention to the work process.
SECOND PROJECT QUALITY PILLAR: PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
Several process improvement activities should be performed during project quality initiation, as shown in Table 2-1. The project manager, sponsor, and core team need to adopt or develop a quality policy to ensure internal adherence to quality process improvement and external alignment with quality system standards. The main process improvement tasks in the project quality initiation stage are to flowchart the entire project process at a high level and to identify assumptions and risks. These tasks may be considered due diligence. Failure to perform either at this point is negligent and can dramatically increase the probability of undertaking a poor project or using a poor approach, both of which are quality problems. Next, the project manager, sponsor, and/or core team must establish a knowledge management process so that they can integrate past process lessons and consistently direct current knowledge acquisition processes.
2.1 Adopt or Develop Quality Policy
The core team needs to either adopt the quality policy of its parent organization (if it fits) or develop a project-specific quality policy if necessary. Typically, the quality policy identifies key objectives of products and services such as fitness for use, performance, safety, and dependability. Project managers, then, have the responsibility for defining, documenting, supporting, and communicating the quality policy of the organization and the project. Generally, part of the quality policy involves an internal and/or external audit program to determine if the activities and results of the quality system and the quality project are aligned.
2.2 Flowchart the Overall Project
Flowcharts are visual representations of how a process operates. At a minimum, flowcharts depict the starting and stopping points in a process, the activities performed, the decisions made, and the direction that materials, information, and people flow through the process.
A flowchart depicting the quality initiation stage is shown in Figure 2-2; flowcharts depicting each of the other quality stages will be shown in the next four chapters. The flowcharts developed during this quality initiation stage should be high level. The purpose is to show only enough detail so that the project team can determine the main approach its members will use to perform the project work, describe the work scope at a high level, and identify major project deliverables. This enables both the core team and the sponsor or client to sign a firm commitment so that both parties understand what will be accomplished. More detailed flowcharts are typically constructed during the planning stage.
2.3 Identify Assumptions and Risks
Quality on a project can suffer because either assumptions prove to be incorrect or known risk events happen. Identifying these potential problems at the outset can mitigate them. The sponsor and the core team should list the key assumptions they are making to ensure that both parties agree and to decrease the chance that faulty assumptions will lead to future quality problems. Both parties should then identify the major areas of the project in which they believe risk events are likely to occur.
Independently, the sponsor should define the level of risk he or she is willing to tolerate for each major area of the project and the core team members should estimate how much risk they believe exists in each of those areas. The goal of this simple analysis is to identify areas in which the core team believes the risk is higher than the sponsor is willing to tolerate. Identification of those gaps should lead to a different project approach, a better understanding of the chosen approach, or a higher risk tolerance on the sponsor’s part. The documentation of assumptions and risks should be included in the project charter.
2.4 Establish Knowledge Management Processes
Once the quality policy exists, the overall project is flowcharted, and pertinent assumptions and risks are identified, the project manager and core team need a model to integrate the past lessons and to direct current knowledge acquisition activities. The model of a learning organization that manages its knowledge-based assets through structured project processes to achieve sustainable global competitive advantage is the motivational bedrock of project initiation.3 Knowledge management tools that facilitate relevant organizational learning, as well as the production and sharing of knowledge, leverage the intellectual capital of organizations and accelerate the pace of directed innovation.4
The plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model depicted in Figure 2-4 is a knowledge management tool that provides direction. It starts with the “plan” step, during which a person will use his or her knowledge of a work process that needs to be improved, gather data about the current results of the process, select a potential improvement, and develop a plan to test the potential improvement. The “do” step occurs when the plan is piloted on a small scale and data are gathered to see if improvement occurs. The “check” step occurs when the process results from before and after the planned change are compared to determine the extent of improvement (if any). Finally, the “act” step can be to institutionalize the improvement if the results are good enough, to retest the improvement if the results are not yet good enough, and to return to the old process or a different test if the results are poor.
The PDCA can be used at several levels within a project. First, it can be used to incorporate improvements developed on previous projects into the new project right from the start. Second, it can be used to test new ideas at one project stage and incorporate them into a future stage. Finally, any project participant, on any process, at any point, can use a PDCA to attempt improvement.
FIGURE 2-4 Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Model
During this first stage of quality initiation, a project manager should plan the audits that will be used to help improve the project process. Also during this stage, the knowledge management goals should be stated. These should start with incorporating lessons from previous projects into the early plan for the current project.
Effective process improvement requires the third project quality pillar: fact-based management.
THIRD PROJECT QUALITY PILLAR: FACT-BASED MANAGEMENT
Fact-based management during quality initiation involves several activities, as shown in Table 2-1. Data will need to be collected and analyzed, producing accurate information or facts to be used for decision-making during each project stage. The first step is to reaffirm the norm of fact-based decisions and the use of quality tools to ensure reliable acquisition and use of data. The primary data to be used during the initiation stage consist of lessons learned both from previous projects and the quality initiation stage of the current project.
3.1 Agree to Make Fact-based Decisions
An important decision-making value is the individual and collective commitment to make fact-based decisions regarding project quality. To make fact-based decisions, the prevailing project norm means that the organization and the team must have the resources (including time) to determine what is factually true and the processes to ensure that members give voice to the truth.
To appreciate the importance of fact-based decisions with regard to project quality, it is useful to consider the alternatives of deciding without facts. Since the discovery process in uncovering facts is often prolonged, requiring mastery of many quality tools, many project managers and teams are tempted to make fiat-based rather that fact-based decisions. Irresponsible project managers and project teams may be tempted to make key decisions about project quality on the bases of subjective whims, unfounded intuitive hunches, or uncritical groupthink dynamics. Fact-based decisions, however, provide a self-correcting, truthful foundation for project quality decisions and provide an objective basis for project learning in the future.
3.2 Identify Lessons Learned from the Past
While individuals and teams can “reinvent the wheel” with each new project, it is preferable for an organization to store, retrieve, and transfer project lessons learned from its past. The lessons can be categorized into tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit lessons are subjective and practical while explicit lessons are objective and theoretical. Sometimes project managers with seniority in an organization and professional project experience can orally transfer their knowledge to newer project managers. Often, however, with rapid economic and organizational changes, the relevant lessons learned from the past may require other modes of project knowledge conversion, as indicated in Figure 2-5.
Socialization is an informal process of sharing tacit experience. For example, when project team members apprentice to a project manager, they learn through observation, imitation, and practice since language may not be a sufficient vehicle for transmission. Externalization is a formal process of articulating tacit knowledge into explicit concepts. In spoken and written words, tacit knowledge may take the form of metaphors, concepts, or equations in project management manuals or in handbooks for specific tasks or industries. Internalization is the absorption of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge though oral transmission of project lessons, systems document processes, or simulations. Combination is the process of systemizing explicit concepts into new explicit knowledge by analyzing, categorizing, and reconfiguring information (e.g., university project management education using databases and computer networks to supplement the lectures of professors). Each of these four modes of knowledge conversion has its place. A wise project manager will attempt to use all four to accelerate project learning.
FIGURE 2-5 Modes of Project Knowledge Conversion
Two traditions for identifying lessons learned are the professional (or content “what” experts) and the organizational (or process “how” experts). While there are tensions between the two, when both cooperate to reinforce each other, new project managers can rely on prior professional lessons about what should be done and prior organizational lessons about how it should be done to be operationally successful in this organization.
3.3 Collect and Share Project Quality Initiation Lessons Learned
One of the deliverables that is expected at the end of each project stage is a set of lessons learned from that stage. These lessons learned should be used both to improve future stages of this same project and to be part of the end-of-project documentation that will improve future projects. In addition, through sharing, the project participants contribute to sustaining a learning organization.
There are many ways to collect lessons learned. One simple method is called the plus-delta, an example of which is shown in Figure 2-6. This can be easily facilitated and can be used on a portion of a project as simple as a meeting or as complex as the entire project. The facilitator draws a large “T” on a flip chart with a plus sign (representing positive things) over the left crossbar and a large triangle (representing things to change) over the right crossbar. Then project participants state what they thought was positive and should be repeated during the future of this project or on future projects as well as negative things they feel should be changed in the future. The facilitator writes these on the flip chart. The wise leader will attempt to find obvious ways to use these ideas so participants will feel that their ideas are important. This motivates the participants and provides a natural transition into our last quality pillar: empowered performance.
FIGURE 2-6 Plus Delta Project Evaluation
FOURTH PROJECT QUALITY PILLAR: EMPOWERED PERFORMANCE
Project quality initiation ultimately requires empowered, committed, and principled performance from every project participant to persevere over time rather than prematurely abandon projects. To determine the likely sustainability of commitment in a particular organization, it is advisable to assess its ethical work culture values. Organizations in which fear and distrust prevail will eventually disempower project managers and undermine the best quality projects. Unless the integrity capacity of the organization can be developed, the next two steps of this phase—project selection and commitment—may not mean very much. If, however, the work culture is sufficiently morally developed to respect principled project selection choices and will honor formal commitments to projects, it is worthwhile to proceed.
4.1 Develop Ethical Work Culture Values
Developing an ethical work culture that values responsible project initiation ensures support for project quality. Individuals, teams, and organizations that value different levels of moral development enhance or inhibit successful project quality. Those that morally prize the direct and/or indirect use of force as the determinant of workplace norms value a context of manipulation. This allows fear to determine project quality levels. Those that morally prize conformity to internal operating procedures and external legal/regulatory authority value a context of compliance. This implicitly endorses management by conventional authorities rather than management by fact. Finally, those that morally prize democratic participation and universal principles value a context of committed integrity capacity.5 This allows reasonable, fact-based evidence rather than power or conventional authority to determine project quality levels.
Many unsound projects are initiated because their work culture contexts are so politicized that reasonable project quality standards have little or no chance of being maintained if they threaten powerful interests inside or outside the organization. Successful project quality is likely to be sustained only if the work context is above the compliance level of moral development. This occurs because if there is no internalized commitment to project quality, when external champions depart or project quality enforcement pressures wane, standards will be rapidly abandoned.
A tool for determining the level of individual and collective moral development is the Ethical Work Culture Assessment (EWCA) presented in Appendix B. Using this tool will provide the project sponsor, the project manger, and the project team a measure of the level of moral development and work culture support for sustaining sound projects aligned with organizational objectives. Either it will indicate a high level of moral development or it will identify areas that need to be improved to move toward the desired level.
4.2 Select Project
Once the project sponsor has determined that the project is a good fit for the organization, it is time to formally select the project. The selection means that the organization will officially support the project. While this is obviously important, it is still a precursor to the charter signing by the project manager, sponsor, and core team members.
The sources of project identification are diverse, ranging from personal creativity to impersonal system-generated tasks that require attention and resources. Project quality will best be achieved, however, by selecting projects that are aligned with the strategic priorities of the organization, are statistically warranted, and are likely to secure the needed commitment of capable participants to bring projects to successful closure. “Pet” projects of powerful sponsors that are not strategically aligned, not statistically warranted, and/or lack the requisite critical mass of committed support from capable participants should be screened out of consideration.
Many methods are used to select projects. Some are much more involved than others. Our advice is to choose a method that is sufficient to include factors that are important to your organization but that is no more complicated than necessary.
4.3 Commit Formally to Project
The final element of project initiation is the personal public commitment to the project. The quality initiation stage-ending document is either a contract or a letter of intent for an external project. The equivalent of a contract for an internal project is a signed agreement between a project sponsor and a project core team that is called a charter. Individual core team members will sign the charter to signify their individual commitment to the project. An example of a project charter is shown in Figure 2-7.
FIGURE 2-7 Project Charter
Charters are very powerful. Project charters are used to:
Clarify the project purpose
Set clear project goals
Develop teamwork
Develop common understanding, trust, communication, and commitment between the sponsor and the core team
Avoid situations in which the core team is unsure if management will accept an action or decision
Avoid situations in which the sponsor unilaterally changes the original agreement.
The process of developing and ratifying a project charter starts with one party (the sponsor or core team) writing a rough draft. A short draft encourages all involved parties to read, understand, discuss, and negotiate. The other party questions everything for both understanding and agreement. Eventually, both the sponsor and core team sign the project charter.
The project charter should then have the force of a contract. That means that both the sponsor and the core team feel bound by it and will try their level best to live up to the terms of the charter. Like a contract, the charter can be modified only if both parties agree.
Once the key participants have publicly and personally committed to the project, its chances for quality problems have certainly decreased. This commitment is the stage-ending deliverable that transitions the project from project quality initiation into project quality planning.
Up to this point, the project work activities have consisted of creating high-level understanding—just detailed enough for all parties to reach commitment. Planning takes time, and therefore costs money. As such, we only want to sink time and money into projects to which all key stakeholders are committed. During the project quality initiation stage, a few potential projects that cannot obtain commitment from all key stakeholders will be abandoned. Now that we are ready to proceed into project quality planning, with all the time and cost it entails, we are assured that the project we are planning has solid prospects.
NOTES
1. Project Management Institute Standards Committee, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK© Guide) (Upper Darby, PA: Project Management Institute, 2000), p. 5.
2. James R. Evans and William M. Lindsay, The Management and Control of Quality, 5th edition (Cincinnati, OH: South-Western Publishing, 2002).
3. Karl E. Sveiby, The New Organizational Wealth: Managing and Measuring Knowledge-based Assets (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1997).
4. Thomas A. Stewart, Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations (New York: Currency, 1997).
5. Joseph A. Petrick and John F. Quinn, “The Integrity Capacity Construct and Moral Progress in Business,” Journal of Business Ethics 23 (2000), 3–18.