Executive Summary
Quality of the project is defined based on how well the outcomes correspond to the initial requirements. This assignment focuses on project management, specifically the domain of quality management. The first section of this paper is an overview of literature including ISO and PMBOK standards, which provide project managers with tools such as BPO or a set of ISO specifications using which a project manager can evaluate the processes of a project. The following sections present templates for auditing the quality of initiating, planning and executing processes of a project. Additionally, a non-conformance reporting template that should be used to report the adverse events where some of the outputs do not correspond to quality requirements is presented. Using ZFS’s construction of the American International School of Jeddah project, this paper shows the process of auditing. In general, to monitor the quality of a project successfully, a manager should prepare a set of checklists and templates for audits, ensure that communication within the team is well-established and encourage reporting non-conformance events.
Literature Study
A project manager can use three methods to manage quality. The PMBoK guide defines this process of quality management as the management of both the project and its deliverables (Project Management Institute, 2017). For the construction industry, the quality is regulated by the project’s specifications and specifications developed by a professional body, for example, ‘ASTM, ANSI, ACI, AWS,’ which are standards for the materials used in construction (Furst 2015, para. 1). Some aspects of the construction project must be tested by an outside organisation, for example, soil’s compatibility with the project or the strength of concrete.
Next, more generally, the evaluation of performance and outcome using the initial requirements of the project is the first method. With this method, a project manager leverages the behaviour-to-outcome (BPO) model, which allows to the assessment of quality based on the perception of the manager and stakeholder regarding how well the project aligns with the requirements for it (Liu and Walker 1998). Moreover, if some areas where the performance is not aligned with the requirements is found, the BPO allows making changes, since the primary tool in BPO is surveying the managers and stakeholders (Turk 2008).
Another method is the assessment of the project’s maturity, which is an evaluation of the tools, their sophistication, and the way the project management team applied these tools in a project. The maturity assessment allows comparing approaches that a company uses to manage the project to the industry standards and is conducted by a manager (Kerzner 2019; Rad and Livene 2006). Other examples are Organisational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) and P3M3 models, where OPM3 is a best practice for portfolio management and allows managing maturity, processes and domains of a project (T2Informtik n.d.). P3M3 is referring to the portfolio, programme and project maturity and is a framework for evaluating how a company delivers its projects (AXELOS 2015). Awards such as Deming Prise are established to assess the Total Quality Management practices and looking at businesses that received Deming’s Prise and the methods they use can be helpful (JUSE n.d.).
The next option is to use standards created by a separate organisation to compare the project to these set rules. One example is the ISO, which is an international organisation providing certification and developing quality standards for different industries, and its 21500 standard was developed for project management (ISO 2012). Alternatively, the Project Management Institute standards can be used for an assessment as well. PMBoK, for instance, has a description of standards, such as risk management or management of communications and stakeholders that outline the best practices of project management (Project Management Institute 2017). A manager, therefore, can compare the practices they use within a project to those described in PMBoK to evaluate if their project is managed effectively and use tools recommended by PMI. It is important to mention that these practices help an organisation support the continuous improvement of how it manages its projects and remain competitive in comparison to others.
Template Development
For this section, a checklist template for Zuhair Fayez Partnerships’ (ZFP) construction project of the American International School in Jeddah will be developed and presented. Each audit of the project looks at the processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring or controlling and closing (Project Management Institute 2017). Table 1 is a checklist, which can be used to evaluate the first three stages of ZFP’s project. For each item in the table, the auditor has to determine the maturity level and compliance for each element of the checklist.
An audit is a process of a formal review where the auditor evaluates a project based on a set of predefined criteria (Wrike 2020). To ensure fair treatment and clarity, audits have to be performed by individuals that are not a part of the project’s team. For this audit template, Table 1 was created to present the checklist of criteria and “assessment of maturity” column allows determining the readiness of each stage.
Table 1. Audit template (created by the author).
Next, although there are a checklist and a template for an audit, it is possible that some adverse events will affect the quality of this project, which is known a non-conformance. None-conformance is any adverse event that happened during a project, for example, if the final output cannot be used for the purposed that were intended (Maylor 2010). Alternatively, non-conformance is when the project does not correspond to certain requirements (Larson and Gray, 2014). A non-conformance template shown as Table 2 allows the project manager and team members to report these adverse events once they happen and therefore address them in a timely manner.
Demonstration
The sample project that will be used to apply the audit tools is ZFP’s public school construction for the American School in KSA, and the project is titled “International American School in Jeddah”. The primary characteristics of this project are as follows: the anticipated size of the school building is 48,535 m², with 310 parking lot spaces (Zuhair Fayez Partnerships Consultants n.d). ZFP is responsible for developing the design and plan of the building and managing the vendors and contractors until the building is completed.
The audit report was prepared with an assumption that the project has begun, with the first stages of the completion, such as site clearance and initial stages of the building construction being completed. The completed audit report and non-conformance report are presented as Tables 4 and 5 in the Appendix of this document, and the audit was prepared for the monitoring and controlling stages of the project management.
The monitoring and controlling stage of the construction audit in Appendix A show that the process of construction is going well. The project manager prepared documentation for regular reports and receives updates regarding the project. Under this project, the project manager regularly assesses and reports the maturity of the project and the compliance of each stage with the requirements. The communication on this project is effective; there are established communication channels that the team uses on a regular basis. Next, in Appendix B, there is a non-conformance report for the number of parking lot spaces dedicated to this project. Initially, ZFP declared that 310 parking spaces would be built, while during the construction, the team reported that not all of the allocated scape could be used for the parking lot, reducing the number of spaces to 290.
Quality Metrics
In this section, the author will continue to examine the project quality assessment. With this project, quality is managed using the requirements declared by the stakeholders and the construction standards of Saudi Arabia. Currently, there is no unified approach to viewing quality, since this is a subjective metric that may depend on the nature of a project and the expectations of the stakeholders, hence, there are several definitions and criteria for quality. Quality, in general, can be defined as the ability to use the project’s output as intended (Project Management Institute 2017). For example, in this construction project, the quality is defined by the construction standards of the KSA, for example, the standards for land clearing, engineering work, design, materials, and other elements. Hung and Sung (2011) refer to quality as an objective element of the evaluation, which is tangible and can be measured. However, according to Oakland (2003), the main criteria of quality is the correspondence or conformance with the project’s requirements. The ISO standards, such as 9001, define quality as a matter of stakeholder’s expectations (ISO n.d.). For example, with the construction of the school, the expectations of the Board of Trustees would be the primary quality metric under ISO 9001 standard. From this perspective, quality can be assessed by examining the stakeholder’s satisfaction with the project. Therefore, quality and its management can be approached differently, depending on the requirements and a perspective that a project manager is using.
According to PMBoK, there are several project knowledge areas, and this report will explore communications and risk management elements. In the matrix presented as Table 3, the communications management plan and risk management for the ZFP’s project are shown. There are five metrics for each knowledge areas with corresponding acceptance criteria.
Table 3. Knowledge areas (created by the author).
Overall, this report is focused on project quality management. Quality can be viewed as either compliance with some requirements, the stakeholder’s satisfaction, or the functions of the project’ output and how these correspond with the initial requirements. The author developed templates for different auditing processes and conducted an audit for the monitoring process and a non-conformance report. Additionally, quality, in general, was discussed from the perspective of different authors. The author developed metrics and acceptance criteria for two knowledge areas: communications and risk management.
References
AXELOS. 2015. “Introduction to P3M3.” Introduction. Web.
Furst, Peter. 2015. “Construction Quality Management.” Articles. Web.
Hung, H., and Sung, M. 2011. “Applying Six-Sigma to Manufacturing Processes in the Food Industry to Reduce Quality Cost.” Scientific Research and Essays, 6 (3): 580-591.
ISO. n.d. “ISO 9000 Family.” Web.
ISO. 2012. “ISO 21500:2012.” Standard. Web.
JUSE. n.d. “How was the Deming Prize Established.” Web.
Kerzner, Harold. 2019. “How to Conduct a Project Management Maturity Assessment.” In Using the Project Management Maturity Model: Strategic Planning for Project Management, 3rd edn., edited by Harold Kerzner, pp. 100-120. New Jersey: Wiley.
Maylor, H. 2010. Project Management. 4th Ed. New York: Financial Times/Prentice-Hall.
Oakland, J. 2003. Total Quality Management. 3rd. edn. Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford Project Management Institute. 2017. PMBOK® Guide. 6th edn. Newtown Square: PMI.
Rad, P. and Levin, G. 2006. “Project Management Maturity Assessment.” AACE International Transactions, 1-4.
T2Informtik. n.d. “OPM3.” Web.
Turk, W. 2008. “How Healthy is Your Project?” Defense AT&L, 37(2): 32-34.
Wrike. 2020. “What is a Project Management Audit?” Web.
Zuhair Fayez Partnerships Consultant. n.d. “American International School of Jeddah.” Zuhair Fayez Partnerships Consultant. Web.
Appendix A
Table 4. Project audit for the monitoring and controlling phase (created by the author).
Appendix B
Table 5. Non-conformance report (created by the author).