Evaluating the Quality and Effectiveness of a Completed Project Plan

Managing a project is only the second challenge that a project manager faces. “Management guru Peter F. Drucker said it all when he stated that one must measure before one can manage.” (Parth & Gumz, 2003) Preparing a project plan and measuring its effectiveness requires both time and skills. A project plan acts as a road-map guiding the project manager and his team and facilitating the processes. It further allows all team members to have a common document in which definitions, requirements, standards, procedures, timelines, reporting channels, estimations, and budgets are included.

In the following paragraphs we are going to suggest nine criteria that we believe allow a project manager to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of his/her project plan. Usually this assessment is rather hard before the project even starts: “It is especially difficult to do this during requirements development, as it is generally viewed as a writing activity that does not lend itself to quantitative measurements.” (Berenbach & Borotto, 2006) However, the below points will definitely aid in measuring such in the best way possible considering the circumstances:

Make sure that the scope of the project is defined clearly and in details and agreed upon with all stakeholders and project owners. Scope is the core of the project plan; messing-up this part will lead to a completely useless and misleading plan.

Did you include and detail all the different sections of a project plan? These sections usually are: Goals and Objectives, Project Estimate, Project Schedule, Project Team Organization, Risk Mitigation and Management Plan, Quality Assurance, Change Management and Control,(LOE, 2008) and Termination Management.

Check for consistency all through the project plan: go over each section and review its details making sure that it does not contradict with any previously stated aspect of the project.

Share the project plan with the team and get their feedback. This is a very essential point, team-members could provide crucial input allowing further enhancement of the plan or simply making it more feasible/realistic.

Concerning project estimations, one way to measure the effectiveness and quality of such after finalizing the project plan is to use a third method of estimation (supposing you already used two others) to check further the validity, accuracy, and correctness of your estimations.

Check previous similar projects and compare timeline/budget estimations: this suggestion is useful both before starting the planning stage and just after the project plan is done. Evaluating whether your project plan can measure up to previously devised ones permits you to learn from previous mistakes and ameliorate accordingly.

Present your plan to other trusted sources like consultants, senior upper management, and other PM friends in the same field asking their opinion and suggestions. This is not mandatory yet advisable; it is always better to have several inputs widening by which the perspectives from which your project is assessed.

Role based analysis: role playing is one of the methods used in different fields to assist in the evaluation process of several things in life. For instance, Yael Dubinsky and Orit Hazzan presented two research papers in which they use Role Schemes and Allocation in software development projects in order to “raise teammates' personal accountability while maintaining the essence of the software development method.” and another where they use the Roles Scheme to derive metrics.(Dubinsky & Hazzan, 2004) In our case, role based analysis can be used as another way to determine the soundness of the project plan from yet other “roles” perspectives.

My last suggestion would be to compare your planned processes versus the ones specified by approved maturity models. Maturity models such as the Software Engineering Institute’s (SEI) Maturity Model (CMM) for Software and the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) created by the PMI’s Standards Development Program can be used as reference models for assessing software development processes maturity and plans allowing software organizations to further evolve their processes. (Herbsleb,Zubrow,Goldenson,Hayes,Paulk; 1997). Remember that the quality of the product reflects the quality of plan used to create it. Sloppy plans cannot lead to quality products.

I hope the above summarized points assist you in assessing your project plans. Good Luck!

References:

1. Frank R. Parth and Joy Gumz (December 14, 2003) How Project Metrics Can Keep You From Flying Blind [online] available from: www.projectauditors.com

2. Brian Berenbach and Gail Borotto (May 20–28, 2006) Metrics for Model Driven Requirements Development [Research Paper] Available from: ACM Digital Library - ICSE’06 - ACM 1-59593-085-X/06/0005

3. LOE-Laureate Online Education (2008) Sample Project Plan [online] Available from: LOE as part of the IT Project Management Module.

4. Yael Dubinsky and Orit Hazzan (November 4, 2008) Using a Roles Scheme to Derive Software Project Metrics [Paper] available from: ACM Digital Library - ACM 1-59593-001-9/04/0011
5. James Herbsleb/David Zubrow/Dennis Goldenson/Will Hayes/ & Mark Paulk (June 1997) Software Quality and the Capability Maturity Model [Paper] available from: ACM Digital Library - ACM 0002-0782/97/0600

Improving IT Projects' Quality

“While project performance is generally evaluated in terms of the “iron triangle” of schedule, cost and quality performance, guidelines for project quality management are lacking.”(Steyn, 2008) For this purpose, several institutions and research papers addressed this issue and provided recommendations for improving information technology projects’ quality. After researching and reading many of these recommendations, I choose to discuss below three suggestions for improving the quality of IT projects.

My first preferred suggestion is to understand the level of quality expected by the project owners or stakeholders. “Customer quality expectations and acceptance criteria specify that quality is determined by the customer, not by the project manager.” (Cusolito, n.d.) Defining this understanding early on in the project helps both the project manager and team evaluate the processes and phases better and comprehend accordingly the level of commitment and effort required. Delivering a project that satisfies the customers expected quality can be interpreted as nothing but success.

My second suggestion is to follow maturity models prepared by renowned institutions like the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). SEI developed a Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for Software: “The Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM or SW-CMM) is a reference model for appraising software process maturity and a normative model for helping software organizations progress along an evolutionary path from ad hoc, chaotic processes to mature, disciplined software processes.” (Herbsleb/Zubrow/Goldenson/Hayes/Paulk, 1997) Following such models enhances not only the quality of the final product but furthermore affects other major aspects: “sophisticated statistical analysis of data from a large software development laboratory in a Fortune 100 company showed that process maturity significantly increased quality…. Higher product quality, however, significantly reduced both development and support cost,…”.(Herbsleb/Zubrow/Goldenson/Hayes/Paulk, 1997)
CMM, being a five-level model, allowed immediate quality related categorization of the different IT companies according to the level of commitment to the defined standards.
Many other similar models are still being developed like the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) created by the PMI’s Standards Development Program and the Documentation Maturity Model suggested by Huang and Tiley in 2003 (Huang&Tiley, 2003).

My third suggestion is to promote quality amongst top management or project owners. “Quality is the result of a carefully constructed cultural environment. It has to be the fabric of the organization, not part of the fabric.”(Crosby, n.d.) If the project stakeholders are accustomed to quality, then they will settle for nothing less. Highlighting the advantages of having quality products increases the management’s crave for quality. Accentuating the return on investment related to quality of the produced project will further improve the chances of even obtaining a bigger budget for the project at hand!

Quality of projects is what differentiates one company from another. It divides them into different levels similar to the maturity levels described above. Understanding the stakeholders expected quality enhances the chances of delivering a sign-off material project. And finally, familiarizing top management with quality products ameliorates the quality likelihood of the project. With this thought, I would like to end this by a related quote for a leader in the IT industry, Steve Jobs, when he said: “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.”(Jobs, n.d.)

References:

1. Steyn, Herman (July 27-31, 2008) A Framework for Managing Quality on System Development Projects [Research Paper] available from: IEEE Digital Library – IEEE Xplore under: PICMET 2008 Proceedings, 27-31 July, Cape Town, South Africa

2. Cusolito, Rick (n.d.) The High Cost of Low Quality [online] available from: http://www.butrain.com/Project-management-training-courses/highcost.asp?source=20669

3. James Herbsleb, David Zubrow, Dennis Goldenson, Will Hayes, and Mark Paulk (June 1997) Software Quality and the Capability Maturity Model [Research Paper] available from: ACM Digital Library - ACM 0002-0782/97/0600

4. Shihong Huang & Scott Tiley (October 12-15, 2003) Towards a Documentation Maturity Model [Research Paper] available from: ACM Digital Library - ACM 1-58113-696-X/03/0010

5. Crosby, Philip (n.d.) Quality Quotes[online] available from: http://thinkexist.com/quotations/quality/2.html

6. Jobs, Steve (n.d.) Quality Quotes[online] available from: http://thinkexist.com/quotations/quality/2.html