In today’s fast paced world, there is a need for quick delivery of products to the market. A product, say it is a consumable or an enterprise ERP software, needs to be made available to the customer (or clients) in its correct working standards, depicted performance level, and within a short time frame. There is a need of urgency in delivering products to the customers in any industry. This criterion affects the process flow that the product needs to undergo through its designing and production stage. Quality is one main parameter by which the product is described in terms of its performance. The state of urgency or first-in-the-market develops a faulty process where there is less importance given to the quality aspects of the products.
Some organizations have even decided to reduce their focus on quality so as to cope up with the fast moving competition in the market. Inferiority in quality has its own effects on the performance of the products or services. This has been the main reason for many companies to come down the spiral due to reduced customer satisfaction levels. Rework of the process due to failures and improper initial quality checks will result in bankruptcy of organizations as well!
As per the famous quality expert, Edwards Deming – 85% quality issues are there in a project due to negligence of the senior management and the entire system in which the project team works. And it is recommended as well. Generally, it is the responsibility of project managers to define the quality matrices and to update the project team or the senior management accordingly.
Checking quality in a project comes in three phases, namely: Quality planning, Quality Assurance and Quality Control. Quality Planning is identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how to satisfy them. Quality Assurance is evaluating overall project performance on a regular basis to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards. Quality Control is the timely monitoring of specific project results to determine if they comply with relevant quality standards and identifying ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance.
Quality issues are highly critical. The project managers should directly involve in monitoring quality of their projects. If not given proper attention, the quality issues can creep into all the levels of the project, rendering it a complete failure. Reluctance of project managers is highly condemnable in this regard! Poor quality should be quickly recognized and corrective measures need to be taken then and there by the project managers. Customers may accept a little delay in projects but longer delays are not advisable. Poor quality standards might lead to many problems like dissatisfaction of customers, increase in the cost involved in the project, low morale of employees, brand image downfalls, etc. In order to have an effective project management at work, every team member should contribute toward the quality control and credibility of the project. Impact of quality has direct monetary effects. Thus, ensuring desirable quality is maintained in the project is very critical.
