Quality Gates in Project Management
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Quality gates as a project management tool have been established because practitioners felt that in our rapidly changing world and disrupting time there is less focus on quality due to a downside in order to increase time-to-market. Scholars therefore point out that “Quality gates […] are supposed to increase the confidence stakeholders have in a release” <ref name="QGCont"> ''G. Schermann, J. Cito, P. Leitner and H. C. Gall, "Towards quality gates in continuous delivery and deployment," 2016 IEEE 24th International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC), Austin, TX, USA, 2016, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/ICPC.2016.7503737'' </ref>. | Quality gates as a project management tool have been established because practitioners felt that in our rapidly changing world and disrupting time there is less focus on quality due to a downside in order to increase time-to-market. Scholars therefore point out that “Quality gates […] are supposed to increase the confidence stakeholders have in a release” <ref name="QGCont"> ''G. Schermann, J. Cito, P. Leitner and H. C. Gall, "Towards quality gates in continuous delivery and deployment," 2016 IEEE 24th International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC), Austin, TX, USA, 2016, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/ICPC.2016.7503737'' </ref>. | ||
| − | === Quality Gates === | + | === Quality Gates and Quality Management & Control === |
| − | - | + | Quality management consists of four basic pillars, its planning, assurance, control and improvement <ref name="QGWWH"> ''Rose, Kenneth H. (July 2005). Project Quality Management: Why, What and How. Fort Lauderdale, Florida: J. Ross Publishing. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-932159-48-6 </ref>. In project management, quality is of relevance in order to achieve the intended outcome and function of the endeavour. Already Cooper pointed out in his stage gate model in 1990 <ref name="Cooper"> ''Cooper, Robert G. (1986). Winning at new products. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0201136651 </ref> that many newly launched products lack quality inspection processes. |
| − | + | To achieve control over quality management in projects several tools evolved over the years and gained publicity. | |
| − | - | + | Total quality management |
| − | (performance | + | "A management approach of an organisation centred on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long term success through customer satisfaction and benefits to all members of the organisation and society." 1d) |
| + | European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model | ||
| + | “The EFQM Model is a globally-recognised management framework which allows organisations to achieve success by measuring where they are on the path towards transformation, helping them understand the gaps and possible solutions available, and empowering them to progress and significantly improve their organisation’s performance.” | ||
| + | It helps to define purpose, create culture, forge strong leaders, transform organisation, foster agile practices, address unique organisational challenges, forecast the future. 1e) | ||
| + | (Lean) six sigma | ||
| + | The combination of the principles from lean and six sigma. Lean management focuses on continuous process improvement based on small, incremental changes with the overall goal to improve efficiency and quality. Together with six sigma it aims for improving processes and performance by narrowing resources and variations down to the minimum required. | ||
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| + | Compared to these quality management tools quality gates focus on specific quality aspects at specific times, the gates, compared to non-stop iterative quality management perspectives. It sets and later assesses quality criteria and intervenes when errors occur in the project’s development. Thus, it becomes obvious that quality gates are rather different to prevalent and common quality management and control techniques. Using these argumentations project managers can justify its presence and application for endeavours where quality-heaviness is key. | ||
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| + | |||
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== Application == | == Application == | ||
Revision as of 21:41, 21 February 2021
Contents |
Abstract
Projects are temporary and unique endeavors and require active management of their integration, scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, and communication according to the Project Management Institute. [1]
One tool to control project management is the Stage Gate approach that divides projects into stages with gates and tracks their progress and success. In the 1990s a modification to focus on especially schedule, cost, and quality was established known as Quality Gates. A quality gate represents a checkpoint of predefined criteria set by the project manager to evaluate the current progress of a project. Hereby a focus lies on the three aspects of time and cost, both resource-related and quality (2). After assessing the specified benchmarks and standards, an evaluation of passing or failing the gate is made.
This article sets the quality gate model into the picture with other phase gate models and points out its differences, benefits, and limitations. More weight lies on the quality criteria and its control in project management and its lifecycles. Besides, how four main tenets set, assess, and complete gates together with intermediate milestones. [2] The article also explains the required steps a project manager needs to take in order to introduce quality gates for projects. A proposal of applying the quality gates by segmenting projects into the three stages of front-end, middle, and back-end gates for different project stages [3][4] is suggested with a detailed successive explanation. Finally, the concern of resource-intensity in quality gate processes is discussed whereby more focus on scoping and lean management for projects is recommended. Also, the development from sequential towards iterative quality control is elaborated along with expanding the application from product-only towards service-oriented sectors.
Abb. Quality Gate Process: QGP
Big idea
Text
5 Ws + 1H of Quality Gates
Who? Project Manager, Process Manager, Project Owner
What? Designing, embedding and checking quality criteria
When? Whole lifecycle – from initiation to closing
Where? Developments and processes, e.g. in new product development (NPD), manufacturing, IT software, finance, M&A
Why? Gain control over quality development, status and state of the art
How? Define and assess quality criteria, milestones and gates
Example of quality gates from practice:
Quality Gates, Stage Gate and Phase Gate models
Quality gates are a comparable form of the stage-gate model and also other phase gate models. It is suggested to separate projects into the four different categories of:
1. Planning
2. Design
3. Development
4. Deployment
Also in the stage gate model projects are separated into phases because the outcome is often unknown and controlling can therefore take place after each phase. Setting gates after each phase, which must be passed before continuing to the next, allows control. Further, it enables early identification of potential risks and provides increased visibility.
According to PMI a project has the dimensions of integration, scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, and communication and Cooper’s Stage Gate model intends to include all aspects in its model. Contrary, the Quality Gate model focuses specifically on the factors of time (schedule), cost and quality – all three of them are essential for a project’s quality outcome. In this way, it differs to the Stage Gate model. The gates are set timely independent and flexible, but in a sequential order – whereas its criteria to pass a gate are defined very specifically.
Quality gates as a project management tool have been established because practitioners felt that in our rapidly changing world and disrupting time there is less focus on quality due to a downside in order to increase time-to-market. Scholars therefore point out that “Quality gates […] are supposed to increase the confidence stakeholders have in a release” [5].
Quality Gates and Quality Management & Control
Quality management consists of four basic pillars, its planning, assurance, control and improvement [6]. In project management, quality is of relevance in order to achieve the intended outcome and function of the endeavour. Already Cooper pointed out in his stage gate model in 1990 [7] that many newly launched products lack quality inspection processes. To achieve control over quality management in projects several tools evolved over the years and gained publicity. Total quality management "A management approach of an organisation centred on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long term success through customer satisfaction and benefits to all members of the organisation and society." 1d) European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model “The EFQM Model is a globally-recognised management framework which allows organisations to achieve success by measuring where they are on the path towards transformation, helping them understand the gaps and possible solutions available, and empowering them to progress and significantly improve their organisation’s performance.” It helps to define purpose, create culture, forge strong leaders, transform organisation, foster agile practices, address unique organisational challenges, forecast the future. 1e) (Lean) six sigma The combination of the principles from lean and six sigma. Lean management focuses on continuous process improvement based on small, incremental changes with the overall goal to improve efficiency and quality. Together with six sigma it aims for improving processes and performance by narrowing resources and variations down to the minimum required.
Compared to these quality management tools quality gates focus on specific quality aspects at specific times, the gates, compared to non-stop iterative quality management perspectives. It sets and later assesses quality criteria and intervenes when errors occur in the project’s development. Thus, it becomes obvious that quality gates are rather different to prevalent and common quality management and control techniques. Using these argumentations project managers can justify its presence and application for endeavours where quality-heaviness is key.
Application
- Set the project scope - Set quality requirements
Introduction of Quality Gates
- How to determine, define, measure and evaluate quality gates in project management
Application of Quality Gates
Front-end Gates
- Invest, Commit, Design
Middle Gates
- Implement, Integrate, Validate
Back-end Gates
- Try, Introduce, Release
Limitations
Resource Requirements
- QGP is time and labour intense, project manager is required - Project needs to be of a certain size, otherwise it is not worthwhile - Maybe mention lean possibilities; adopt the amount of quality gates to the project scope
Sequentiality/Waterfall Model
- Often it is claimed and critized that phase gate models such as the QGP are due to their native sequential developments harming (product and/or service) development - Show that QGP can also be iterative processes
Non-product Realization Projects
- Critics say QGP are mainly used in physical product realization projects because of quality nature - Give examples of software, service, IT applications
Annotated Bibliography
(1) PMI Guide - Project Management
(2) PMI Symposium – Quality Control with Quality Gates
(3) Quality Gates Concept in Battery Production
References
- ↑ Project Management Institute, Inc.. (2017). Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (6th Edition). Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI). Retrieved from https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/toc/id:kpGPMBKP02/guide-project-management/guide-project-management
- ↑ Achieving Total Project Quality Control Using The Quality Gate Method, Presented at the 1993 PMI Annual Symposium;, John M. Aaron, Cesare P. Bratta, D. Paul Smith
- ↑ Achieving Total Project Quality Control Using The Quality Gate Method, Presented at the 1993 PMI Annual Symposium;, John M. Aaron, Cesare P. Bratta, D. Paul Smith
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Quality Management for Battery Production: A Quality Gate Concept Joscha Schnell, Gunther Reinhart Procedia CIRP 57 ( 2016 ) 568 – 573 49th CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems (CIRP-CMS 2016) Institute for Machine Tools and Industrial Management (iwb), Technical University of Munich (TUM)
- ↑ G. Schermann, J. Cito, P. Leitner and H. C. Gall, "Towards quality gates in continuous delivery and deployment," 2016 IEEE 24th International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC), Austin, TX, USA, 2016, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/ICPC.2016.7503737
- ↑ Rose, Kenneth H. (July 2005). Project Quality Management: Why, What and How. Fort Lauderdale, Florida: J. Ross Publishing. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-932159-48-6
- ↑ Cooper, Robert G. (1986). Winning at new products. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0201136651
- - ex1
