Philip Crosby is credited with the idea that "Quality is Free", and he made some money on the book by the same title ... still available from e-book sellers.
When I first heard that phrase -- around the time Crosby's book came out -- my thought was: If so, what is that line item in my budgeted WBS for quality planning and QC? It's not $0 for sure. So how is "quality free". Admittedly, TQM was everywhere at that same time (*)
Actually, the idea here is quality Assurance vs. quality control. The former is "free", perhaps even a profit center; the latter is always a cost, sometimes bolted on at the end.
Characterizing QA as a profit center has these business ideas embedded:
- There is a direct cost for some QA activities, to be sure, but other aspects of QA as an assurance strategy is a mindset that informs PM planning and execution
- There are attributable savings from QA -- taken holistically -- in the form of cost, schedule, and scope assurance that expectations will be met.
Perhaps QA should be written qA to emphasize that it's assurance we're after, in the context of "doing good; avoiding evil" of course!
The PM is always seeking mission assurance.
And the mission?
The PM's mission is to meet sponsor expectations by returning a quality product or service in return for the sponsor's resources invested with the PM, taking calculated risks to do so.
It's a balance sheet idea: sponsor investment balanced by resource transference into product + the baseline cost of risk (mostly the baseline cost of planned mitigation)
Two ideas inform "Assurance"
There are two ideas here to keep in mind at the same time:
The first is that quality has these actionable artifacts :
- Measurables that validate environmentally fit; functionally, effectively, and efficiently operable; safe and secure (**)
- Value attained that is a multiple of cost (the whole is worth more than the parts; utility is >1)
- Mission objectives of timeliness and scope that are achieved
- Schedule assurance by smart use (read: PM management) of slack to protect the critical path (some ideas on how to do this are embodied in "Critical Chain Theory" formulated by Goldratt
- Cost-Value assurance by built-in reserves and attention to value earned by a dollar spent
- Performance-to-scope sampling in real-time -- at a sampling frequency that's "inside the performance (work-package) timeline" -- to trap issues and correct deficiencies early when they cost the least, and make agile tactical data-driven decisions that assure strategic accomplishment.
Assurance is free:
Protect the critical path: manage slack by buffering for uncertainties at the critical milestones; have a bias toward "earliest start" rather than waiting; resource the CP before others
Mitigate uncertainties, in part, by allocating budget reserves to underwrite probabilistic event-impacts.
Stay ahead of unfolding events by sampling, measuring, and analyzing frequently enough to be inside the work-package timeline.
-------------------
(*) Total Quality Management was a movement and a concept that quality ideas and expectations had to be well understood throughout the organization. That is: there had to be a consistent "deployment" from executive to doer of what was expected and also of what was to be done.
TQM audits were conducted to verify deployment (I was an auditor for a year or so).
After a while, the TQM moniker and a lot of the bureaucratic overhead faded away, but the overall concept is valid: everyone should think and do quality practices in a (culturally) consistent manner.
TQM audits were conducted to verify deployment (I was an auditor for a year or so).
After a while, the TQM moniker and a lot of the bureaucratic overhead faded away, but the overall concept is valid: everyone should think and do quality practices in a (culturally) consistent manner.
(**) There are a lot of ideas embedded in "effectiveness". Some go to reliable, predictable, non-chaotic performance; high availability achieved by long mean-time-to-fail and quick mean-time-to-repair; long term support after sale or delivery.
Other ideas of effectiveness are financial: cost-effectiveness which means "good" utility for operating dollars.
Like this blog? You'll like my books also! Buy them at any online book retailer!
