Project Management : Pillars

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FIRST PROJECT QUALITY PILLAR: CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

The first project quality pillar is the strategic priority accorded customer satisfaction, which is achieved by customer-focused work systems supported by committed leadership. Meeting both external and internal customer expectations drives strategic efforts in a quality firm.
For purposes of clarification, a number of conceptual distinctions must be made at the outset. The first clarification is between project stakeholders and project customers. Project stakeholders can be defined as those directly or indirectly associated with the project, those affected in the long/short term by the project and its activities, and those interested in the outcome of the project. Often project stakeholders are divided into internal and external stakeholders. Internal stakeholders typically include members of the home organization: the project sponsor, the project manager, the project team, top management, functional managers, staff personnel, service and support, other project managers, and internal subcontractors. External stakeholders typically include: customers/clients, suppliers, distributors, regulatory agencies, social and cultural environment, economic and financial environment, political and legal environment, external contractors and competitors, media and public interest groups, and the natural ecological environment.

Project customers are the direct purchasers, end users, and providers of products and services. Project customers are also both internal and external. The external customer is usually accorded highest priority in quality organizations; nevertheless, internal home organization customers must also be satisfied.

We will adopt the conventional phrase key project stakeholders to refer to that mix of internal and external direct purchasers, consumers, and providers referred to as customers. It is, therefore, customers or key project stakeholders who must be satisfied for the first project quality pillar to be established. It is advisable to satisfy as many additional stakeholders as possible to prevent any unwarranted project disruption.

Distinctions about the nature of satisfaction also need to be addressed. Distinctions have been made among product characteristics as being dissatisfiers, satisfiers, and exciters/delighters. Dissatisfiers are unstated customer expectations for the product or service that are taken for granted and, if absent, result in customer dissatisfaction with products. Satisfiers are stated customer expectations about the product or service, which, if fulfilled, lead to product satisfaction. Exciters/delighters are unstated and unexpected consumer desires for products or services which, if met, lead to high perceptions of quality and likely purchase or repurchase of products.

Over time, exciters/delighters become satisfiers as customers become used to them, and eventually satisfiers become dissatisfiers. This means that systemic strategic planning and leadership are required to ensure that ongoing customer satisfaction is delivered as customer expectations increase.

A work system can be defined as a set of functions or activities within an organization that interact to achieve organizational goals. To engage in systemic strategic planning requires that leaders understand the interrelationships among all subsystem parts and the people who work in them. Deming specifically emphasizes that the leader's primary responsibility is to optimize the quality system so that customer satisfaction will result. By supporting projects that are best for one manager's career or for a highly vocal group, the leader suboptimizes. Suboptimization results in a net loss for the organization by diverting resources from system-aligned projects to marginal projects.

For example, a project manager and his/her team in the purchasing department may recommend the purchase of new materials at the lowest bid to cut costs. Inexpensive materials may be inferior in quality. This might cause excessive costs in later corrections during manufacturing. Although the purchasing project leader and team may look good on paper, the entire system will suffer. Therefore, an important responsibility of the committed quality leader is to ensure that only system-aligned projects are sponsored and completed in order to prevent suboptimization.

Quality strategic planning is the organizational design and structure that produces total customer satisfaction. Strategic planning results in both customer satisfaction goals (non-quantified aspirations) and customer satisfaction objectives (which determine what is to be accomplished by when in quantified terms).

Now that we understand who the various project customers are, what delights and satisfies them, and how to use strategic planning to best satisfy our mix of customers, we turn to our next project quality pillar.

SECOND PROJECT QUALITY PILLAR: PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

The second project quality pillar is the continual (includes both continuous and discontinuous) improvement of work processes to efficiently and effectively achieve the strategic goal of customer satisfaction. A work process can be defined as any set of linked activities that takes an input, adds value to it, and provides an output to an internal or external customer. Thus, a set of processes may together form a quality system. The quality system in turn provides the organizational operational context for team projects and individual task performances.

Ongoing process improvement results in three types of quality improvement: incremental cost reduction, competitive parity, and breakthrough dominance. All three types of improvement are important and each is appropriate in certain circumstances. Any given project is likely to use one or more of these types of improvement.

The first type, incremental cost reduction (sometimes referred to as kaizen), is the process improvement approach that constantly and gradually cuts costs and involves every organizational member in order to maintain the existing system more efficiently. An example is to reduce the number of steps in a process without sacrificing quality.

The second type, competitive parity, is the process improvement approach that abruptly and dramatically matches the performance of the best-in-class of external competitors. Strategic planners and key process champions usually drive this type of improvement; it may entail scrapping the existing system and rebuilding to catch up with the best-of-class. An example is Microsoft rebuilding its processes to match Internet competitors.

The third type, breakthrough dominance, is the process improvement approach that involves quantum leaps to outdistance the competition and revolutionarily restructure or reengineer new processes. Usually, strategic leadership, R&D management, and process change champions drive this type of improvement. It may entail starting over and creating a new system from scratch. An example is the radical redesign of jet engines to surpass propeller-driven aircraft.
Furthermore, process improvement entails process qualification determinations. The goal is to move from:

1. The spontaneous level in which little or no process standards are used; through
2. The initialized level in which non-standard approaches are widely used; also through
3. The formalized level in which standards are institutionalized; and finally to
4. The optimized level in which improvement and integration are a way of life.

Figure 1-4: Process Qualification Levels
The four levels of process qualification provide both a multi-level classification scheme for existing processes and a "to-do" list for fact-based project management teams.

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THIRD PROJECT QUALITY PILLAR: FACT-BASED MANAGEMENT

The third project quality pillar focuses on the importance of managing by facts rather than managing by power, hunches, or groupthink. To manage by facts means that an organization (1) uses quality processes to identify and capture data and trends that determine what is factually true about performance, and (2) structures itself to be responsive to diverse stakeholders that voice the truth. Collecting, measuring, and analyzing data and trends are key responsibilities for project leaders and teams in evaluating and improving processes.

One of the most important skills in fact-based management is knowledge of statistical variation in evaluating processes. Processes that include materials, tools, machines, operators, and the environment exhibit complex interactions; properly understanding them requires knowledge of two types of statistical variation. One is common or random variation, which is inherent in any process. Multiple small causes are responsible for random variation. A system governed only by common causes is said to be stable. To decrease this type of variation one needs to improve the entire system, not just one part.

The second type of statistical variation is special or assignable variation. Assignable causes of variation occur when something in the process is different from normal, such as faulty material, an inattentive worker, or a broken tool. The way to reduce assignable causes of variation is to identify and control them as quickly as possible.

Statistical quality control charts (such as in Figure) are line graphs with center lines and statistically calculated upper and lower control limits used to distinguish between random and assignable cause variation. Work performance differences within the upper and lower control limits are statistically insignificant although they may appear to be important to those not skilled in fact-based management.


Figure 1-5: Project Control Chart
Project leaders can make two fundamental mistakes in attempting to improve a process without factual knowledge of its statistical variation. The first mistake is overcontrol—treating as a special cause any fault, complaint, mistake, breakdown, accident, or shortage when it actually came from common cause. Some people call this the Dilbert effect of abusive managerial overcontrol. The second mistake is undercontrol—attributing to common causes any fault, complaint, mistake, breakdown, accident, or shortage when it actually comes from a special cause. Examples of undercontrol include neglecting to identify, retrain, or dismiss substandard performers at work.
In the case of overcontrol, interfering with a stable system actually increases variation and harms the system. In the case of undercontrol, project leaders miss the opportunity to eliminate unwanted variation by assuming that it is uncontrollable. Since producers and consumers benefit from reduced variation, project managers and team members need knowledge of statistical variation to properly manage by facts.

Another important group of skills in fact-based management is those necessary to lead and follow in a variety of teams, including cross-functional teams. These skills contrast sharply with those needed merely to respond to hierarchical authority. Leading and following skills are crucial for the decentralized and horizontal management of information streams in the organization. High-quality project teams move from initial project awareness, to involvement, to commitment, and finally to project ownership on their own or with the skilled intervention of seasoned project managers. They are successful and rapidly socialize new members into performance norms of cooperative competence and power-sharing.

FOURTH PROJECT QUALITY PILLAR: EMPOWERED PERFORMANCE

The fourth project quality pillar entails the empowered daily work performance of continual improvement in personal tasks aligned with the system and within an employee's scope of responsibility.

Work performance can be defined as behavior associated with the accomplishment of expected, specified, or formal role requirements on the part of individual organization members. Quality organizations may be described in terms of the norms, values, and reward procedures that emphasize the holistic, competent behavior of individuals oriented toward cooperation with fellow organization members.

Work performance in a quality environment includes accomplishing tasks and taking initiatives above and beyond the call of duty, along with sharing information with and helping co-workers. This performance is typically referred to as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). In a total quality organization, OCB is both expected and formally rewarded. Support staff in a quality office will often phone other departments for work if their own department's work has been completed. This cooperative "helping out" attitude is the recognized norm and is routinely celebrated and rewarded.
Individual empowerment has been described as intrinsic task motivation consisting of five dimensions: responsible choice, meaningfulness, competence, proactive learning, and impact. The central component of empowerment is responsible choice—free decisions for which one is responsible. Choice involves taking responsibility for a person's actions. Choice also develops an individual's belief in his/her ability to effect a desired change in the environment. Field research has demonstrated that choice and personal control are related to intrinsic task motivation, job performance, and job satisfaction.

The second dimension, meaningfulness, concerns the value a task holds for the individual. If an individual finds a task meaningful, he or she will be more content performing it. The third dimension, competence, refers to the experientially founded belief that one is capable of successfully performing a particular task or activity. People who believe they can perform the work assigned are more willing workers.

The fourth dimension, proactive learning, is the process of discovering, creating, and/or understanding through feedback between practices and results. Empowered people are used to and expect feedback. They are not overly sensitive to critical remarks. The fifth dimension, impact, represents the degree to which individuals perceive that their behavior makes a difference.
Project leaders should think about all five dimensions of individual empowerment as they deal with project participants. Often short conversations regarding one or more of these dimensions can help individuals feel more empowered, thereby improving the chances for good quality work on the project.

Individuals usually appreciate organizations that provide them with opportunities for personal control, responsibility, and challenge in their work, and will tend to reciprocate by being more committed to the organization. As individuals demonstrate empowerment readiness in project responsibilities, they develop their sense of self-respect through performance.
Quality firms require respect for all people in the organization, regardless of role, since each person is continually being empowered to enhance the effectiveness of the organization. We now describe several problems that deal with lack of respect.

Individuals who respect others but not themselves are a problem. Unfortunately, these individuals do not relate well to others in a cooperative quality manner because they undervalue their own worth, rarely voice their own opinions, and rely on the approval of others for validation. An example is a project leader or team member who allows others to verbally abuse him/her without setting boundaries for respectful discussion at work.

Another problem concerns individuals who respect themselves but not others. They alienate team members and are unable to learn from others or to generate teamwork. An example is project leaders who do not solicit input or ignore feedback from knowledgeable followers because they (the leaders) are too proud to learn from others.

Yet another lack of respect problem is that some people only feel or show honor for those who have higher rank or status in work organizations and treat peers or direct reports with contempt or neglect. Some people profess respect for others, but act as if they always expect others to defer to their judgment. For example, they often dismiss the contributions of others in conversations and decision-making processes. This gap between the rhetoric and reality of respect for people is what must be—and is—eliminated or severely reduced in a quality organization because the system cannot improve without sincere respect for the integrity of individual contributions.