PM FPX 5333 Assessment 4 Requisition, Solicitation, and Proposal Evaluation Madalyne Rutledge

Student Name

Capella University

PM-FPX5333 Project Budgeting, Procurement, and Quality

Prof. Name

Date

Quality Plan Analysis and Quality Assurance Plan

The New Employee Orientation (NEO) project at Nearlyfree.com has exceeded its initial budget and faces the risk of failure. The existing quality plan lacks identification of all necessary resources and fails to define project quality. This document aims to analyze the current quality plan and pinpoint the failure points in the project.

Quality Standards

Quality management standards encompass requirements, specifications, guidelines, and characteristics that products, services, and processes must consistently meet. These standards ensure that the quality aligns with expectations, is fit for purpose, and meets user needs (Quality Management Standards, n.d., para. 3).

As part of the ISO 9000 family, ISO 10006 provides guidelines for quality management in projects (Harding, 2004). The project’s Quality Standards align with the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) Project Quality Management Standards, emphasizing the fulfillment of requirements (ISO, 2020).

Analyzing Product Quality

NearlyFree.com’s quality plan is evaluated against ISO’s recommended standards. ISO 9001, based on the 8 Principles of Quality Management, guides organizations in improving performance (British Assessment Service, 2018, para. 1).

The eight ISO 9001 Quality Management principles, including Customer Focus, Leadership, People Involvement, Process Approach, Systemic Approach to Management, Continual Improvement, Factual Approach to Decision Making, and Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relations, highlight the need for clear roles, systematic testing cycles, and efficient processes (British Assessment Service, 2018).

Recommendations

After reviewing ISO quality standards and the project’s quality statement, the following recommendations are made:

• Establish key events, timelines, and milestones with critical suppliers.
• Address consistent systems and predetermine workflows adhering to the systemic approach.
• Clearly identify project leaders and their roles throughout phases.
• Identify key influencers and their roles in the quality process.
• Schedule meetings with leaders to discuss progress and decision-making plans.

Implementing these recommendations will align the project’s quality with the ISO principles.

Quality Assurance

Quality assurance (QA) involves a systematic process to determine if a product or service meets specified requirements (Gillis, 2019, para. 1). A QA review identified failures, recognizing the double Cost of Quality (CoQ) in the project budget, necessitating a new Quality Assurance Plan.

Cost of Quality

CoQ methodology determines resource usage for preventing poor quality, appraising quality, and addressing internal and external failures (Cost of Quality (CoQ), n.d., para. 1). CoQ includes Prevention, Appraisal, Internal Failure, and External Failure costs.

The calculated overall CoQ for the project is $72,718, with breakdowns as follows:

• Prevention Costs: $7,980
• Appraisal Costs: $3,978
• Internal Failure Costs: $30,380
• External Failure Costs: $30,380

Quality Assurance Recommendations

The NEO project can benefit from a new Quality Assurance Plan by achieving the following objectives:

• Provide new employees with access to the company intranet.
• Automate presentation version control.
• Allow HR staff to observe new employees’ access to presentations and verify knowledge assessments.
• Ensure training completion and track it in a common location.

References

British Assessment Service. (2018). The 8 principles of QMS. British Assessment Service. https://www.british-assessment.co.uk/insights/the-8-principles-of-quality-management/

COST OF QUALITY (COQ). (n.d.). ASQ. https://asq.org/quality-resources/cost-of-quality

Gillis, A. S. (2019, July 1). Definition: Quality assurance (QA). Techtarget. https://www.techtarget.com/searchsoftwarequality/definition/quality-assurance

ISO. (2020). About Us. Retrieved from International Organization of Standardization: ISO. https://www.iso.org/about-us.html

PM FPX 5333 Assessment 4 Requisition, Solicitation, and Propo