PM FPX 5333 Assessment 3

Effective Quality Plan Analysis and Assurance Strategies

Introduction

Almost Free.com’s new employee orientation (NEO) project is confronted with critical problems today and manages the base budget and the risk of the whole project’s success. This paper conducts extensive quality plan reviews and proposes realistic recommendations to consider the failures and improve.

Understanding Quality Standards

Quality management standards are necessary to ensure that products, services, and processes consistently meet the requirements. These standards seek to:

• Meet complete quality expectations.
• Ensure it is suitable for the intended application.
• Treat the user appropriately.

Recommended quality control is important according to established systems. Especially with ISO 9000 standard families, ISO 10006 provides positive directions in project quality control. They synchronize themselves with principles of the body of knowledge on project management of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), aimed at satisfying specified quality specifications.

Evaluating Product Quality

In order to evaluate the quality plan of almostfree.com, it needs to be compared with ISO recommended standards, i.e., ISO 9001 certification requirements. The eight quality management principles outlined by ISO/TC 176 lead organizations to better performance and are as follows:

• Customer Focus: End-user quality and satisfaction are top priorities.
• Leadership: Clarifying clear roles of leadership within the project, i.e., Project Manager and Project Sponsor.
• People Involvement: Definition of roles and responsibilities to increase project efficiency.
• Process Approach: Incorporation of several test cycles into processes of a project.
• Systemic Management: Systematic processes as a system to improve productivity.
• Continual Improvement: Providing flexibility and improvement in performance.
• Factual Decision Making: Information on facts for making good decisions.
• Relationships with Suppliers: Building relationships with suppliers for shared beneficial outcomes.

From an assessment of the existing quality plan against eight ISO standards of quality, the following recommendations are:

Establish Key Events and Milestones: Align with key suppliers to match schedules in avoiding interference at vital steps of the project.

• Workflows Consistent Design: Implement workflows that align with a systemic management approach to enhance processes.
• Define Leadership Roles: Define project leaders and their roles to guarantee responsibility.
• Designate Influencers: Identify influencers and main stakeholders, as well as the level of influence on the quality process.
• Schedule Regular Meetings: Schedule meetings with main leaders to facilitate project updates and strategic decisions.

By using these measures, the project will be faithful to ISO quality principles and significantly enhance its potential for success.

Quality Assurance: A Critical Component

Quality Assurance (QA) involves formal processes to ensure that products or services are meeting specified requirements. A fresh QA audit for the NEO project has identified severe failures, i.e., that the Cost of Quality (CoQ) has doubled the cost of the project. Therefore, a fresh quality assurance plan is required.

Analyzing the Cost of Quality

Cost of Quality (CoQ) is a vital system for assessing the investment made in avoiding poor quality, verifying product/service quality, and correcting internal and external failure. Its measurement helps the organizations recognize avenues for saving costs by improving the process. CoQ has four significant areas:

• Prevention Costs: Costs incurred to prevent product defects, such as employee training and supplier certification. Prevention costs are estimated at $7,980 for this project.
• Appraisal Costs: The costs of quality control activities that ensure conformity to customer specifications. Estimated project appraisal costs amount to $3,978.
• Internal Failure Costs: Costs that result from defects in the product prior to its delivery. In the event of project failure, such costs amount to $30,380.
• External Failure Costs: These are the costs of defects discovered after sales and consist of legal fees, lost sales, and returns. These too are estimated at $30,380.

Calculating Overall CoQ

Overall CoQ in the NEO project is computed by employing the formula:

• CoQ = Prevention Costs + Appraisal Costs + Internal Failure Costs + External Failure Costs
• CoQ = $7,980 + $3,978 + $30,380 + $30,380 = $72,718

Quality Assurance Recommendations for the NEO Project

To enhance the process of orientation and onboarding new employees at Nearlyfree.com, the following objectives need to be fulfilled:

• Company Intranet Access: Ensure that new hires are able to gain easy access to relevant resources and information.
• Automation of Presentation Control: Implement automated systems for presentation version management to increase productivity.
• Monitor Employee Progress: Grant HR staff access to monitor new employees’ use of resources and confirm knowledge testing.
• Single System Training Tracking: Enable HR staff to track training completion through a single system.

Conclusion

Improving Nearlyfree.com‘s New Employee Orientation project quality plan is crucial in solving present problems and achieving project success. Nearlyfree.com can greatly improve its operational efficiency and ultimately enhance the new employee onboarding process by complying with established quality standards, implementing strategic recommendations, and creating an effective Quality Assurance Plan.

The PM FPX 5333 Assessment 3 focuses on analyzing the Quality Plan and developing a Quality Assurance Plan.

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

The International Organization of Standardization provides quality management standards (n.d.). NI Business Info. https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk

Twinn, A. (2020, December 25). Appraisal costs. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com