ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapters the importance of quality in the success of a project and the role of quality in project management processes were addressed. It is generally accepted that the minimum success criteria of projects are that they should be completed to time, to budget and to quality. However, when one explores what is meant by quality the answers are often vague and variable. If someone talks about ‘working on project quality’, they may simply mean activities related to quality management systems recommended in bodies of knowledge (e.g. PMBOK, 2008; PRINCE2, 2009) and they ensure the compliance to procedures by ‘ticking boxes’. Quality in a broader context has many meanings depending on customers, ranging from luxury and merit to excellence, good value for money or convenience and even practicality. A generic definition of quality is simply ‘meeting the customer requirements’, but this has been expressed in many ways, e.g.;
• ‘conformance to requirements’ – Crosby (1992) • ‘fitness for use’ – Juran (1989) • ‘quality should be aimed the needs of the consumer’ – Deming (1986) • ‘the total composite product and service characteristics of the organisation
to meet the expectation by the customer’ – Feigenbaum (1983) • ‘the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy
stated and implied need’ – ISO 9000:2000.
