PM Minute: Prevention Costs

CI With Seth Wiesenthal Part 2

In this week's episode, we conclude our two-part interview with ASQ certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Seth Wiesenthal. This week, Seth discusses: * The importance of metrics in any CI effort * CI in service vs manufacturing environments * Implementing CI at your location * Why he doesn't feel sorry for Walter White Part one of the interview replays immediately after the first segment in case you missed it last week.

PM Minute: External Failure Costs

Today we wrap our four-part series on the cost of quality and conclude back to back days dealing with the cost of poor quality. External failure costs are incurred to fix problems after the product or service is already in the hands of the customer. For projects or processes that produce a good, these can include: * Repairs – the cost of fixing defects for the customer. Sometimes, at their location * Warranty claims – producing new products, not for additional revenue, but to replace items with defects. And for product and service projects: * Returns – items that are sent back by the customer or recalled by the producer * Complaints – both direct costs of responding to complaints, but the associated loss of reputation and credibility. External failures carry the heaviest toll because your deliverable is out the door and in front of the customer.  As I said yesterday: In all projects, you are going to spend time and money on quality.  Spend it on good quality!

PM Minute: Internal Failure Costs

Did you try to save money by not performing QA on your project or rushing through the requirements phase? Odds are, you'll have equivalent – or probably greater – expenses tied to quality.  Only, instead of spending for good quality, you'll be paying for poor. The third in our 4-point Cost of Quality series is part of the cost of poor quality.  Specifically, the cost of internal failure. We've all been part of projects where requirements were poorly defined, or scope was uncontrolled and changed significantly.  That means we've all experienced several of these internal failure costs: * Waste – the team did work that wasn't needed and didn't add value * Scrap – a deliverable that could not be approved or used by the customer * Rework – doing it all over again to correct a mistake Plus, the time spent figuring out what went wrong in each of these cases. In all projects, you are going to spend time and money on quality.  Spend it on good quality!

PM Minute: Prevention Costs

Today's PM Minute is focused on the second cost of good quality, Prevention Costs. Prevention costs are spent to prevent, as the name suggests, or avoid defects in the quality of a product or service.  A defect is a result that does not meet requirements. We've talked many times about the importance of accurately capturing requirements in a project.  The effort spent on requirements gathering is actually a prevention cost as it helps to ensure that the product or service created by the project will meet customer needs. Other examples of prevention costs are: training, quality planning including specifications for inputs, and quality assurance. For more information on Quality Assurance, check out Colocation #37

PM Minute: Appraisal Costs

In today's PM Minute, we begin a four-part series covering the four components of the total cost of quality. Appraisal costs are one of the costs that make up the cost of good quality.  Appraisal costs are costs related to testing and inspection as part of the Quality Control process. Appraisal costs may look at the materials or inputs provided by a supplier to ensure compliance with standards and requirements.  In a manufacturing environment, raw goods and other supplies could be inspected.  In a service environment, like loan operations where I have worked, appraisal may include validating the information contained in a loan application as part of originating, approving, closing, and servicing the loan. The process by which the product or service is created is also appraised to make sure it is designed to produce to specification.  In Colocation #37, we talked about continuous improvement in processes with Seth Wiesenthal, an ASQ certified six-sigma black belt.