Cost, Time and Quality issues in PM

Question:


Good quality, low cost, fast delivery – you can have any two out of three.


1. Discuss from your own work experience when you have seen this happen


2. What experience do you have of clients/managers trying to get three out of three?


3. What are the problems this creates in project management terms?


Answer 1




Discuss from your own work experience when you have seen this happen.


In my career as the Project Supervisor of a telecommunication’s vendor company, I have seen too much of this.


Typically the most attention is on fast delivery (I believe that is due to the ease of measuring and physical verification).


When BTS (Base Transceiver station) sites are being built, a timeline is always given as to when the sites will be completed and when it will be on AIR. More often, we deliver these sites far ahead of schedule.


Next would be low cost. (Again I attribute most of this to the ease of measuring and verification).


The lowest bidder is more often assigned the job on most of the projects I handled. I must say that this is at the mercy of the quality standard when the job is finished.


Quality is always at the rear because you really need to understand the project and its parameters.


One thing I have learnt and used over and over again is to be able to project the cost of each slip and compare. For example


Cost of delay = Missed Sales, Cost Increase = Profit Lose, Cost of Quality = Reduced Sales


With this in mind, I know what to and what not to compromise

Answer2


What experience do you have of clients/managers trying to get three out of three?


The customers I have worked for also wanted three out of three but, as with any human endeavour, many times their representatives focus on two out of three depending on their experience and background.


In my opinion, it all depends on how prepared the customer is when it comes to setting up a project. It might take some time to develop a relationship between a customer to actually hammer out what it is expected of each in order to produce the best results at an affordable rate. The clarity of information provided by the customer to the project managers will greatly affect the end results.


On some of the projects I worked on, the customers had my bosses so intimidated that they had to modify our estimate to meet the customers’ expectations, even though I knew it was wrong and could not be successfully completed in these terms.


On a final note, the success of the Project will be measured by the fact that


a. The project is completed within the estimated cost


b. The project is delivered as planned


c. The quality of the project is within the customer’s defined requirement.


Answer3


What are the problems this creates in project management terms?


The biggest problems were unrealistic deadlines, targets, schedules, uncompleted jobs.





References:


LOCK, D., 2007. The Essentials of Project Management. 3rd ed.England: Gower Publishing Limited