Evidence of Quality Control Methods in IT Project Success: A Critical Evaluation - Coursework Example

? EVIDENCE OF QUALITY CONTROL METHODS IN IT PROJECT SUCCESS: A CRITICAL EVALUATION by Ahmed State Date of submission Evidence of Quality Control Methods in IT Project Success: A Critical Evaluation Introduction 2pages Quality control is an integral part of quality management in project management processes. The inclusion of the quality control is of fundamental value to project teams since it allows them to produce software products that are set to meet quality standards. Among these variables is time, budget and quality, but the latter plays a significant role in the success of projects in the information technology industry and other fields alike (John &Trevor, 2007). There are various definitions of quality, which seek to define what quality is and what it is not. The American Society of Quality defined as the totality of the features in a product or a service that makes it able to satisfy a specific need. Another definition refers quality to a particular feature in a product or service that meets the needs of customers (Wilson, 2005). Whereas these definitions vary, the definitions give clear evidence on the importance of quality to the development of products and services. In project management, project teams execute quality control tasks to assess projects meet quality stand. Erpa and Verner (2009) argue that quality is a useful parameter that influences the success than a failure of a project. The value of quality is significant in information technology projects. Many projects, including those in information technology, have certain objectives to achieve, which organizations can use to determine the project success or lack of it (Martinez-Ruiz et al., n.d.). Because of this, project management has evolved to encompass new concepts such as quality control, which concerns how organizations can monitor the results for a project to ensure. A wealth of literature points to quality as one the essential parameter than influence quality of projects. Another literature also identity the connection between quality and cost and time involved in project management. The connection between quality project successes is an intricate relationship that can save organizations immense amount of money, as well as reducing costs and time spent in reworking failed projects. This is one of the reasons this topic of significant importance information technology experts who are likely to take part in teams. These above questions relate to the history of project management, which provides examples of projects that failed to accomplish their objectives because of poor quality control. Consequently, these projects caused negative impact on stakeholders because the existence of various defects, which signify software’s failure to meet, the requirements of stakeholders delay projects and inflate costs. An excellent example of a quality-related failure in IT project is a failure within the Denver International Airport baggage system (Mujtaba, Mahmood & Nasir, 2011). This research paper hypothesis the use of quality control methods as vital in information technology projects to provide quality control functions, which streamline the delivery of quality software not only meet the customer expectation, but also ensure firms meet time and budgetary constraints. This report situates that role of quality control in project management and provides an analysis of evidence that quality control methods shape the success of an IT project. The focus of the paper is probing the link between efforts of project teams to meet the quality demands and the how they adopt quality control methods. The paper raises some fundamental questions of quality in an information technology project. Do quality control methods find use in information technology projects? Does the inclusion of quality control methods in project management contribute to success within an information technology project? In order to answer these questions, the researched process entailed the search of peer-reviewed journals from internet databases such as EBSCOHost, ProQuest Journals, and Science direct. During the search, several keywords helped locate the articles, which contained information on quality and information technology projects. After searching the articles, I read the articles and took notes on the role of quality control and its influence on quality control of the project. The results from the note taking process helped me to write the findings and discussion section of this project paper. Methods The topic of the paper necessitated the use of literature detailing the practice of article that highlight on the role of quality control methods in information technology projects. Because of this precedence, the research had to focus on a successful means of gathering information for the use of quality control methods in information technology projects. Consequently, I had to rely on the internet databases, which have archives of journal articles on various topics. Deciding on the use of journals as the source of literature in this study was an essential part in the research process. Nonetheless, this was not the only step that I did when preparing to collect data in the area of study. Besides, my decision to choose internet databases, I had to select the most appropriate database to focus my search since some databases have specific articles that others do not have. As a result, I had to choose of the internet databases that had many journals and content related to information technology. The choices of the database were EBSCOHost, Science Direct, IEEE Computer Society Digital Library, and Computer database. These online databases served as repositories of thousands of journals that would help in providing data for the project. To gather data, I logged into each database and search for relevant journals according to the topic under study. The topic of the study focused on the existence of quality control projects in information technology, which made me choose quality control and information technology as my key phrases for searching the databases. The goal of having key phrases was to locate relevant journals in the database to read abstracts of journals before deciding on their suitability. During the search process, I focused on using the search phases to probe each database for the articles. It was intriguing to note that some databases had more articles than others did. This was particular vital in choosing the database to focus most. Among the entire database mentioned above, the Science Direct database had the largest collection of peer-reviewed journal articles. In addition, some of the database gave remarkably few relevant articles with regard to the topic of interest. The research focus was to find articles that relate to quality control methods used in information technology projects. During the search, abstracts of positive hits offered a quick way to evaluating the relevancy of these articles. After reading abstracts from various databases, some articles lacked the relevancy for use for the project. These articles became candidates for removal from the reading list. On the contrary, the articles with more relevancies made it to the list of the articles that I later download. These articles helped in the research process as have a positive correlation to the topic under study. The search process was fascinating it enabled me to realize the databases that had relevant article and those that did not have any relevant hit. Apart from getting the information from the database, database tools such as the citation generator helped generate the citations for the journals I had earmarked for download as portable desktop files (pdf). The final process was the download process that made it possible for me to acquire download all the files via the browser. With the journals ready, I was not set to read the material and filter the literature at a deeper level than before. This process was daunting at first, but a few workarounds allowed me to sieve the information better. Using a Foxit pdf ready, I was could open the journals read them and annotate areas where I found some vital information on the topic under study. Soon, I had read all the journals and realized that some had better information while others had some little information, but satisfied my needs in this research. After reading that article, the focus was on an article with quality control techniques that help project teams to execute quality control processes. The study paid attention to article with methods such as inspection, charting, trend analysis, statistical sampling, and Pareto diagrams. These common techniques help project teams to monitor projects and assess deliverables for quality conformance. This selection from the articles with any of this quality control technique was the inclusion criteria that made it possible to study to have the articles used in the next results' section. Results Because of the methodology, the above section outlines what the research found in some journal articles detailing the use of quality control method's information technology projects. The study found that many information technology projects relied on quality control methods to provide tools and technique for assessing the degree of conformance of project outcomes to the set standards. However, the study also revealed that project teams in information technology projects utilize different quality control tools to suit their quality control needs. In the first article, written by Ezamly and Hussion (2011), the duo carried out a study to investigate the impact quality risk on project management techniques. The prevalence of risk and software failures in many software products provided the motivation for this study. In the study, Ezamly and Hussin (2011) decide to focus on a particular software-development house. The software company, located in Palestine, had many managers that took part in information technology projects. Consequently, the researcher administered the group of managers with questionnaires focusing on the impact of quality-affecting risks on projects. From the questionnaires, the researchers gathered data and analyzed them. The data revealed that some most of the risks had a serious impact on quality. Most importantly, the data from the research revealed that some of the principal risks were a product of lack of robust pretest defect removal in information technology projects. Most significantly, the researcher found out that most of the defects in the development process affected the quality of the entire project at hand. These results were a compilation of data gathered from 40 participants in the study. The second article details a study that Prasad et al. (2011) carried out on an existing software project. The article is clear about its purpose as it aimed at determining software defects using software reliability tools based on exponential distribution. In the study, Prasad et al. (2011) made use of the statistical processing tool to estimate software reliability in a project. By using this technique, the researchers aimed at determining the stability of processes in a software-development cycle. While evaluating this quality control process, the journal article revealed that the researchers used the mean value charts to detect processes that were stable and those that were not. The chart the researchers produced reflected on the stability of an individual process in the software-development exercise (See Appendix A.). The chart showed in Appendix A show that some processes were out of control and required remedy to become at par with other essential processes. In another journal, Harter and Slaughter (2003) investigate the impact of quality improvement at the cost the information technology organization incurs in the development of software solutions. This journal detail how Harter and Slaughter (2003) integrated software quality process, and CASE tools that developer use to automate mitigation of development errors. Using data from an information technology project, system integration project of a large organization, Harter and Slaughter (2003) investigate the impact of case tools in the software-development process. This process of analyzing the use of CASE tools was made possible by the data available on cost, software defects, and software-development activity. Through the research, it was evident Harter, and Slaughter (2003) had their focus on the overall impact of CASE tools in the quality control process throughout the system integration project they were investigating. In connection to the CASE tools, Harter and Slaughter (2003) also considered the impact of employees with CASE tool's skills on the quality of the project. From the use of CASE tools, the researchers found that the number of defects in the software-development process declined considerably (See Appendix B). In this study, the fourth journal was on how an information technology project in the 1990s relied on total quality management for the development of software application software. After reading of the journal, it was evident that Swanson et al. (1991) determined that some successful firms had used total quality management to mitigate the occurrence of software errors during the development of Celite application software reuse. The study done by Swanson et al. (2003) determined that total quality management had allowed the project team for the Celite project to impose rigid constraints in the process of development. In particular, the researchers found that the five process of total quality management had successfully helped provide developers with tools to mitigate software defects. This process of this study underscored the value of the flexible automation process in development of quality software (See Appendix C for evolution of the software-development process). The researchers reported having made a gain in the project using the total quality management technique. In another journal article, Yamaura and Onoma (2005) did a research to determine the effectiveness of two methods in finding software bugs in an information technology project. The researchers tested code of software under development for defects at specific inspection points. Using a method with two parts, the researchers tested for bugs using the Gompertz curve in the first part of the study. From the reading from the article, it was clear that the second part of the study used an interval estimation technique. Yamaura and Onoma (2005) found out that the second method-interval estimation was more effective than the first method in estimating the number of bugs in software. Kim and Zhang (2010) also did a research to demonstrate the value and effectiveness of c-charts in the quality control process of an information technology project. The researcher tried out the role of c-charts in reducing the number of errors in a software product using the Eclipse and Bugzilla. The researchers found that the c-charts were effective in tracking defects and allowing developers to reduce the number of software bugs. This finding was useful in eliminating software errors in the information technology project under study. Another study done by de Azevedo et al. (2011), the group of researchers found that agile technologies were critical in lowering the number of software defects. With the aim of finding why many developers fail to meet quality requirements, de Azevedo et al. (2011) analyzed the perception of software professionals on the possible quality issues. From the study, de Azevedo et al. (2011) found out that many professionals agree that the uses of agile technologies are useful in providing quality processes that reflected on the development of clean code that meets the requirement set by the customer. Discussion From the above section, there is no doubt quality is an essential part of information technology projects. In all the case studies described above, information technology professionals are concerned with quality. The value of quality with zero defects or usability level of information technology products or services explains why project team focuses a lot on quality. Notably, the articles highlight that quality is a unique parameter that many project teams strive to achieve. The role of quality in project success is the case studies is consistent with the expectation that information technology professional point it (Erpa and Verner, 2009)). Indeed, the realization if quality and the development of quality control technique further reinforce that quality is a critical component of an information technology project. There are significant evidences in the above case studies that a majority of information technology utilize quality control methods to influence quality management. From the above readings, there is enough evidence to prove that quality control method help project to succeed. The success of information technology project rests on the attainment of quality, which has more value than cost or time project teams spend in a project (Martinez-Ruiz et al., 2007). Consequently, quality control become an essential part of project management process that help streamline the effort of the project team in developing all project deliverable according to the customer specification. Quality control method thus becomes a central pillar that determines whether a project team meets quality or not. In the entire information technology project above, quality control technique takes a central role in making them a success. In addition, some of the case studies point to the use of quality control as a primary focus of ensuring that project teams to meet quality requirements. Consistent with literature, the case studies prove that quality control methods offer a technique to monitor quality and provide a remedy where information technology products or services receive corrective measures (Parnas, 2011). In the research done by Ezamly and Hussin (2011), the finding indicates that defects in a software lead to poor of project output. This project is an exception since no project team appears to have used any quality control methods. Thus, the lack of quality control can translate to defects and failure of information technology projects. Furthermore, many of these journals reveal that quality control methods enable quality realization in project. Use of mean-value chart in computing software failure was particular helped in detecting unstable processes (Prasad, Rao and Kantham, 2011). Besides this, use of total quality control enabled a project team to develop clean code free from defects. Along with the study that found CASE tools to reduce errors in code written by programmers, there are significant case studies that prove the value of quality control methods. Most importantly, the data concludes that quality control method bridges the gap between project success and failure of an information technology project. The findings from the research, which appear above, confirm that hypothesis that quality control methods shape the outcome from the study. Consequently, there is significant evidence that highlight why quality control methods are useful in keeping the project within check. The quality control methods used in the above case studies underlie the reasons behind the quality control process. In project management, quality control techniques help monitor quality standards and highlight on non-conformance. This step is critical in helping project teams to generate remedy the said issues. In one of the studies, there is a concrete relationship between project failures and quality-affecting risks (Ezamly, A, & Hussin, 2011). This is because lack of quality control methods aggravates the impact of risks, which further introduces defects in information technology projects. Besides, use of charts, one of the quality control methods, help identity process that are likely to cause defects. As the case pointed this method help monitor and determine what parts of a project need corrective works (Prasad, Ra, & Kantham, 2011). The success of agile technologies in providing quality control functions is also evident in one of the case studies (de Azevedo, 2011). In information technology projects, such as software projects, agile methodologies allow developer generate clean code, which signify quality. This explains why many developers are able to meet the demand of creating software of high quality using this software development strategy. Certainly, quality control methods serve as tools that help project team assess and evaluate corrective measures aimed at reducing quality issues. The use of CASE tools, for instance, underpin the role of quality improvement processes in enabling software developer generate quality code (Harter & Slaughter, 2003). This study is beneficial to information technology professionals who engage in project management since it highlights on one of the most vital parameters for project—quality Indeed, this research paper underscores the need of quality control methods in information technology. As a result, this paper situates the role of quality control in enabling software and hardware professional to achieve quality in their projects. In addition, the positive results from the use of quality control method's emphasis upon the use of these techniques in projects. In a big picture, this strategy helps improve the challenge facing information technology, particular society projects. While most projects fail due to defects that lead to quality issues, the article reinforces on the importance of quality control methods on sustaining the delivery of quality products and services. Nonetheless, researchers need to focus more studies on the effectiveness of quality control methods in the control over a software process. This research is likely to plug the gap where some quality control method remains unused in quality control projects. As this study show, some quality control methods appear to have more use than others do. More importantly, the findings from these studies will reinforce the value of quality control projects and create more appreciation among information technology professionals as quality control projects are critical enabling success in information technology projects. Conclusion Information technology project consumes significant forms of investment and attaining the goals of a project is one of the main tasks project teams face. Many variables influence how project teams satisfy the standard set for a particular project. Among these variables, quality is the primary consideration as it relates to final product or service. Quality, which has several definitions, relates to the usability of the final product or service from a project. It entails how well project teams to create a product or service that meets the need from the client. Quality control method has gained significant inroads in project management processes, with quality taking a being a prime consideration in the development of defect. Quality control methods offer project teams with tools and mean to monitor process and correct those that cause lower quality of project deliverables. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of quality control methods in information technology projects and most importantly point at their role in enabling project success. Because of these, the study relied on database searches of suitable internet libraries such as Science Direct, EBSCOHost and IEEE computer databases. Using relevant keywords, quality control, Information technology projects, the search results yielded a list of relevant articles with specific case studies on information technology projects. A review of these journals revealed that many information technology projects utilized quality control methods such as charts, statistical methods, and inspection. Among the method, in use are mean-value charts, agile technologies and CASE tool, which helped enhance, quality attainment in information technology projects. These quality control methods have a role in creation of quality project deliverables underscore the value of quality control methods in shaping the process. The results from the study confirm that quality control methods are effective in contributing to quality control. Consequently, this reinforced the importance of studying quality control methods in IT (See appendix C). The study remains a success as it proves that quality control methods bridge the gap between success and failure of information technology projects. Reference List de Azevedo Santos, M, de Souza Bermejo, P, de Oliveira, M, & Tonelli, A 2011, 'Agile Practices: An Assessment of Perception of Value of Professionals on the Quality Criteria in Performance of Projects', Journal Of Software Engineering & Applications, 4, 12, pp. 700-709, Computers & Applied Sciences Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 17 March 2012. Erpa, N, & Verner, J 2009, 'Why Did Your Project Fail?', Communications Of The ACM, 52, 12, pp. 130-134, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 April 2012. Ezamly, A, & Hussin, B, 2011, “Estimating Quality-Affecting Risks in Software Projects,” International Management Review, 17, 2, pp.66-74. Harter, D. E. & Slaughter, S. A. (2003). Quality Improvement and Infrastructure Activity Costs in Software Development. Management Science,49 (6):784- 800. John, M, & Trevor, W 2007, 'Software engineering: a quality management perspective', TQM Magazine, 19, 4, pp. 315-327, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 April 2012. Luyin, Z, Deek, F, & McHugh, J 2010, 'Exploratory inspection-a user-based learning method for improving open source software usability', Journal Of Software Maintenance & Evolution: Research & Practice, 22, 8, pp. 653-675, Computers & Applied Sciences Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 17 March 2012. Martinez-Ruiz, T, Munch, J, Garcia, F, & Piattini, M n.d., 'Requirements and constructors for tailoring software processes: a systematic literature review', Software Quality Journal, 20,1, pp. 229-260, Science Citation Index, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 April 2012. Pannirselvam, G, & Madupalli, R 2011, 'Antecedents of Project Success: The Perception of Vendor Employees', Quality Management Journal, 18, 3, pp. 7-20, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 17 March 2012. Parnas, D, 2011, 'Inside risks the risks of stopping too soon', Communications Of The ACM, 54, 6, pp. 31-33, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 17 March 2012. Prasad, R, Rao, B, & Kantham, R 2011, 'Monitoring Software Reliability using Statistical Process Control: An MMLE Approach', International Journal Of Computer Science & Information Technology, 3, 5, pp. 221-227, Computers & Applied Sciences Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 17 March 2012. Swanson, K., McComb, D., Smith, J. & McCubbrey, D. (1991). The Application Software Factory: Applying Total Quality Techniques to Systems Development. MIS Quarterly, 15(4): 567-579. Wilson, PB 2005, 'Ten Common Mistakes Companies Make Setting Up and Managing Software Quality Assurance Departments', Journal Of The Quality Assurance Institute, 19, 2, pp. 19-26, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 April 2012. Yamaura, T. & Onoma, A. K. (2005).Numerical Software Quality Control in Object Oriented Development. Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Workshop on Service- Oriented System Engineering. IEEE. 177-182 Zhang, H. & Kim, S. Monitoring the Evolution of Software Quality with Respect to Defect, IEEE Software, 27(4):58-64. Appendix A Appendix B See Appendix C Learning journal When I first took a glance at the topic of study, I was not sure what to expect from the project, but this did not deter me from taking a critical look into it. Today, I have come to an end of this project and I can conformably mention that I have learnt a lot about the topic, more about the research process before, and most importantly, how to improve my future studies. First, I had to do lot of research work on the topic to understand all aspects of the research problem. To accomplish this, I read some books and journals on project management. I also did consult with my professor. These efforts were helpful in helping me understand the context of the paper. As a result, I became more aware of the research boundaries than before. In addition, I used internet libraries for the first time at more depth than I had done before. While I had used some databases before, I was impressed by the information available in these databases. The reading of the journal was also a useful process that made me obtain useful insight on the topic. While some journals were lengthy and full of technical information, I still had the patience to read them and understand the contents. I have gained significant insight from the project. First, I understand the value of doing a literature review on a given topic at hand. This is useful in helping a researcher gain more background information. Notably, the process of searching journals also made me understand that using appropriate keywords can save time in a research work. Whereas I did not use the thesaurus function of the databases, I am ready to use it in conducting future searches because it can help locate better articles. Besides, I will be preparing journals much earlier as I spent more time in this phase of the study. At the end of the project, I feel more enlightened and I now value the role of quality and quality control methods as information technology professional. Read More