Establish and maintain the project’s quality and process-performance objectives.

When establishing the project’s quality and process-performance objectives, it is often useful to think ahead about which processes from the organization’s set of standard processes will be included in the project’s defined process and what the historical data indicate regarding their process performance. These considerations will help in establishing realistic objectives for the project. Later, as the project’s actual performance becomes known and more predictable, objectives may need to be revised.

The acquirer establishes the project’s quality and process-performance objectives based on objectives of the organization, the customer, and other relevant stakeholders. The acquirer may also establish quality and process-performance objectives for supplier deliverables. These quantitative quality and process-performance objectives for the supplier are documented in the supplier agreement. The acquirer typically expects the supplier to execute its processes and apply its process-performance models toward achieving these objectives.

Typical Work Products

1.    The project’s quality and process-performance objectives

Subpractices

1.    Review the organization’s objectives for quality and process performance.

The intent of this review is to ensure that the project understands the broader business context in which the project must operate. The project’s objectives for quality and process performance are developed in the context of these overarching organizational objectives.

Refer to the Organizational Process Performance process area for more information about the organization’s quality and process-performance objectives.

2.    Identify the quality and process-performance needs and priorities of the customer, suppliers, end users, and other relevant stakeholders.

3.    Identify how process performance is to be measured.

Consider whether measures established by the organization are adequate for assessing progress in fulfilling customer, end-user, and other stakeholder needs and priorities. It may be necessary to supplement these measures with additional ones.

Refer to the Measurement and Analysis process area for more information about defining measures.

4.    Define and document measurable quality and process-performance objectives for the project.

Defining and documenting objectives for the project involve the following:

·       Incorporating the organization’s quality and process-performance objectives

·       Writing objectives that reflect the quality and process-performance needs and priorities of the customer, end users, and other stakeholders, and the way these objectives should be measured

5.    Derive interim objectives for each lifecycle phase, as appropriate, to monitor progress toward achieving the project’s objectives.

6.    Resolve conflicts among the project’s quality and process-performance objectives (e.g., if one objective cannot be achieved without compromising another).

Resolving conflicts involves the following activities:

·       Setting relative priorities for objectives

·       Considering alternative objectives in light of long-term business strategies as well as short-term needs

·       Involving the customer, end users, senior management, project management, and other relevant stakeholders in tradeoff decisions

·       Revising objectives as necessary to reflect results of conflict resolution

7.    Establish traceability to the project’s quality and process-performance objectives from their sources.

8.    Define and negotiate quality and process-performance objectives for suppliers.

Refer to the Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development process area for more information about incorporating project quality and process-performance objectives into solicitation packages and into supplier agreements.

9.    Revise the project’s quality and process-performance objectives as necessary.