Who’s accountable for quality?

Looking beyond the project…who’s accountable for quality?

Project managers will tell you that successful project management controls cost, time, and results/quality.  But all too often these elements are formulated based on a specific project end point, for example, the go-live of a new system.  Usually all contractual obligations of vendors focus on implementation as the success factor.  In some cases, incentives are provided for a faster implementation, or shared cost savings, etc.  At INTP, we have observed that this often leads to project decisions being made that have adverse impacts to the overall benefit realization of the business initiative.  This may overly focus project decisions on two elements, cost and time.

Results are only fully measurable after the project delivers and vendor obligations have ended.  We believe the executive who owns the ultimate business outcome should be accountable for quality, not the project team.  The original business case should outline the metrics that will measure quality and all project decisions should consider their impact to these metrics.