Remember, Quality is the Hidden Fourth Constraint

Every project manager has the three constraints drummed into them: time, budget, and resources. Experienced project managers understand that there is a forth part to the equation, quality. Everyone on the project has to know and agree on the minimum level of quality. The customer is the one that decides if the project is done, if they are satisfied with the results, and if the results are of usage. They will have some definition in their heads and unstated expectation of the quality of the deliverables which will change as the project progresses.

It is vital that the project manager work with the customer to get this definition stated in a clear and measurable way. That definition will impact the other three metric. The project manager and customer have to reach an agreement and an understanding on how this measurement relates to the other three. With this in hand, the project manager can make intelligent trade-offs and provide status reporting to the customer.
Everyone on the team also needs to understand the minimum level of quality and how that impacts their actions and deliverables. Any time that this is threaten, begins to impact the other three, or is impacted by the other three, this needs to be made visible to everyone. We are use to asking how each decision impacts time, costs, and resources. Everyone needs to also ask how the decision impacts quality.

Too many times the drivers on the project are to do it fast and cheap. That has resulted in large numbers of projects that fail or fail to satisfy the user. Budgets escalate and delivery dates stretch out as we get caught in the cycle of test, reject, and rework. The unfortunate fact for the project manager is that the same people that forced them down the road of fast and cheap will be the first to throw stones at them for missing deadlines, overrunning the budget and delivering something that is unusable.



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