Question

Speed of Delivery versus Quality The mantra for many organizations today is "Do more with less." Often management is demanding that IT solutions be delivered within weeks instead of months, with key features and functions that are expected to provide immediate bottom-line results. Unfortunately, this often means that quality and testing are sacrificed for speed. As Kevin Heard, a project manager at Clarkston Consulting in Durham, N.C., states "It's an uphill battle. Everyone realizes that if you sacrifice quality today, you're going to pay for it in the future." The conflict between quality and speed becomes compounded when people are spread thin across several projects. Moreover, project managers must make sure that the project's scope is realistic and achievable, especially when the project's schedule is compressed. Too often management urges the project manager to "cut corners" in order to deliver an IT solution on time without reducing functionality. For example, Margo Visitaci´ on, an analyst at Forrester Research tells of one instance where an IT manager was pressured by senior managers to expedite an ERP implementation by bypassing several important business processes. As Ken McLennan, a senior vice president at Fujitsu Consulting in Edison, N.J., adds "There's always a lot of pressure from executives to take shortcuts on IT projects." He believes that project managers must help executives understand the risks of taking shortcuts. McLennan says "If companies are seen making mistakes and that gets publicized, that could hurt their share price, so there's a tremendous balancing act going on." Discussion

Questions: 2. If you were a project manager and asked you to consider strongly taking a shortcut that could potentially compromise quality, what arguments could you make to convince them to not sacrifice quality over speed of delivery?

Answer 1

Answer : Quality is better than quantity. Any organization can win the trust of the consumer on the basis of the quality provided to them. Quality is essential for the progress of the organization. It is not a genuine action to compromise with the quality for the speed delivery.

Shortcuts may achieve the target but without the quality things can not be completed. Any organization is dependent on the quality. Quality is the need for the development and growth.