From Expectations to Criteria

We can’t use the quality expectations directly. We turn them into acceptance criteria. For example, in the pipeline project to supply water to a city discussed yesterday, we may need a more careful soil compression below the pipes to guarantee they will work for as long as 50 years.

Available quality standards and codes usually cover many of the acceptance criteria, but usually we have to develop and add our own guidelines to complete the package.

In your opinion, is it possible for quality planning to require changes in the scope?

Yes, each planning activity may require changes in other plans. That’s what PMBOK calls recursive planning. For example, we may need to lay the pipes deeper or use another type of pipe to make sure the pipeline system works for 50 years; that’s a change in the scope.

We associate the acceptance criteria, and a few more pieces of information, to the WBS elements; it’s called the WBS Dictionary. It can be a separate document, or merged into the WBS; e.g., you can add comments to the WBS nodes in your mind-mapping software and add the information.

All right, now, we know why we are doing the project, we have identified the stakeholders, and we have planned scope and quality. What’s next?