The solutions that project teams provide to overcome a challenge may  not consistently be the best solution. Although the desired result is achieved, often the "big picture" and future growth is not part of the solution. Practical processes partnered with a "quality company culture" resolves this.

Summary points

1. Establish the value of quality solutions in your organisation
2. Create project development processes to support this value

A quality company culture

A quality orientated culture is not a token wall hanging that reads something like "Quality solutions are our foundation". Instead it is a value that each team member understands and buys into. Once this value of providing high quality solutions (as opposed to quick results), is established in a team, less energy is wasted in having to review the work done by each developer.

Quality orientated processes

Our way of project management is called Cre8ion™. The work flow in Cre8ion supports the development of quality solutions. A project team consists of members playing different roles. There is a project steward who guides the overall progress of the project and project developers who create solutions for each component of the project. When a project begins, individuals are invited to join the project team and must buy into the project vision.

Open Atrium and Cases tell the story of a project

We use Open Atrium as our project management platform. Open Atrium uses a customized Drupal module called casetracker for managing the development of a project. Without going into too much detail, casetracker has a content type called a case, which is used to tell the story of how a project component was created. A case has a state, type and a priority.

The project steward or a project team member writes up the case which includes a purpose/vision, user stories and objectives or desired results. The case is assigned, prioritized and categorized. Cases are pieces used to build the big picture. Cases tell a story and have a work flow that support their evolution. Cases become part of the project documentation. The project documentation is really a story about the project, and cases are pieces of that story.

The evolution of a case

Once a case has been created it evolves something like this;

1. The assignee reviews the case and summarizes the objectives and what is required. The case changes from conceptual and abstract to defined.
2. The assignee researches and proposes a solution, including resources/references and code snippets
3. The solution is tested out on the assignee's development version of the project and if it satisfies the case vision and requirements, the solution is moved to a central development version of the project and the case is re-assigned to the project steward and put in the "for review" state.
4. The project steward reviews the solution which includes user testing when required
5. The solution is accepted and the case state is changed to "committed" for the next release of the project

The case work flow allows for the following;

• A case solution may be rejected and the case can go back into the "in progress" state
• A case may be re-assigned at any time
• All team members are encouraged to review cases and offer suggestions
• Cases are assigned by the case developer (assignee) to other project team members to get suggestions and ideas
• The priority of a case may be changed and be postponed for a later release
• The progress of a case is clearly documented and anyone reviewing the case can see how it progressed from conception to completion
• The case becomes part of the project documentation or project story

Quality culture and quality orientated processes

The number of times a case returns to in progress from the for review state is reduced when quality of solution is part of the company culture, and as the knowledge of the project team grows. It should not be taken for granted that project developers will always provide the best quality solution. Project teams must acknowledge and buy into the culture of quality solutions. Big picture perspective and future growth is part of the quality orientated company culture. Results should not always be the focus. Instead the quality of the solution and the process of realizing the solution is priority. Processes are adapted to support the quality culture of the company.

In the next article we'll look more closely at case states and how to use them in your project work flow.