Quality Management in Data Processing for Census

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Quality Managementin Data Processing for Census

• Presented by Mr. Dominic K T LEUNG
• Deputy Commissioner
• Census and Statistics Department
• 20th September 2006
• Hong Kong, China

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Agenda

• Quality Management Steer from Top
• Quality Assurance in System Development
• Data Quality Assurance in Data Processing
• End-user Participation an Important Ingredient
• Hardware, Software and Service Acquisition an
  Important Area

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Quality Management Steer from Top(Overview of
Section A)

• What is Quality Management?
• Why Need a Project Management Methodology?
• PRINCE
• What is PRINCE?
• Components of PRINCE
• Organization
• Planning
• Control

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Quality Management Steer from Top

• What is Quality Management?
• The philosophy
• mistake should be prevented rather than detected
• fulfill the stakeholders expectations
• Quality Planning
• proper project management structure
• clear definitions of roles and responsibilities
• determine what quality standards should be
  adopted
• need to be set right at the beginning
• end result is a Quality Plan
• Quality Assurance
• planned and systematic quality activities to
  monitor the project
• provide the confidence that the project will meet
  the standards
• Quality Check
• measure specific project results to determine
  that the results match the standards

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Quality Management Steer from Top

• Why Need a Project Management Methodology?
• To define the project organization
• To reach consensus among all relevant parties
  about
• Why the project is needed?
• What the project is intended to achieve?
• How, where and when the parties are going to
  participate?
• To provide a framework for Quality Management
• To overcome some common mistakes like
• Inadequate planning and co-ordination of
  resources, activities, and scheduling
• Poor communication among interested parties
• Under-estimation of project costs and duration
• Lack of control over progress
• Lack of quality control

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Quality Management Steer from Top

• What is PRINCE?
• short for PRojects IN Controlled Environments
• established in 1989 by CCTA (the Central Computer
  and Telecommunications Agency) in UK, later
  renamed as the OGC (the Office of Government
  Commerce)
• structured method for effective project
  management
• widely used in both public and private sectors
• define the activities to be carried out for
  project organization, planning, risk management
  and control
• balance and optimize among Function, Time,
  Resource, Quality, and Risk

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Quality Management Steer from Top

• Components of PRINCE Organization

• The organization usually composes of three parts,
  namely the Project Steering Committee (PSC), the
  Project Assurance (PA) Group and the Project
  Manager (PM).
• PSC usually consists of Executive, Senior User
  and Senior Technical
• PA Group usually consists of Business Assurance
  Coordinator, User Assurance Coordinator and
  Technical Assurance Coordinator
• The PM, to whom all other team members report, is
  responsible for the timely production of all
  end-products to the agreed quality standards
  within the tolerances of time and cost set by the
  PSC
• The role and responsibilities of each member in
  the organization should be clearly defined in the
  Project Initiation Document

Project Steering Committee (PSC)
Senior User
Executive
Senior Technical
Project Assurance (PA) Group
Project Manager (PM)
Team Leader
Project Team
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Quality Management Steer from Top

• Components of PRINCE Planning
• The concept of 'Staging' is recommended. A
  project should be divided into stages to
  facilitate project management and control
• It provides senior management the opportunities
  to assess the project progress and business case
  at the stage boundaries.
• It also enables more realistic estimates for each
  stage
• Product-based Planning is introduced. It
  encourages planning the products first and then
  the activities
• It ensures that the derived activities will
  directly contribute to the development of the
  products
• The project manager should plan on project level
  for Project Steering Committee to oversee the
  project and he / she should plan on detailed
  stage level for his / her day-to-day control

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Quality Management Steer from Top

• Components of PRINCE Control
• Management by Exception the principle
• During a project stage, the Project Steering
  Committee delegates the day-to-day project
  management responsibilities to the Project
  Manager with 'Tolerance'
• The Project Steering Committee exercises control
  on project only when there is Exception (has
  exceeded or is anticipated to exceed the
  tolerance)
• Quality Management the elements
• Inclusion of Quality Plan (detailing related
  guidelines/ standards, quality criteria and
  quality checking method) devised at the project
  initiation
• Conduct of Quality Assurance Review at different
  stages to look for positive evidence that the
  product meets its specifications and quality
  criteria

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Quality Management Steer from Top

• Components of PRINCE Control
• Control Meetings
• Project Steering Committee Meeting held by
  Project Steering Committee (event driven or time
  driven at project initiation, end-stages, project
  closure)
• Checkpoint Review held by Project Manager
  (regular and time driven)
• Management of Risk
• Management of Configuration/Change

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Agenda

• Quality Management Steer from Top
• Quality Assurance in System Development
• Data Quality Assurance in Data Processing
• End-user Participation an Important Ingredient
• Hardware, Software and Service Acquisition an
  Important Area

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Quality Assurance in System Development(Overview
of Section B)

• Adoption of Standard Methodologies
• SSADM in Practice
• Major Quality Assurance Related Activities in
  SSADM
• Formal Quality Review

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Quality Assurance in System Development

• Adoption of Standard Methodologies
• give clear specification of what is to be
  produced and how it is to be managed and reviewed
• visualize users' business objectives/activities
  and needs by continuously involving users with
  standard modeling techniques
• promote better quality management by detecting
  errors early in the lifecycle, especially by
  involving users as well as skilled practitioners
  in checking for errors
• separate logical system specification and
  physical design to enable portability and re-use
  of application
• leverage useful automation tools for productivity
  gain
• transfer expertise to practitioners including
  business and IT managements and users

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Quality Assurance in System Development

• SSADM in Practice
• Structured Systems Analysis and Design
  Methodology (SSADM) is established in 1981 by
  CCTA (Central Computing and Telecommunications
  Agency) in UK
• covering the Feasibility Study Phase, System
  Analysis and Design Phase, Implementation Phase
  of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
• an integrated set of standards and guides for the
  analysis and design of computer systems
  consisting of
• Structural standards, which define tasks
  explicitly, with clearly defined interfaces
  between them, and clearly defined tangible
  products
• Technique guides, which provide a set of proven
  techniques and tools, and detailed rules and
  guidelines on when and how to use them
• Documentation standards, which provide the means
  of recording the products of development activity
  at a detailed level

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Quality Assurance in System Development

• Major Quality Assurance Related Activities in
  SSADM
• Define existing environment, business system
  option, functional and non-functional
  requirements (such as response time, capacity,
  security, contingency measures, etc), technical
  system option, logical design, and physical
  design, in both feasibility study and system
  analysis design stages
• The deliverables will be produced and accepted
  through series of discussions between developers
  and end-users so as to ensure the end-product is
  what the business requires
• Specify various acceptance tests in
  implementation stage such as Unit Test, System
  Test, Integration Test, Load Test, User
  Acceptance Test, etc

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Quality Assurance in System Development

• Formal Quality Assurance Review
• In accordance with PRINCE, a quality plan will be
  prepared which incorporates the quality checking
  mechanism, acceptance criteria, relevant
  guidelines standards, and frequency of review
• Ensure that the deliverables are complete,
  accurate, adhering to specified guidelines
  standards, properly documented, fully tested and
  that all user requirements are fully satisfied

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Agenda

• Quality Management Steer from Top
• Quality Assurance in System Development
• Data Quality Assurance in Data Processing
• End-user Participation an Important Ingredient
• Hardware, Software and Service Acquisition an
  Important Area

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Data Quality Assurance in Data Processing(Overvie
w of Section C)

• Objectives of Data Quality
• Data Quality Control in various Operation Stages

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Data Quality Assurance in Data Processing

• Objectives of Data Quality
• Utility via extensive user consultation (defining
  data topics) to ensure that the information
  disseminated to the public shall be useful to its
  intended users
• Objectivity via both systematic and
  disproportionate sampling techniques, validation
  imputation rules, suite of quality check
  mechanisms employed in data collection, capturing
  processing steps, thorough system tests to
  ensure that the information is accurate, clear,
  complete, and unbiased manner
• Integrity via printed publication, softcopy media
  and well-protected dissemination system
  safeguarded from improper access, modification,
  or destruction

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Data Quality Assurance in Data Processing

• Data Quality Control in various Operation Stages
• Computer sub-systems are built with quality check
  features to monitor and control the operation in
  the following stages
• Data Collection Stage (enumerators)
• Data Capturing Stage (Intelligent Character
  Recognition/Optical Mark Recognition capturing
  service contractors)
• Data Coding Stage (computer-aided coding
  temporary staff)
• Data Editing Stage (data editing temporary staff)

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Agenda

• Quality Management Steer from Top
• Quality Assurance in System Development
• Data Quality Assurance in Data Processing
• End-user Participation an Important Ingredient
• Hardware, Software and Service Acquisition an
  Important Area

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End-user Participation an Important Ingredient
(Overview of Section D)

• Management Structure
• Feasibility Study and System Analysis Design
• System Implementation

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End-user Participation an Important Ingredient

• Management Structure
• Clear understanding of roles and responsibilities
• Delegation of authorities
• Represent the user community
• Committed to the project and own the project
• Team building
• Close communication among concerned parties
• Positive to change arising from project
  implementation

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End-user Participation an Important Ingredient

• Feasibility Study and System Analysis Design
• Define realistic project schedule
• Assist system developers to identify and
  understand current environment
• Explore business re-engineering possibility
• Prepare user requirements
• Provide feedback on the system design
• Extensive discussions/workshops between users and
  developers
• Build prototype where necessary
• Review deliverables to ascertain the final
  product is what the business needs

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End-user Participation an Important Ingredient

• System Implementation
• Prepare system test plan
• Prepare system test cases and data
• Conduct various system acceptance tests
• Prepare various documentation and guidelines
• Arrange training
• Perform data migration

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Agenda

• Quality Management Steer from Top
• Quality Assurance in System Development
• Data Quality Assurance in Data Processing
• End-user Participation an Important Ingredient
• Hardware, Software and Service Acquisition an
  Important Area

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Hardware, Software and Service Acquisition an
Important Area (Overview of Section E)

• Alternatives in Product/Service Acquisition
• Considerations in Specifying User Requirements
• Challenges in Managing Outsourcing

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Hardware, Software and Service Acquisition an
Important Area

• Alternatives in Product/Service Acquisition
• Outsourcing, Package Solution or Custom-built
  Application
• Allow focus on core services
• Increase the flexibility in service delivery
• Improve service quality and output
• Cost consideration
• Make up for staff shortage
• Risk diversification
• Unavailability of required services in-house
• Access to information, technology, skills
  expertise
• Challenges in managing outsourcing

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Hardware, Software and Service Acquisition an
Important Area

• Considerations in Specifying User Requirements

• User-friendliness
• Training requirements
• Data migration effort
• Inter-operability
• Open standard
• Occupation Safety
• Environment friendly
• Infrastructure constraint

• Maturity of product
• Product life cycle
• Local technical support
• Re-usability
• Scalability
• Capacity limit
• Financial implication

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Hardware, Software and Service Acquisition an
Important Area

• Challenges in Managing Outsourcing
• Project Management
• Performance Management
• Risk Management
• Change Management
• Expectation/ Service Level Agreements
• Project Ownership and Accountability
• Communication
• Skill Transfer
• In-house Pressure
• Selection of Right Service Provider

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Thank you