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Customer Driven Project Management in the service sector in UAE
Ala AlhajiRelated Papers
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International Journal for Quality Research
Bodies of Knowledge in Project Management and Project Quality Management2008 •
Customer Driven Project Management in the
service sector in UAE:
Integrating quality in to project management processes
:إدارة المشاريع المتعلقة بالمتعاملين في قطاع الخدمات في دولة اإلمارات العربية المتحدة
دمج الجودة في عمليات إدارة المشاريع
By
Ala Aldeen Alhaji
Student ID: 100091
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of MSc in Project Management
Faculty of Business
Dissertation Supervisor
Dr. Paul Gardiner
March-2012
No. 100091
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RES500
Declaration
Dissertation Release Form
Student Name
Student ID
Programme
Ala Aldeen Alhaji
100091
MSc in Project Management
Date
Title
Customer Driven Project Management in the service sector in UAE:
Integrating quality in to project management processes
I warrant that the content of this dissertation is the direct result of my own work and that any use
made in it of published or unpublished copyright material falls within the limits permitted by
international copyright conventions.
I understand that one copy of my dissertation will be deposited in the University Library for
permanent retention.
I hereby agree that the material mentioned above for which I am author and copyright holder
may be copied and distributed by The British University in Dubai for the purposes of research,
private study or education and that The British University in Dubai may recover from purchasers
the costs incurred in such copying and distribution, where appropriate.
I understand that The British University in Dubai may make that copy available in digital format
if appropriate.
I understand that I may apply to the University to retain the right to withhold or to restrict access
to my dissertation for a period which shall not normally exceed four calendar years from the
congregation at which the degree is conferred, the length of the period to be specified in the
application, together with the precise reasons for making that application.
Signature
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Customer Driven Project Management in the
service sector in UAE:
Integrating quality in to project management processes
Dissertation Length: 25,520 words
(excluding preliminaries and references)
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1 Abstract
Many literatures investigate and study the project success and fail, most of them pointed out that
most project fails because of not understanding the customers (end users) requirements and
expectation, Moreover there are few research that looks at integrating the customer requirements
throughout the project life cycle. This research focus on the relationship between quality
management and quality tools and project management processes and performance, in addition
to that it elaborate about how quality tools can be used to improve project management within
UAE Organizations.
To research to the problem, a survey-based approach was used by collecting data from customers
for seven Organizations from four different sectors. A total of 2000 completed questionnaire
were analyzed. To test the developed hypotheses the data analysis focused on calculating the
customer satisfaction score for each project management process group for organization that
implements different quality tools, to see how quality tools could link and affect project
management. Moreover, independed t-test was done on the survey variables and on the collected
data, and the results shows that there is positive significant relationship between quality
management and tools and project management processes and performance. These findings are a
new contribution to the quality and project management literatures and it is very helpful to the
practitioners to implement the suitable tool for their organization and to understand their
customer needs and expectations.
This study concludes that implementing quality tools (TQM, QFD, EFQM, ISO 9000 and
SURVQUAL) is very critical for Organizations to improve their projects performance and
project processes. Moreover, quality management and tools have significant positive effect on
customers satisfaction and on project performance. The overall satisfaction score for all sector
and organization was 68%, which shows that organization, need to improve the way they
delivered the service or the products. Nevertheless, further research is recommended to explore
about the relation between quality and project management in different countries and different
sectors, to benchmark the results with UAE’s Organizations and to compare the customer’s
requirements in different cultures.
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الملخص
العديد من الباحثين حققوا ودرسو نجاح وفشل المشروع ،حيث أشار معظمهم إلى أن فشل معظم المشاريع بسبب عدم فهم العمالء
(المستخدمين النهائيين) المتطلبات والتوقعات ،وعالوة على ذلك هناك عدد قليل من البحوث التي تنظر في دمج متطلبات العمالء خالل
دورة حياة المشروع .هذا البحث يركز على العالقة بين إدارة الجودة وأدوات الجودة وعمليات إدارة المشاريع واألداء ،باإلضافة إلى أن
هذا البحث يتوسع بالشرح عن كيفية استخدام أدوات الجودة لتحسين إدارة المشروع ضمن المنظمات في دولة اإلمارات العربية المتحدة.
للبحث عن المشكلة ،تم استخدام النهج القائم على المسح من خالل جمع البيانات من العمالء لسبع منظمات من أربعة قطاعات مختلفة .وقد
تم تحليل 0222استبيان .الختبار الفرضيات المطورة ركزت عملية تحليل البيانات على احتساب درجة رضا العمالء عن كل مجموعة
عملية إدارة المشروع للمنظمات التي تطبق أدوات نوعية مختلفة ،لنرى الرابط ألدوات الجودة مع إدارة المشاريع ،إضافة إلى ذلك تم
عمل اختبار " " independed t-testعلى متغيرات االستبيان وعلى البيانات التي تم جمعها ،حيث تظهر النتائج أن هناك عالقة
ذات داللة إحصائية إيجابية بين إدارة الجودة وأدوات وعمليات إدارة المشاريع واألداء .هذه النتائج هي مساهمة جديدة ألبحاث الجودة
وإدارة المشاريع وأنه من المفيد جدا للممارسين لتطبيق األداة المناسبة لمنظمتهم وفهم احتياجات وتوقعات العمالء.
نستنتج من هذه الدراسة أن تنفيذ أدوات الجودة ( )TQM, QFD, EFQM, ISO 9000 and SURVQUALمهمة جدا
للمنظمات لتحسين أداء مشاريعهم وعمليات المشروع .وعالوة على ذلك ،وإدارة وأدوات الجودة يكون لها تأثير إيجابي كبير على رضا
العمالء وعلى أداء المشروع .كانت النتيجة الرضا العام عن كل قطاع وتنظيم ،٪86مما يدل على ان منظمة ،بحاجة إلى تحسين الطريقة
التي تسلم الخدمة أو المنتجات .ومع ذلك ،فمن المستحسن إجراء مزيد من البحوث الستكشاف العالقة بين الجودة وإدارة المشاريع في
مختلف البلدان ومختلف القطاعات ،لقياس النتائج مع منظمات دولة اإلمارات العربية المتحدة ومقارنة متطلبات العمالء في مختلف
الثقافات .
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Keywords: Project Management Performance, Project Management Process Groups,
Quality Management, Quality tools, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Driven Project
Management, UAE organizations
Acknowledgment
In the name of Allah the most gracious, the most beneficent.
First of all, I thank my Allah, who gave me the opportunity and strength to complete every
important task in my life.
After that, I dedicate this humble piece of work to my mother, father and my wife. Without them
I wouldn’t be the person that I am today. Thank you for being the driving force behind every
achievement of mine. I hope that I have made you proud.
Finally, I would like to extend my profound thanks to my supervisor, Doctor Paul Gardiner, for
his kind support, guidance and encouragement. His valuable advice was instrumental for the
successful completion of this dissertation.
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Abbreviations
European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM)
Performance Measurement Matrix (PMM)
Project Management (PM)
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
Total Quality Management (TQM)
Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
United Arab Emirates (UAE)
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Table of Contents
1
Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 4
2
Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 14
3
2.1
Research overview ......................................................................................................... 14
2.2
Research Problem ........................................................................................................... 15
2.3
Scope .............................................................................................................................. 16
2.4
Research Aim and Objectives ........................................................................................ 16
2.5
Research Questions ........................................................................................................ 16
2.6
Research Propositions and Hypotheses .......................................................................... 17
2.7
Structure of the dissertation............................................................................................ 17
Chapter 2: Literature Review ................................................................................................ 18
3.1
Definition of Customer Driven Project management ..................................................... 18
3.2
Customer driven project management process............................................................... 20
3.3
Project quality management ........................................................................................... 24
3.3.1
Linking quality with project management .............................................................. 25
3.3.2
Plan the quality standards and requirements ........................................................... 25
3.3.3
Monitoring and controlling the delivery processes ................................................. 26
3.3.4
Quality assurance and alignment with the project strategy and objective .............. 28
3.4
The relation between the seven basic quality control tools and the customer driven
project management .................................................................................................................. 28
3.5
Link between the quality tools and the project management ......................................... 34
3.5.1
Quality function deployment .................................................................................. 36
3.5.2
Total Quality Management ..................................................................................... 39
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3.5.3
EFQM ..................................................................................................................... 41
3.5.4
ISO 9000 ................................................................................................................. 45
3.5.5
SURVQUAL ........................................................................................................... 47
3.6
Quality tools and relationship with customer driven project management processes
(comparison).............................................................................................................................. 50
3.7
Contribution of Quality tools to Customer Driven Project Management processes ...... 53
3.8
Excellence Models and Awards in United Arab Emirates ............................................. 56
3.9
Customer driven teams ................................................................................................... 57
3.9.1
Building the Customer driven team members ........................................................ 58
3.10 Translating needs and expectations to specifications in different sectors ...................... 59
4
3.10.1
Difference between service design and product design .......................................... 60
3.10.2
Sectors needs and expectations ............................................................................... 60
Chapter 3: Research Design and Methodology ..................................................................... 61
4.1
Research Methodology................................................................................................... 61
4.1.1
Research Philosophy ............................................................................................... 62
4.1.2
Research Approaches .............................................................................................. 62
4.1.3
Research Strategy.................................................................................................... 63
4.1.4
Time Horizon .......................................................................................................... 64
4.1.5
Data Collection Technique and Process ................................................................. 64
4.2
Conceptual Framework .................................................................................................. 67
4.3
Study Instrument ............................................................................................................ 70
4.4
Pilot Questionnaire ......................................................................................................... 73
4.5
Research sampling.......................................................................................................... 76
4.6
Procedure ........................................................................................................................ 77
4.7
Ethical Considerations.................................................................................................... 78
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Methods of Analysis....................................................................................................... 79
Chapter 4: Questionnaire Results .......................................................................................... 79
5.1
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Descriptive Statistics ...................................................................................................... 79
5.1.1
Descriptive Statistics Summaries ............................................................................ 79
5.1.2
Sectors ..................................................................................................................... 83
5.1.3
Participant Organizations ........................................................................................ 84
5.1.4
Nationalities ............................................................................................................ 84
5.1.5
Gender ..................................................................................................................... 85
5.1.6
Age Group ............................................................................................................... 86
5.2
Quality Manager’s Interviews results ............................................................................ 87
5.3
Inferential Statistics ........................................................................................................ 88
5.3.1
Reliability Testing ................................................................................................... 88
5.3.2
Satisfaction and Agreement results ......................................................................... 90
5.3.3
Area of Improvements Analysis ............................................................................. 99
5.3.4
Independent t-test .................................................................................................. 101
Chapter 5: Discussion .......................................................................................................... 105
6.1
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 105
6.2
The Questionnaire Results ........................................................................................... 105
6.2.1
The Quality Tools and Quality Management – Project Management Processes and
performance Relationship .................................................................................................... 105
6.2.2
The Quality Tools – Customer Satisfaction Relationship..................................... 107
6.2.3
Hypotheses Test Summary ................................................................................... 107
6.3
7
Data Limitation ............................................................................................................ 108
Chapter 7: Conclusion and Recommendations .................................................................... 109
7.1
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 109
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7.2
Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 109
7.3
Recommendations ........................................................................................................ 114
7.4
Recommendations for Further Research ...................................................................... 116
7.5
Contribution of this research ........................................................................................ 116
7.5.1
Academic Perspective ........................................................................................... 117
7.5.2
Practitioners’ Perspective...................................................................................... 117
8
References ........................................................................................................................... 118
9
Appendices .......................................................................................................................... 125
List of Figures
Figure 1: Project management processes group (PMI, 2008, p.40) .............................................. 20
Figure 2: Elements of the customer driven project management processes (Bakley and Saylor,
2001) ............................................................................................................................................. 24
Figure 3: Quality Planning Processes (PMI, 2008) ...................................................................... 26
Figure 4: Quality Control Process (PMI, 2008) ............................................................................ 27
Figure 5: Quality Assurance Process (PMI, 2008) ....................................................................... 28
Fugure 6: Scatter diagram (Greene and Stellman, 2009) .............................................................. 29
Figure 7:Flowchart (PMI, 2008) ................................................................................................... 31
Figure 8: Pareto chart 80/20 (Birnbaum, 2004) ............................................................................ 32
Figure 9: Control chart (Greene and Stellman, 2009)................................................................... 33
Figure 10: Product definition steps (Lawrence and Ishii, 2004) ................................................... 38
Figure 11: reasons of product development delays (Gupta and Wilemon, 1990) ........................ 38
Figure 12: House of Quality (Partovi, 1999) ................................................................................ 39
Figure 13: The fundamental concepts of excellence (EFQM, 2010) ............................................ 42
Figure 14: The EFQM Excellence Model (EFQM, 2010) ............................................................ 42
Figure 15: EFQM RADAR (EFQM, 2010) .................................................................................. 43
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Figure 16: Two Categories of requirements of ISO 9001 (Dearing, 2007) .................................. 47
Figrue 17: SERVQUAL seven gaps (Rajani, 2010) ..................................................................... 48
Figure 18: Summary of the interview results of the successes factors for project teams (Anthony
and Janet, 2002) ............................................................................................................................ 58
Figure19: the best service is no service (Price and Jaffe, 2008) ................................................... 60
Figure 20: The Research ‘Onion’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007), p. 102) ..................... 61
With the selections identified for this research ............................................................................. 61
Figure 21: Major differences between deductive and inductive approaches to research (Saunders,
Lewis and Thornhill, 2007, P.120). .............................................................................................. 63
Figure 22: The research Process (Brodens and Abbott, 2011, P.27) ............................................ 66
Figure 23: Graphical representation for the Research Hypotheses ............................................... 67
Figure 24: Study research framework ........................................................................................... 69
Figure 25: Simple Random Sampling ........................................................................................... 76
Figure 5-1: Participant Sectors...................................................................................................... 83
Figure 5-2: Customers Nationalities ............................................................................................. 85
Figure 5-3: Customers Gender ...................................................................................................... 86
Figure 5-4: Customers Age Groups .............................................................................................. 87
List of Tables
Table 3.1: PMP Project Management Processes (PMI 2008) ....................................................... 21
Table 3.2: seven basic quality control tools and the customer driven project management ......... 29
Table 3.3: Quality tools and relationship with customer driven project management processes . 50
Table 3.4: Contribution of quality tool to customer driven project management processes ........ 54
Table 4.1: Relation between the research questionnaire and the Hypotheses .............................. 72
Table 4.2: Research sample size ................................................................................................... 78
Table 5.1: Survey items descriptive analysis ................................................................................ 79
Table 5.2: Sample Distribution ..................................................................................................... 82
Table 5.3: Participant Sectors ....................................................................................................... 83
Table 5.4: Participant Organizations............................................................................................. 84
Table 5.5: Customers Nationalities ............................................................................................... 84
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Table 5.6: Customers Gender ....................................................................................................... 85
Table 5.7: Cross-tabulation between Sector and Gender .............................................................. 86
Table 5.8: Customers Age Groups ................................................................................................ 86
Table 5.9: Implemented Quality Tools in the participant Organizations...................................... 88
Table 5.10: Case Processing Summary......................................................................................... 88
Table 5.11: Overall Reliability Statistics ...................................................................................... 88
Table 5.12: Cronbach Alpha value for all process Groups ........................................................... 89
Table 5.13: Item-Total Statistics ................................................................................................... 89
Table 5.14: Study Hypotheses ...................................................................................................... 90
Table 5.15: Item 7.1 satisfaction score ......................................................................................... 91
Table 5.16: Item 7.2 satisfaction score ......................................................................................... 92
Table 5.17: Item 7.3 satisfaction score ......................................................................................... 92
Table 5.18: Item 7.4 satisfaction score ......................................................................................... 93
Table 5.19: Item 7.5 agreement score ........................................................................................... 93
Table 5.20: Item 7.6 agreement score ........................................................................................... 94
Table 5.21: Item 7.7 satisfaction score ......................................................................................... 94
Table 5.22: Item 7.8 satisfaction score ......................................................................................... 95
Table 5.23: Item 7.9 satisfaction score ......................................................................................... 95
Table 5.24: Item 7.10 agreement score ......................................................................................... 96
Table 5.25: Item 7.11 agreement score ......................................................................................... 96
Table 5.26: Item 7.12 agreement score ......................................................................................... 97
Table 5.27: Item 7.13 agreement score ......................................................................................... 97
Table 5.28: Organizations overall satisfaction and agreement score ........................................... 98
Table 5.29: Sectors overall satisfaction and agreement score ...................................................... 99
Table 5.30: Area of Improvements analysis ............................................................................... 100
Table 5.31: Waiting Time to be served ....................................................................................... 100
Table 5.32: Group statistics for Banking - O1 and Retail - O1 .................................................. 101
Table 5.33: Independent t-test for Banking - O1 and Retail - O1............................................... 102
Table 5.34: Group Statistics for Government - O1 and Government – O2 ................................ 103
Table 5.35: Independent t-test for Government - O1 and Government – O2 ............................. 104
Table 6.1: Hypotheses tests summary......................................................................................... 108
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Chapter 1: Introduction
2.1 Research overview
Many researchers tried to identify the key elements of project successes or project failure, and
many of these studies highlighted that the main reason of failure is not understanding the
stakeholders needs and expectation and not considering the environment of the customer or the
end users of the product or the service (Lawrence and Ishii, 2004), (Pintoand Kharbanda, 1996)
and (Barkley and Saylor, 2001), and according to Zwikael and Globerson (2006) that Most of the
project managers list the reasons of project success and project failure. Despite this, the
percentage of the failed projects is high, and one possible reason for this could be that the project
managers don’t look at very specific reasons of project succession and filing (Ahonen and
Savolainen, 2010), (Cerpa and Verner, 2009), (Avots, 1969) and (Globerson and Zwikael, 2002).
Zwikael and Globerson (2006) did a research on 282 project manager and the results confirms
that the common critical success factor is the customer satisfaction and insuring that the
customer requirements are translated in the right way in the planning stage. And this affirm that
“Quality is now universally accepted as a major concern for every organization” (Barad and Raz,
2000, p.1), moreover L. Munro-Faure and M. Munro-Faure, 1992 assert that the main objective
of quality is to deliver a product or service as per the customer expectation and needs and to
satisfy customers. Moreover many affirm that project performance are measured based on time,
cost and quality (Barkley and Saylor, 2001), (Kerzner, 1992), and (Chang, 1998), in additional to
that a surveys were done with project managers which explore that quality is one of the main
measures to assess the project performance and this describes that the quality is a n important
element in project management (Bryde and Robinson, 2007), but Some Organizations
underestimate the how customers identify the service quality, customers do not evaluate the end
product or the received service only, there satisfaction is also affected by service deliver or
product delivery processes, and this justify the strong link between the quality and the project
management processes (Orwig and Brennan, 2000)
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Customer is the recipient of a service, product or project deliverables which are done by a
vendor, supplier or any organization, customers are known as buyers, clients and shoppers
(Forrest, 1987) and to satisfy customers Organizations should understand, define and manage
the customer expectation to insure that there requirements are met, and insuring that the project
phases and project management processes are working towards producing products or service as
per the customer specifications (PMI, 2008). Customer driven project management is how
quality should be integrated with project management processes, and how the customer
requirements is transferred to product or service specification, and according to Jiang, Klein, and
Chen (2006) that failed project cost the companies millions every year and that makes it difficult
for companies to meet their targets and objectives, therefore this research aim to come up with
recommendations and ways to help organization in satisfying their customers by integrating
quality with their projects to insure that the end results or products meet the customer needs and
expectations and meets the Organizations strategic objectives. According to Abdelgalil and
Husasain (2007) that the service sector represent 71% of the business sector in UAE, but most of
the research about quality management and it is relation with project management focuses on the
manufacturing sectors and few of them focus on the service sector (Orwig and Brennan, 2000),
therefore the focus of this study is the service sector.
2.2 Research Problem
As pointed out in the overview section that it is very critical for organization to understand their
customer needs and expectations and to measure the project deliverables based on the customer
satisfaction, but as highlighted in the previous section that many researchers confirmed that some
project managers underestimate how customers identify the service quality or the product quality
and that customers is affected by the service or the product delivery processes or the project
execution processes, in addition to that there is a lack in liking quality in to project management
processes and integrating the implemented quality tools into the project management practices
and processes.
This paper will discuss two main issues: how Organizations and project managers could satisfy
customers by fully understand their needs and expectation to product or service specification and
how the quality tools could be integrated or help the project managers to execute the project
management processes with high performance to achieve the organization goal.
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2.3 Scope
The scope of this study is to understand and to come up with recommendation on integrating
quality into project management processes with linking the quality and excellence tools to the
project management processes.
The context of this study is the service sector Organizations in UAE.
2.4 Research Aim and Objectives
The aim of this paper is to study how project managers uses the needs and requirements of the
customer as the focal point of the mission to achieving successful outcomes in the service sector
and to help in improving the customer satisfaction and the project performance through
integrating quality into project management processes and linking the quality tools with the
project performance to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction.
The objectives of the research are:
i.
To develop an understanding of the concept “Customer Driven Project Management”
ii.
To investigate in the integrating the quality into the project management processes
iii.
To study the role of the quality tools in customer driven project management and how
that reflect into the customer satisfaction
iv.
To investigate the integration between quality management and quality tools with the
projects in UAE service sector Organizations through a quantitative research
v.
To come up with recommendation for project managers and Organizations on how to
deliver projects and having a satisfied customers through the project life cycle
2.5 Research Questions
i.
Does quality management or quality tools help in increasing the project performance and
the customer satisfaction if it is integrated with project management processes?
i.
What is the best way to integrate quality tools into project management processes?
ii.
What are the main success factors for implementing quality tools for organization and the
effect on the customer driven project management processes
iii.
What are the main requirements and expectations for the service sector customers in
UAE?
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2.6 Research Propositions and Hypotheses
From the literature review, there are two identified Hypotheses which will be tested in the data
analysis of the conducted surveys.
Hypothesis 1 (H1): There is positive impact for the quality tool (QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000
and SURVQUAL)
on the project performance
Hypothesis 2 (H2): Implementing quality tools (QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000 and SURVQUAL)
in Organizations improves the project management processes
Hypothesis 3 (H3): There is positive impact for the quality management on the project
performance
Hypothesis 4 (H4): There is statistically significant positive relationship between implementing
of the quality tools (QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000 and SURVQUAL) and the customer satisfaction
about the services and products in the service sector.
Hypothesis 5 (H5): The implementation of the quality management improves the project
management process
2.7 Structure of the dissertation
The dissertation consists of six chapters as listed below:
Chapter 1 – Introduction: This chapter presents the research overview, research
problem, scope, research aims and objectives, research questions and hypotheses, the
significance, research strategy and design limitations of this research. Also, it briefly
highlights details the structure of this dissertation.
Chapter 2 – Literature Review: This chapter presents the literature review focusing on
the integration of the quality and the quality tools into the project management
processes.
Chapter 3 – Research Design and Methodology: This chapter presents the research
philosophy, approach, strategy and design, conceptual framework and methods used to
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address the research questions and to test the research hypotheses. The ethical
considerations of this study are also discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 4 –Questionnaire Results: This chapter details the analysis, results, and
findings of the questionnaire designed to assess and analyze the relationship between
PM Performance and Project Success.
Chapter 5 - Discussion: In this chapter the findings of the questionnaire are discussed,
interpretation of results is presented including researcher’s views as well as issues from
the literature review. The limitation of the data collection and analysis are also
discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 6 - Conclusions and Recommendations: In this chapter the conclusions of the
study are presented along with their implications and associated recommendations to
academics and practitioners. Also the contributions of this study and recommendations
for future research are presented.
3
Chapter 2: Literature Review
3.1 Definition of Customer Driven Project management
According to Barkley and Saylor (2001) that Customer driven project management is how the
customer needs, expectations and requirements are used to deliver the project that involves
building a win-win strategy with customers to ensure that both the project delivery team and the
customers are satisfied and in the same page (Gracia, 2010). Moreover, Barkley and Saylor
(2001) argue that project should be driven by customer requirements and translating these
requirements to methodologies and specification, and that could done by integrating quality in to
the project management processes.
As illustrated in Figure 2, PMI (2008) divided the project to 5 phases’ which are initiating,
planning, executing, controlling and then closing phase and each phase might consist of these
five stages and quality is implemented through these phases. PMI (2008, p.189 ) identify the
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project quality management as “the processes and activities of the performing organization that
determine quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the
needs for which it was undertaken” Therefore, project quality management consist of three main
processes which are planning for the quality by identifying the requirements of the product or the
service, then auditing the quality requirements to insure the standards and the policies are
followed and finally performing the quality control by monitoring the results and compare it with
the collected requirement at the beginning of the project to insure customer satisfaction (PMI,
2008).
From the above we can see that project quality management is satisfying customers’
requirements through the project life cycle and as Denove and Power IV(2006) stated that
Customer service is the organization ability to supply their customers’ needs and expectations.
And that is very important to Organizations because Customers love companies that treat them
the way they want to be treated, which is confirmed in a research shared by Leland and Biley
(2006) that customers will spend up 10% for the same product but with better service, customers
will inform from 9 to 12 people when they get good service and they will tell 20 people when
they are not treated in the way they want to be treated.
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Figure 1: Project management processes group (PMI, 2008, p.40)
3.2 Customer driven project management process
Chinta, R. and Kloppenborg, T. (2010) argue that many managers across different sectors
impemented tools such as TQM, Six Sigma and benchmarking to improve quality with looking
at the possesses of their projects and products and that is why many Organizations had many
obstacles to have a sustainable growth, but looking at the projects processes for improvements
and integrating the quality tools will enable firms to create value. Zwikael and Globerson (2006)
also confirm that involving the customer in the planning stage is a very important step to success
the project.
As shown in Table 3.1 that PMI identify 42 processes for project management, 20 processes
exist in the planning processes group which is the largest one, and that represent almost 47% of
the all the processes and that shows the importance of amount of work should be done at the
beginning of the project, from these processes there is a direct involvement of the customer who
will receive the outcome or the deliverable of the project. From the identification of each process
in the PMBOOK (PMI, 2008) we will find that customers have direct involvement in the
following processes: (22 processes out of 42 process, 52.4%)
Initiating processes group:
o Develop Project Charter
o Identify stakeholders
Planning processes group:
o develop project management plan
o collect requirements
o define scope
o define activities
o develop schedule
o plan quality
o plan communications
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o plan risk management
o identify risks
Executing processes group:
o perform quality assurance
o distribute information
o manage stakeholder expectations
Monitoring and Controlling:
o perform change management
o verify scope
o control scope
o perform quality control
o report performance
o monitor and control risks
Closing processes group:
o
close project or phase
o close procurements
Table 3.1: PMP Project Management Processes (PMI 2008)
Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring
Closing
References
and
Controlling
Integration
Develop Project Develop Project Direct and
Monitor and
Charter
Manage
control project or phase
Project
work
Execution
Perform
mgmt plan
Close project (Sypsomos,
integrated
change control
Scope
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Collect
Verify scope
Requirements
Control scope
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Define Scope
Create WBS
Time
Define Activities
Control
Sequence
schedule
Activities
Estimate Activity
Resources
Estimate Activity
Durations
Develop
Schedule
Cost
Estimate cost
Control costs
Determine
Budget
Quality
Plan Quality
Perform
Perform
(Sypsomos,
Quality
quality control
1997)
Assurance
Human
Develop Human Acquire
Resource
Resource Plan
Project Team
Develop
Project team
Manage
project team
Communication Identify
Stakeholders
Plan
Distribute Info Report
Communication Manage
performance
stakeholder
expectations
Risk
Plan Risk Mgmt
Monitor and
Identify risks
control risks
Perform
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qualitative
Risk Analysis
Perform
Quantitative Risk
Analysis
Plan Risk
Reponses
Procurement
Plan Procurement conduct
Administer
Close
procurements procurements procurements
As illustrated in Figure 1 that the customer driven project management processes involves the
total quality management environment, project management system and customer driven
management team structure. These three elements are integrated to form the customer driven
project management processes. The total quality management objective is to create total
customer satisfaction throughout the project, while the second element is the processes and the
project life cycle and then the team structure which provides the framework for the customer to
drive the project and it will highlight the relation between the customer and the project team
(Bakley and Saylor, 2001)
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Figure 2: Elements of the customer driven project management processes (Bakley and Saylor,
2001)
3.3 Project quality management
As illustrated in Figure 2, PMI (2008) divided the project to 5 phases’ which are initiating,
planning, executing, controlling and then closing phase. Moreover, Quality is implemented
through these phases and project quality management definition is “the processes and activities
of the performing organization that determine quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities so
that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken” (PMI, 2008, p.189).
Moreover, project quality management consist of three main processes which are planning for
the quality by identifying the requirements of the product or the service, then auditing the quality
requirements to insure the standards and the policies are followed and finally performing the
quality control by monitoring the results and compare it with the collected requirement at the
beginning of the project to insure customer satisfaction (PMI, 2008) and (Orwig and Brennan,
2000).
Mauch (2010) confirms that the role of the quality department or implementing quality is to
identify and then analyze the efficiency of the organization or the project by meeting the
customer requirements, Walker and Keniger (2002) also highlights that quality can be
implemented in project through different tools such as ISO, TQM and benchmarking with other
projects, as they listed four possible ways to develop and do the benchmarking as followed:
Benchmarking with the historical performance for other project within the organization
by looking at the lessons learned and key success and failure factors for previous
projects.
Benchmarking with other projects during the project life cycle for continuous
improvements purposes.
Benchmarking with other phase in the same projects
Benchmarking widely with the same industry projects
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3.3.1 Linking quality with project management
According to Orwig and Brennan (2000), quality is an important deliverable of a project.
Moreover many affirm that project performance are measured based on time, cost and quality
(Barkley and Saylor, 2001), (Kerzner, 1992), and (Chang, 1998), and according to Bryde and
Robinson (2007) that a surveys were done with project managers which explore that quality is
one of the main measures to assess the project performance and this describes that the quality is a
n important element in project management.
Some Organizations underestimate the how customers identify the service quality, customers do
not evaluate the end product or the received service only, there satisfaction is also affected by
service deliver or product delivery processes, and this justify the strong link between the quality
and the project management processes (Orwig and Brennan, 2000)
3.3.2 Plan the quality standards and requirements
Quality planning process includes identifying the quality requirements for the project in a check
list and to produce the quality management plan which highlights how the end product quality
will be insured and managed through the project lifecycle (PMI, 2008), moreover planning
quality for projects allow project managers to resolve problems when it occurs and have the
needed correction action to keep the product or the service as per the customer expectation
(Sypsomos, 1997)
Figure 2 illustratres how plan for project quality is directly related to cusomer requirements.
There are 6 processes considered as an input for the quality planning processes and the ones that
are directly related to customers are the work break down structure, scope baseline, stake holders
details and requirements (customer requirements), and then these requirements will be a base of
developing the quality management plna which higlights how the quality assurance and the
quality control will be carried out during project life cycle (PMI, 2008) and (Greene and
Stellman, 2009).
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Figure 3: Quality Planning Processes (PMI, 2008)
3.3.3 Monitoring and controlling the delivery processes
According to PMI (2008) that quality control is monitoring the results of assessing the
performance and the alignment of the production with the customer requirements and then
recommend the necessary changes, but Sypsomos (1997) argue that doing this process and
Keeping a balance between meeting the projects requirements and satisfying the customer
expectation is a difficult and important task where each customer has different expectation,
especially in the service sector.
The quality control is about inspecting the product or the service for any bugs and corrects it
(Greene and Stellman, 2009) and as illustrated in Figure 3 PMI (2008) that the quality control
processes consist of several inputs like the scope, budget, and project tasks schedule and then
approved changes requests with the work performance measures. All of these inputs used to
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perform the quality control to validate the required changes and to validate the final deliverables.
And to perform these action the project team should have good knowledge about using the
quality control tool with good background about statistical of these tools, specially the sampling
and the probability, to help in evaluating the outputs of this process.
Figure 4: Quality Control Process (PMI, 2008)
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3.3.4 Quality assurance and alignment with the project strategy and objective
There are different tools are common in quality control to insure quality in projects such as ISO
and quality measurement system technique which include assessment group, techniques,
framework documents, benchmark against similar type of projects and then quality records
(Walker and Keniger, 2002), and the tools used in quality control could be used in assuring the
quality in the project by examining the process rather than the project (Greene and Stellman,
2009)
Figure 5: Quality Assurance Process (PMI, 2008)
3.4
The relation between the seven basic quality control tools and the customer driven
project management
There are many tools and charts used to apply quality control on projects, but there are very
common one called "the seven basic tools of quality” (ACM, 1993), (Greene and Stellman,
2009) and (Dahlgaard and Kanji, 1990). These seven tools are:
1- Control charts
2- Cause and effect diagrams (Fishbone and Ishikawa)
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3- Flowcharts
4- Pareto charts
5- Histograms
6- Run charts
7- Scatter diagrams
According to Dahlgaard and Kanji (1990) that the most used ones are the cause and effect
diagram and the Pareto charts, and that because it does not require any special theoretical
education in statistics and it is easy and simple to use.
Table 3.2 shows a comparison between these tools and the link between using the tool and the
impact on customers or the relationship between using the tool and the customer driven project
management
Table 3.2: seven basic quality control tools and the customer driven project management
Tool Name
Description and relation with customer driven projects
Reference
Scatter
Scatter diagram is used to show how two different types of data
(Greene and
diagrams
relates to each other and to examine theories about cause and
Stellman,
effect relationship and to find the problems and identifying the
2009), (PMI,
root causes
2008), (Read,
Rhines, and
White, 1986)
Figure 6: Scatter diagram (Greene and Stellman, 2009)
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The scatter diagram help in finding if the designed service or the
end product has defects or far from the customer requirements
and that control the end product quality and insure the alignment
of the service or the product with the collected requirements
from customer at the initiation stage of the project in the
collecting requirements processes
Cause and
This tool is used to figure out what cases the defect, where it a
(Greene and
effect
list of the categories of the identified defects and then analyzing
Stellman, 2009)
diagrams
the possible causes in order to prevent theses defects in future.
, (PMI, 2008),
(Fishbone
Such tools usually analyze the people involved in the processes
(Levesque and
and
of delivering the service, the policies and the procedures, the
Walker, 2007)
Ishikawa)
recourses used to produce the end product or the service, the
and (Dahlgaard
used row material and the premises that deliver the service or
and Kanji,
the end-product
1990)
This tool help in analyzing all of the related data that affect
customer satisfaction and that are related to the customer
requirements to make sure that all the aspects are covered to
manage customer needs and expectation and to have a plan for
avoiding future bugs or defects in the service or the product
Flowcharts
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This tool help is visualizing the process and see how it works, to
(Greene and
check how the tasks in the project interrelates and are they
Stellman, 2009)
depend on to help on making decision when problems occur.
, (PMI, 2008),
Some time the way the project is handled or the service delivery
(Levesque and
stages.
Walker, 2007)
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Figure 7:Flowchart (PMI, 2008)
Such tool will help in finding problem from a high level
prospective and gives support for the project manager to take
the right decision once any problem occur, Moreover flow chart
of the customer journey will identify the value moments or the
important processes steps to them, so Organizations and project
managers will focus on these processes more and give it high
priority.
Pareto
This tool helps project managers in focusing on the highest
(Greene and
charts
priority problems or the problems that required more attention.
Stellman, 2009)
It is based on the idea that large number of problems and issues
, (PMI, 2008),
are caused by a small number of causes, where 80% of the
(Birnbaum,
defects are caused by 20% of the causes.
2004), (Fine,
1996), (Duffy,
The Pareto Diagram can help in categorizing customers
1995) and
complains and concerns, and ranking their concerns by
(Dahlgaard and
frequency of occurrence. So project managers will know what
Kanji, 1990)
are the main problems that are causing the complaints and
dissatisfaction about the project and this tool.
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The Pareto chart can be used in the following customer driven
project processes:
Executing processes group:
o perform quality assurance
o manage stakeholder expectations
Monitoring and Controlling:
o perform change management
o verify scope
o control scope
o perform quality control
o monitor and control risks
Figure 8: Pareto chart 80/20 (Birnbaum, 2004)
Control
This tool is visualizing how process is working during the
(Greene and
Charts
project life cycle or during the service delivery, as illustrated in
Stellman, 2009)
Figure 8 that the chart highlights the mean or the average of the
, (PMI, 2008),
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processes level, the lower control limit and the upper control
(Levesque and
limit, so when the processes goes above the limit that means the
Walker, 2007),
entire process is out of control.
( Latzko, 2003)
Figure 9: Control chart (Greene and Stellman, 2009)
This tool helps in the monitoring and controlling the execution
phase in the customer driven project, where each customer
requirement could be monitored separately and verified against
the original customer’s needs and expectation and it helps in the
process of performing the quality control and monitoring the
risks.
Histograms
Histogram charts is a tool that shows the distribution of the data
(Greene and
or the cases of errors with categorize them, so it will highlight
Stellman, 2009)
the critical defects, routine defects and complex defects which
, (PMI, 2008),
help the project managers in having a bigger picture about the
(Levesque and
issues and the defects in the execution phase.
Walker, 2007)
This tool help the project manager to manage the customer
expectation and to highlight the issues that related to the
important customers and then solve it with more attention and
speed of time to make sure that customers are satisfied about the
end product or the service
Run charts
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It is a run of sequence plots that shows the trend of certain
(Greene and
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activities in the projects, this tool is used to control the quality
Stellman, 2009)
of the products and the services and it shows the customer
, (PMI, 2008)
satisfaction across the year or any other specific period of time,
and (Pyzdek,
project manager could also use this tool to compare between the
2003).
initiation phase when the stakeholders and the customer’s
requirements are identified with the end results, if it meets their
expectations and needs.
3.5 Link between the quality tools and the project management
The project management effectiveness can be improved by having a better quality assurance and
quality control with management of cost to meet the customer requirements (Chakrabarty,
Whitten and Green, 2007) and this indicates that the quality tools could support the projects
strategic objectives. Moreover, if we consider that projects in same organization consists of
group of activities, even though the objectives, deadlines and end deliverables are different, but
projects follow the life cycle. Predominantly, organization provides project team with project
template as a start point. Thereby project management methodology could be looked at as
operational processes (Orwig and Brennan, 2000). Orwig and Brennan (2000) also confirms that
quality management practice is aimed to improve the operational management which linked
directly to the processes management where the project processes will be executed in an
operational way
And since the quality tools are used usually to improve the overall processes of the organization
(Nyeck et al., 2002), this point out how the quality and excellence tools such as EFQM, TQM
and QFD have a strong affect on the projects performance and quality.
Moreover, to improve quality there are many tools could be used such as TQM “Total Quality
Management” to improve the quality and the performance of the Organizations , QFD “Quality
Function Deployment” which was found by Yoji Akao in 1966 and it aims to translate customer
requirements in to company requirement to design or produce services or products (Antony and
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Preece, 2002) in addition to that there are many of the quality management methodologies or
tools such as Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, CMMI, etc.(PMI, 2008)
In addition to the quality implementation tools there are different ways and framework to
measure the service quality all the aspects that related to customer expectation and experience.
SERVQUAL was created as an efficient tool to measure the scale of the quality in the service
sector and it was widely implemented in many countries (Nyeck et al., 2002)
Barad and Raz (2000) did a research on organization that implements quality management
practice and they confirmed that good quality management implementation in Organizations
will lead to good project management performance
Barad and Raz (2000) did a research on ten quality management components which are
1. leadership
2. Information and analysis
3. Training
4. Teamwork
5. Morale
6. Benchmarking
7. Supplier management
8. Operational results
9. Customer satisfaction
The main results of the research on the relation between the quality management practice and
project performance were as followed:
there is no strong affect of QM “leadership” practice on the projects operation
performance results, but there was an effect from the leadership on developing the project
team skills and performance and there were indirect effect on the project process
management
supplier management practice, training and the way that organization implement the
quality management practice for information have direct affect on project operational
results and performance
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Organisations that implements the quality management aspects has direct affect on
customer satisfaction, so the organization that has good data analysis, strong leadership,
team development and benchmarking with other Organisations will have good customer
satisfaction on projects deliverables
According to Orwig and Brennan (2000) that quality management tools are linked directly to the
project management processes, where the quality tools linked total quality management (TQM)
includes continuous improvement, employee and team development and training, benchmarking
and customer satisfaction and these criteria’s affect the project performance, specially the
customer satisfaction
3.5.1 Quality function deployment
According to Cooper, (2000) that 46% of the companies recourses are allocated to design
services or products, which highlights how important is to design a product passed on customer
requirements, moreover Lawrence and Ishii (2004) argue that most of the product development
and project management experts agree that determining the product specification based on
customer requirements is an essential part to satisfy all stakeholders and provide added value to
the project and to the product, therefore QFD is a disciplined approach to transform customer
needs and expectations into product and service requirements, and it helps in making plans and
determining the impact of the plans on the company and on the projects performance and it is a
quality tool that helps the project managers to plan very well for their end products, moreover
QFD consist of four planning phases (Barkley and Saylor, 2001):
1- Product planning: translating the customer requirement to a design requirement
2- Parts deployment: the design requirements are converted to parts
3- Processes planning: examining the processes and selecting the right one
4- Production planning : looking at the actual production processes
As shown in Figure 9 (Lawrence and Ishii, 2004) that there is alignment with implementing the
QFD on project with the project management processes (PMi, 2008) where QFD starts
identifying the user’s needs, compliance issues and competitor analysis and that is aligned with
the initiation and planning phase in the project management life cycle, then QFD looks at how
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the project will be managed and what are the core competencies and the strategic dependencies
and the required recourses to do the actual project, the definition of these steps in the planning
phase and then it get executed in the execution and controlling phase.
Implementing QFD helps in understanding the needs and the requirement and the relation
between the involved parties in the project (Lawrence and Ishii, 2004) and this will improve the
doing and implementing the stakeholders register processes (PMI, 2008) and supports the
Planning processes group such as develop project management plan, collect requirements, define
scope, define activities, develop schedule, plan quality, plan communications, plan risk
management and identify risks (Greene and Stellman, 2009)..
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Figure 10: Product definition steps (Lawrence and Ishii, 2004)
Implementing QFD on projects will help in achieving the projects goal and alignment with the
organization overall strategy. And it is aid to manage the project risk to prevent the product from
the defects in the early design stages (Yong-Zhong and Jun-Wen, 2010).
3.5.1.1 QFD “House of Quality”
Gupta and Wilemon (1990) did a research on large number of IT companies and they found out
that poor product definition or customer requirement collection is the most reason causes the
delay in projects and failures in some cases, shown in Figure 10. This research highlights the
importance of identifying the product features in a systematic way with the consideration of the
customer or the end user opinion.
Figure 11: reasons of product development delays (Gupta and Wilemon, 1990)
The outcome of the quality function deployment planning is included in a chart called house of
quality which is used to move the customer requirements to a specific production processes
(Barkley and Saylor, 2001) and this tool address the problem of poor identification for product
specification. HOQ is shown in figure 11 It the heart of the entire QFD process and it consist of
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some matrixes: What’s matrix which illustrate what is demanded and how’s matrix which is
about how to do with the demands (Yong-Zhong and Jun-Wen, 2010)
Figure 12: House of Quality (Partovi, 1999)
3.5.2 Total Quality Management
According to Dahlgaard and Kanji (1990) that “Total quality management is defined as the
culture of an organization committed to customer satisfaction through continuous improvement”.
And the objectives from implementing a total quality management during product design or
project life cycle are to have better operation of integrating the customer and the quality
requirement in to the product or the service and to evaluate the product against the requirements
to insure customer satisfaction (Masters and Frazier, 2007) and . Moreover TQM is popular and
used in many companies and different sector for achieving excellence (Tsung-Hsien and YenDissertation
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Lin, 2010) and it improves the company and the projects performance (Curkovic, Vickery and
Droge, 2000)
TQM is aimed to look at level of customer focus through the organization and that will have an
impact on the project management methodologies that are used in the same organization to be
more customer focused, Moreover, TQM will have a direct effect to project planning processes
(Bryde and Robinson, 2007) and it will have positive impact on customer satisfaction,
productivity and projects final outcomes (Terziovski and Samson, 1999). And according to
Sypsomos (1997) that a study was conducted for more than 30 leading construction companies
that implement TQM to improve their processes. Some of the lessons learned form that study
highlights the importance of having easy processes for implementing quality on all over the
organization and avoiding the step-by-step processes and one of the major projects success
indicators is the cost as well as customer satisfaction.
There are several tools used by TQM which help in improving the projects performance such as
bar charts, flowcharts histogram which are used to analyze the project data, brainstorming, list
reduction to encourage team work while interviews, surveys and check sheet could be used to
gather data from stakeholders (Sypsomos, 1997) from the above we can see that the TQM helps
in improving the project performance and quality. Moreover, Bryde and Robinson (2007) did a
research on many organization that implements the TQM to see the relationship with the project
management practice and processes and they results were that most of the companies implements
TQM are time, quality and cots focus with good technical practice of project management and
more customer satisfaction about the projects deliverables
Salaheldin (2009) listed ten success factor for implementing total quality management on
companies, which are: Managing customers, Managing employees, partnership with suppliers,
customers satisfaction, methods and ways of communication, managing quality on strategic
level, teams and leadership improvements, external interface management, planning for
operational quality and the adopted quality improvement systems. That highlights how
implementing TQM will directly affect the project management process specially the ones that
are driven by customers.
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3.5.3 EFQM
EFQM model is a framework that can help organization to have a tangible and measurable vision
and strategic objectives, clear systematic ways to deliver service or products or to operate in an
efficient way with less cost and better quality (Dutt et al, 2012), despite the implementation of
EFQM on many firms but many of quality programs or tool failed because there were no direct
integration with the actual projects or operation in the Organizations , and that highlights the
importance of aligning EFQM with the projects delivered in the organization or with the day to
day activities and making sure that the implementation of the quality tools is not isolated from
the project and the operation processes (Davies, 2008)
According to Dubai Quality Award (2010) that EFQM excellence model is a framework that
enables organization to:
Asses where they are on the path to excellence by understanding the key strength and
improvement points in relation to their strategic intent (vision, mission and strategic values)
Provide common vocabulary and way of thinking about the organization that facilitates the
effective communication of ideas, both within and outside the organization
Integrate existing and planned initiatives, removing duplication and identifying gaps
Provide a basic structure for organization’s management system
EFQM excellence model consist of three integrated components:
The fundamental concepts of excellence: This is about the principles which are
essential to achieve sustainable excellence for any organization (shown in Figure 12)
The EFQM Excellence Model: The actual framework to help Organizations convert the
fundamental concepts and Radar logic into practice (shown in Figure 13)
RADAR logic: a dynamic assessment framework and powerful management tool that
support the organization to see where it is stands in the excellence path. (shown in Figure
14)
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Figure 13: The fundamental concepts of excellence (EFQM, 2010)
Figure 14: The EFQM Excellence Model (EFQM, 2010)
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Figure 15: EFQM RADAR (EFQM, 2010)
The EFQM excellence model consist of five “Enablers” and four “Results”, the enablers criteria
cover what the organization does and how it does it, while the results criteria are causes by the
enablers or it is the results of what the organization is doing (Nabitz, Quaglia, and Wangen,
1999). The Model Criteria and how they linked or affect the project management processes is as
per the following:
Enablers
Leadership
o This criterion is about how is the leadership and management shapes the future
and the successes of the organization like the culture of organization, the
flexibility of the managers and the strategic intent (EFQM, 2010) and
implementing this criterion in effective way, allows the project managers and
organization top management to increase the positive impact of their decisionmaking and enables them to focus on the initiatives that will increase the
customer service (Wongrassamee, Gardiner and Simmons, 2003)
People
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o Excellent organization should have the right culture and environment for their
employees to allow innovation and creativity to achieve the strategic goal with
having employee’s development plans, developing the knowledge and the
capabilities for staff and implementing reward and recognition programs (EFQM,
2010). Moreover, Tutuncu and Kucukusta (2010) did a study on the influence of
employees and customer satisfaction from implementing the EFQM excellence
model and to determine the relation between the excellence model and the job
satisfaction, and the result confirmed that the relation between the job satisfaction
and implementing the EFQM excellence model insignificant and the project teams
is more satisfied which lead to better projects performance. Results are shown in
Appendix 1.
Strategy
o This criterion is about implementing strategic intent with stakeholder focus and
based on the needs and expectation of the stakeholders and the organization
internal capabilities, with insuring that the vision and mission is communicated to
employees (EFQM, 2010). Moreover this will help in drawing path for the
projects in the organization to achieve the present and future needs and
expectation of the organization (Juan, 2002).
Partnerships and Recourses
o Managing partners and internal and external resources in a way that support
achieving the mission and vision of the organization with using the resources and
the technology in an efficient and effective way to support achieving the strategic
objectives (EFQM, 2010), and it helps project managers in allocating the required
recourses and managing partners with exchanging experiences to insure successes
of project deliverables with good quality (Juan, 2002)
Processes, Products and Services
o Managing and improving all of the processes that are related to stakeholders,
customers value, products and services and the customer relationship management
(Dubai Quality Award , 2010), if an organization implemented the excellence
model in an effective way that will lead to having a clear systematic approach of
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doing thing and have a sustainable way for executing the project management
processes
Results
People Results
o This criterion is about having measures and performance indicator to measure the
employees satisfaction and their perception about the leadership and management,
internal communication and working conditions (EFQM, 2010)
Customer Results
o Excellent organization sets key performance indicators and targets to measure the
success of implementing their strategy and to measure the customer perception
about the reputation, product and services and customer loyalty (Dubai Quality
Award, 2010). Implementing the enablers of the excellence model in an effective
way will help in increasing the customer satisfaction by meeting their needs and
expectation, and that helps in setting (Juan, 2002) and meeting the customer
requirements in the initiating and planning project management processes group
(PMI, 2008).
Society Results
o Excellent organization sets clear key performance indicators and targets based on
the understanding for the needs and expectation of the society with measuring the
perception of the society in regards of the environmental impact, reputation,
workplace and social impact (EFQM, 2010).
Key Results
o Excellent organization sets key strategic outcomes and key performance
indicators about the financial and non financial targets and outcomes with
measuring the project costs and the supplier performance (EFQM, 2010).
3.5.4
ISO 9000
ISO 9000:2000 is a set of standards were created to help organization in implementing quality
management system, and ISO 9001 specify the requirements for quality management system
while the ISO 9004 explains the guidelines about the quality management system Russell (2000),
but ISO 9000 focus on evaluating the processes of the projects and the Organizations and not on
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the quality of the end product or the service (Walker and Keniger, 2002). And according to
Sampaio, Saraiva and Rodrigues (2011) that ISO 9001 is the most effective tool could be used
for managing the quality systems and the great growth for implementing this standard lately
confirms the string effect of implementing it for different sectors and according to (ISO, 2007)
that more than 90000 organization is certified with ISO 9001 across the world, moreover, Jain
and Inderpreet (2012) looked at evaluating the manufacturing performance and how ISO 9001
contributes in improving the products and the overall performance of the factories and the results
confirms that there is significant contribution of implementing ISO 9000 on the leadership and
management contribution and continues improvement, in addition to that most of the factories
that implemented ISO 9001 had a growth in the overall performance to meet the organization
vision and mission.
Dearing (2007) listed three main benefits of implementing ISO 9001 as per following:
It provides discipline: the certification should be done through third party auditors, so if
there any weakness point in the organization it will be identified and will be listed in the
improvement points and that insure the clear systematic way during the projects life
cycle.
It contains the basics of good quality systems: the standard include many requirements
for good quality system like understanding and meeting customers’ needs and
requirements, having the capable resources to deliver the products or services with the
required quality level, identifying risks, issues and problems and having the corrective
action to resolve them. The ISO 9001 requirements are shown in Figure 15.
It provides better opportunity for Organizations in the world market and possibilities to
increase the profit, and that because companies will prefer a certified ISO supplier to
provide them with the required material to finish their projects, and customers will aim
for the products that are ISO 9001 certified.
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Figure 16: Two Categories of requirements of ISO 9001 (Dearing, 2007)
3.5.5 SURVQUAL
Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988) created an assessment tool for the customer perception
which contains 22 items, this tool called SERVQUAL. Summary of the steps on how is
SURVQUAL was developed is shown in Appendix 2.
Rajani (2010) identified SSERVQUAL as a tool to understand the difference between the level
of the customer’s needs and expectations and the actual delivered service to them, and it stand
for SERVice QUALity, More over he listed seven gaps identified in the service quality
assessment model (shown in Figure 16), Moreover there are five dimension for the tool as per
the following:
1- Tangible: this is about the premises of delivering the service like the appearance, tidiness
and recourses.
2- Reliability: delivering and performing as per the promises to the customers with high
level of accuracy.
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3- Responsiveness: going the extra mile and providing all the support and help to customers
with offering available channels to listen to customers.
4- Assurance: the capabilities of the employees and the way they deal with customers
5- Empathy: caring for customer’s feelings and concerns and providing high attention to
their requirements.
Figure 17: SERVQUAL seven gaps (Rajani, 2010)
The main element in SURVQUAL is how customer will be receiving the service, where the
customer expectation could be divided to two areas: The need or desire for the service and the
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level of acceptance or the adequate service. The difference between these two main criteria is the
zone of tolerance or to which way the customers will accept the service (Shahin, 2007) so then to
measure Gap 5 in Figure 16 we can use the following formulas (Rajani, 2010):
Measure of Service Adequacy (MSA) = Perceived Service - Adequate Service
Measure of Service Superiority (MSS) = Perceived Service - Desired Service
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3.6 Quality tools and relationship with customer driven project management processes (comparison)
Table 3.3 points out the relationship between the quality tools (QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000 and SURVQUAL) with the project
management processes that have direct customers involvement, these processes are identified in this paper as Customer driven project
management processes and that based on the involvement of the customer or end user in each processes group (PMI, 2008). The left
side of the table lists the customer driven project management processes, while the other side of the table lists the quality tools with
their effect on the identified project management processes.
Table 3.3: Quality tools and relationship with customer driven project management processes
Quality Tools
Customer Driven
Project
Management
Processes (PMI,
Quality Function
Total Quality
Deployment
Management
EFQM
ISO 9000
SURVQUAL
-
-
2008)
Initiating processes
It helps in
group:
identifying the
Develop
stakeholders and
Project
their affect on the
Charter
project(Antony and
Identify
Preece, 2002)
It defines what
Helps in developing
satisfy the
the charter and
customers and the
aligning it with the
responsibilities for
overall strategy
the project
(Tutuncu and
stakeholders
Kucukusta, 2010)
(Dahlgaard and
and
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stakeholders
Kanji, 1990)
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(Wongrassamee,
Gardiner and
Simmons, 2003)
Planning processes
Very effective and
group:
effective tool to
collect product or
develop
project
management
plan
collect
requirements
define scope
define
activities
develop
schedule
projects
Positive impact on
requirements and
directing the
turning that to a
initiatives and
product or project
Improve the design
projects to be
specifications
and the planning
customer focused
(Antony and
phase in projects
and that helps in
11Preece, 2002),
(Masters and
having good plans
(Greene and
Frazier, 2007) and
based on customer
Stellman, 2009) and
(Bryde and
requirements
(Yong-Zhong and
Robinson, 2007)
(Wongrassamee,
Jun-Wen, 2010),
Gardiner and
plan quality
defining the project
Simmons, 2003)
plan
scope (Barkley and
and (EFQM, 2010)
communicatio
Saylor, 2001) and
ns
Planning for the
plan risk
project (Lawrence
Dissertation
ISO 9000 helps
Organizations in
having clear
systematic
processes for
planning projects
and discipline
approach for project
management plan
Russell (2000)
Can be used to
identify the
customer
expectations and
needs (Rajani,
2010) and
(Parasuraman,
Zeithaml and Berry,
1988)
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and Ishii, 2004)
Identify risks
Executing processes
Could be used to
group:
perform quality and
Best tool to execute
improve the project
perform
performance
Executing the
quality
(Tsung-Hsien and
project with better
assurance
Yen-Lin, 2010) and
quality and clear
distribute
(Curkovic, Vickery
systematic
information
and Droge, 2000)
processes (Dutt et
manage
and improves the
al, 2012), (Davies,
stakeholder
executing processes
2008) (Juan, 2002)
expectations
Sypsomos (1997)
and manage the
quality during the
project execution
phase
(Walker and
-
Keniger, 2002).
(Sampaio, Saraiva
and Rodrigues,
2011)
and Salaheldin
(2009)
Monitoring and
Controlling:
perform
change
management
verify scope
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Helps in monitoring
Helps in having a
Discipline approach
Great tool to assess
the deliverables
clear processes in a
to identify
the customers
quality and
place to monitor the improvement points
perception about
processes with the
performance and
and defects and to
the products or the
alignment to the
the risk and to
control projects and
project execution to
identified customer
control the quality
products (Dearing
do the required
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with an identified
perform
(Terziovski and
targets and trends
insure more
quality control
Samson, 1999),
(EFQM, 2010)
satisfaction
,2007)
corrective action to
report
(Curkovic, Vickery
(Parasuraman,
performance
and Droge, 2000)
Zeithaml and Berry,
monitor and
and Salaheldin
1988) and (Shahin,
control risks
(2009)
2007)
Closing processes
group:
Have positive
impact on the final
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requirements
control scope
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close project
or phase
close
procurements
outcomes
(Terziovski and
Samson, 1999).
Increase the
customer
satisfaction about
the end product
(EFQM, 2010) and
(Juan, 2002)
Checking the
conformance to the
main identified
requirements (Jain
-
and Inderpreet,
2012) and Dearing
(2007)
3.7 Contribution of Quality tools to Customer Driven Project Management processes
Many researchers described the contribution or the relation of the quality tools on the Organizations and project management
performance and success (Lawrence and Ishii, 2004), (Masters and Frazier, 2007), (Bryde and Robinson, 2007), (Tsung-Hsien and
Yen-Lin, 2010), (Curkovic, Vickery and Droge, 2000), (Dutt et al, 2012), (Russell, 2000), (Davies, 2008), (Juan, 2002),(Russell,
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2000), (Walker and Keniger, 2002), (Sampaio, Saraiva and Rodrigues, 2011), (Dearing ,2007), (Rajani, 2010), (Parasuraman,
Zeithaml and Berry, 1988) and (Shahin, 2007). Table 3.4 shows to which level quality tools could contribute to the customer driven
project management processes and to which level it contributes to the successes and to the positive performance of the project in case
these tools implemented effectively on Organizations . More contribution comparison between EFQM and ISO 9000 are shown in
Appendix 3.
Table 3.4: Contribution of quality tool to customer driven project management processes
Quality Tools Contribution
Low/Medium/High
Customer Driven Project
Management Processes
Quality Function
Total Quality
(PMI, 2008)
Deployment
Management
Initiating processes group
High
Planning processes group
EFQM
ISO 9000
SURVQUAL
High
High
Low
Low
High
High
High
Medium
Medium
Executing processes group
Low
Medium
Medium
High
Medium
Monitoring and Controlling
Low
High
Medium
High
High
Closing processes group
Low
Medium
Medium
Medium
Low
(Antony and Preece,
(Dahlgaard and Kanji,
(Tutuncu and
(Russell,
(Rajani,
2002) (Greene and
1990), (Masters and
Kucukusta,
2000), (Walker
2010),
Stellman, 2009),
Frazier, 2007), (Bryde
2010),
and Keniger,
(Parasuraman,
(Yong-Zhong and
and Robinson, 2007),
(Wongrassame
2002),
Zeithaml and
Jun-Wen, 2010),
(Tsung-Hsien and Yen-
e, Gardiner
(Sampaio,
Berry, 1988)
(Barkley and Saylor,
Lin, 2010), (Curkovic,
and Simmons,
Saraiva and
and (Shahin,
References
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2001) and
Vickery and Droge,
2003), (EFQM,
Rodrigues,
(Lawrence and Ishii,
2000), (Sypsomos, 1997)
2010), (Dutt et
2011),
2004)
and (Salaheldin, 2009),
al, 2012),
(Dearing
(Terziovski and Samson,
(Russell,
,2007), (Jain
1999) and (Curkovic,
2000),
and Inderpreet,
Vickery and Droge,
(Davies, 2008)
2012) and
2000)
and (Juan,
(Dearing,
2002)
2007),
2007)
(Russell,
2000),
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3.8 Excellence Models and Awards in United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates Federal and Local governments provides huge support for the private
and the government sector by initiating many excellent awards on the federal and on the local
level for all sectors. The aim of these awards is to measure the business performance and to
achieve higher growth through leadership, innovation and continual improvement (SKGEP,
2012) and (DQA, 2010).
There are many excellence award in United Arab Emirates created based on the EFQM
excellence model, some if these awards are:
Dubai Quality Award: DQA was launched in 1994 by Department of Economic
Development and it aimed to improve government and private organization performance
and standards to be as per the best practice (DQA, 2010) and (Government of
Dubai, 2012)
Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award: this award was launched in 2006 for the government
sector to encourage providing excellence service to customers and increase the
governments departments performance (SKGEP, 2012)
Abu-Dhabi Award for Excellence in Government Performance: This award is for Abu
Dhabi Government entities, and the aim of it is to create a competitive environment
towards excellence and better performance (ADAEP, 2012)
Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Business Award: The award was launched in
2005 to encourage businesses to improve their practices, services and products. There are
seven categories for the award: Service category, Manufacturing category, Financial
Service category, Transport and Logistics category, Trade category and Re-Export
category (MRM Business Award, 2011).
Dubai Service Excellence Scheme: The award was initiated in 2002 and it aimed to
improve the shopper experience in Dubai a better and excellent experience (Government
of Dubai, 2012)
Dubai Human Development Award (DHDA): Was launched in 2002 and it aimed to
award the organization that support Emiritization and having a good human development
initiatives (DED, 2011)
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Ajman Excellence Award: Was initiated in 2004 to encourage all government
departments in Ajman to improve their performance, cutting cost and delivering better
service (AJEP,2008).
Sheikh Saqr Government Excellence Award: This award was launched to contribute in
developing the government sector in RAK and to have good awareness about excellence
and quality with increasing the government entities performance and customer
satisfaction (RAKSSPGE, 2010)
3.9 Customer driven teams
Many Organizations focus on customer project requirements rather than looking at the
customers’ needs and expectations (Barkley and Saylor, 2001) and according to Orwig and
Brennan (2000) that customer satisfaction is based on the expectation about the deliverables and
this assert that the project teams should address both areas. Moreover, Thamhain (2004) did a
field study on 80 teams in 27 companies and he affirms that the leaders and the management
should totally understand the need and the environment of the organization in order to exceed the
team performance, and he also suggest some factors that improve the team performance such as
ability to communicate with each other and dealing with conflict situations and having good
relation between the team members in a good work environment.
Project teams are group of individuals that are performing together and represent an important
group of the organization, and this team is usually formed for main purpose: to complete the
tasks as per the client or customer specification within the targeted deadline (Anthony and Janet,
2002), and teams ensures that all aspects of the project like project management, functional,
processes and requirements are integrated together to achieve the main result, which is customer
satisfaction, and such teams provide better decisions and the motivation to carry them out
(Barkley and Saylor, 2001), moreover Anthony and Janet (2002) did more than 51 interviews
with project teams to determine the main factors that help in increasing the team performance
and the results are shown in Figure 17
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Figure 18: Summary of the interview results of the successes factors for project teams (Anthony
and Janet, 2002)
3.9.1 Building the Customer driven team members
Rickards and Moger (2000) and Abudi (2010) described that Teams goes through five stages of
development:
1- Forming: this is the first stage where the team member start to meet each other and
introduce each other and share information about the ire experience and background, and
it is very important in this stage for the team leader to clear the team and the project
objectives and the ground roles.
2- Storming: at this stage team members start to work with each other and they start to share
ideas on what should be done and what should not be done, therefore this st7age will
have a lot of conflict and the team leader should resolve the conflicts and direct the team
on how to work together toward the main goal.
3- Norming: at this stage teams start to work more effectively and they move from the
individual objectives to the project objective and they realize the benefits of having
differences in the team, mostly at this stage the project manager or the team leader don’t
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need to be involved in every design making processes to solve problems as the team is
working together and can take decision for certain issues.
4- Performing: at this stage the team is performing at the highest level and they are all
focused towards the group goal and the project goal and the deliverables get finished
easier and faster. Moreover, team leader will not be involved for decision making at this
stage to solve conflict or to fix a defect.
5- Adjouring: this is the final stage where the team in the end of the project and they will be
allocated to different teams and other projects, where they start to go through the same
stages again with different direction. It is important for the team leader at this stage to
celebrate the success of the team at the end of the project and to reward their
performance.
Linda (2001) also pointed out that when teams go through theses stages, the move from
attentiveness, into conflict and then into avoiding conflict, and there are some steps that will help
in improving the performance such as improving communication and adapt the two way
communication between team members and the team leader and solving conflict and turn it to a
useful discussion.
3.10 Translating needs and expectations to specifications in different sectors
Customers love companies that treat them the way they want to be treated, Leland and Biley
(2006) shared a research results which confirms that customers will spend up 10% for the same
product but with better service, customers will inform from 9 to 12 people when they get good
service and they will tell 20 people when they are not treated in the way they want to be treated.
Customer service is the organization ability to supply their customers’ needs and expectations
(Denove and Power IV, 2006) and as Lock (1996) explains that customer project specification is
the initial inquiries from the customer which could be taken in different formats and tools and
then turning these specification to objectives and milestones to be achieved.
Business owners and managers are very interested to understand the financial value of the
customers with our actually implementing the best practice to increase this value (Xueming,
Christian and Jan, 2010). Therefore to achieve the best possible profit companies should move
from basic service to best service as explained by Price and Jaffe (2008) that by applying root
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cause improvements, creating engaging self-service, practicing preventive maintenance, make
many communication channels available to the customer to connect the company, taking the
ownership of the actions across the company, listen and act and then deliver the best service
experience (Figure 1).
Figure19: the best service is no service (Price and Jaffe, 2008)
3.10.1 Difference between service design and product design
Chakrabarty, Whitten and` Green (2007) stated that “Service Quality can be defined as the
conformance to customer requirements in the delivery of a service”
According to Chakrabarty, Whitten and Green (2007) that a national survey about the quality of
outsourced projects, confirms that service quality and relationship quality are positively related
to each other and they both impact on customer satisfaction
3.10.2 Sectors needs and expectations
Most of the government buddies provide service and
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Chapter 3: Research Design and Methodology
4.1 Research Methodology
Frey et al. (1991) define research methodology as a strategic way and method to collect an
evidence to test Hypotheses and theories and to building them by collecting the data from the
concerned resources. Moreover there are different methods that can be used in an academic
research or psychological research, these methods commonly uses questionnaires studies,
interviews, and experiments. These methods can be a collection of qualitative data or
quantitative data (Brace, Kemp and Snelgar, 2009)
Figure 20: The Research ‘Onion’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007), p. 102)
With the selections identified for this research
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4.1.1 Research Philosophy
According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007) that research methodology is how the
knowledge is developed and how theses knowledge and the adopted philosophy will be
influenced by particular consideration n and it is the first step for adopting a research study.
There are three different views of research philosophy which are positivism, Realism and
Interpretive. The positivism research philosophy it is adaptation of the natural scientist and it is
about generating research strategy based on existing theory to develop hypotheses, and then
testing these hypotheses and confirming them, while the realism research philosophy relates to
scientific enquiry, and there are two types of the realism; Direct realism which is what you see is
what you get, and the other one is critical realism which about that what people experience are
sensations and then finally the interpretivism which is about understanding the differences
between humans in our role as social actors (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007).
This Study follows a positivist approach. In this study the Hypotheses were identified and
developed based on existing theories and literatures and then facts and information were
collected from the concerned recourses to test the hypotheses.
4.1.2 Research Approaches
There are two main research approaches’; deductive and inductive. In the deductive research
approach the researchers start by identifying and developing the theory or the Hypotheses and
then design a research strategy to test these Hypotheses, while in the inductive research approach
it is the opposite way where the data will be collected first to develop a theory based on the
analysis of these data (Schadewitz and Jachna, 2007) and (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007).
In Figure 21 a full explanation about the differences between both approaches.
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Figure 21: Major differences between deductive and inductive approaches to research (Saunders,
Lewis and Thornhill, 2007, P.120).
This study follows a deduction approach where the Hypotheses developed based on an existing
methodologies and literatures and then a survey where conducted and the quantitative data were
analyzed to test the Hypotheses, moreover that these steps were done independently with a
sufficient sample size of surveys in a structured systematic approach.
4.1.3 Research Strategy
As shown in Figure 20 that there are many research strategy such as experiment, survey, case
study, action research, grounded theory, ethnography and archival research. This study uses
Survey as a strategy to collect the data for testing the Hypotheses. Moreover, according to
Brodens and Abbott (2011) that survey is widely used research technique and it used usually to
evaluate specific attitude, behavior or perception. This confirms that the field survey is the
suitable way to test the study Hypotheses as the strategy is to measure customer satisfaction and
perception.
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Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007) also confirm that surveys is usually associated with the
deductive approach and it is a very common strategy in the business and management research,
and it allows the researchers to collect large sample size of data in an economic way.
In this study the surveys were conducted by doing face-to-face structured interviews at the
service location and that is directly after the customers finish their experience journey of
applying to a service or getting a product, while in some service location there were few
customers only so the customers contact details were collected from the service provider and the
surveys were conducted over the phone with these customers. Moreover, the face-to-face
interviews allows the researchers to clarify the ambiguity for the interviewee and give the ability
to have less error rate and high confidence level of the collected data (Leedy and Ormrod, 2001)
4.1.4 Time Horizon
There are two types of time horizon for any study; the cross-sectional study and the longitudinal
study. The cross sectional is usually used when the time is a constraint in projects and when the
study should be done in a particular time, while the longitudinal is used when the study aims to
be done through long period to observe people or events (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007)
and the cross sectional is usually used for the academic courses where time is an issue, and it
used usually to measure how factors are related for different organization when the survey
should be conducted in a short period of time (Adams and Schvaneveldt, 1991)
This study follows the cross-sectional way, because the aim is to measure the customer
satisfaction and the efficiency of implementing quality tools in the service sector by conducting a
surveys with customers right after they finish applying for service or product within a short
period of time, therefore the cross-sectional was the most suitable way for collecting the required
data to test the Hypotheses of this study.
4.1.5 Data Collection Technique and Process
As shown in figure 20 that this study follows the positivism technique in conducting the research
and the positivism technique should go through steps starting by developing the Hypotheses
based on an existing methodologies, theories and literatures and then collecting the data and
analyze it to test the developed methodologies (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007).
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Brodens and Abbott (2011) identified and draw the research process as shown in Figure 22, this
study also followed the same processes. The study started by identifying the research objectives
and then developing the Hypotheses based on and existing theories, methodologies and literature.
After that the suitable research design and philosophy were selected with selecting concerned
industry from the service sector and then a random sample were taken from each service
provider right after they finish applying for the service with using the face-to-face and telephone
interviews with the customers using a structured questionnaires which aims to collect the
required data to test the Hypotheses, after that the survey was piloted on a few people and then
the actual survey data were collected and analyzed to right the results and the recommendations.
The researcher works in research organizations, therefore the collected data were collected
by the organization for different projects and the developed survey matches the
requirement of testing the hypotheses, therefore the researcher was able to get an
authorization to use the data without mentioning any organization name, moreover, the
organization researchers conduct these data by interviewing the customers face-to-face or
over the phone.
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Figure 22: The research Process (Brodens and Abbott, 2011, P.27)
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4.2 Conceptual Framework
This research objective and Hypotheses are presented through the literature review as shown in
the previous chapter (chapter 2). Figure 23 shows the research Hypotheses and explain what the
research will be testing in a graphical representation. Hypotheses are explained in details in
section 2.6, page 10.
Explanatory Variable
Responsive Variable
H1: positive impact
Quality tools
H2: Improve
H3: Positive Impact
Quality
Management
Project
performance
Project
Management
Processes
H4: Significant Positive Relationship
H5: Improve
Customer
Satisfaction
Figure 23: Graphical representation for the Research Hypotheses
The aim of this study is to find the link between the quality tools and the quality management on
the project management performance and the project management processes, and how these
factors could improve the customer service in the service sector.
And as explained and highlighted in the literature review that customer service in the service
sector is a critical issue (Lawrence and Ishii, 2004), (Pintoand Kharbanda, 1996) and (Barkley
and Saylor, 2001) and the service goes through the five main project process groups which are
initiating, planning, monitoring and controlling, executing and closing (PMI, 2008) and (Denove
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and Power IV, 2006), therefore this research is aimed to check the affect of implementing quality
management during the project life cycle and drive the project based on customer needs and
expectation on the project management performance and on the project management processes.
Moreover this research will also look at the impact and the relation of the quality tools such as
EFQM, ISO 9000, Total Quality Management and Quality Function Deployment on the project
performance and project management processes, and how improving these two factors could
improve the customer satisfaction.
The research focuses on customer driven project management. Moreover, the customer service is
the main element to test the Hypotheses where the hypotheses is tested by checking on
Organizations that are implanting quality management and quality tools and to see the
satisfaction level of their customers or there service or product receivers on each stage of the
service and on the product itself. This will give a clear picture on the link between the quality
management, quality tools and project performance and project management processes.
As shown in Figure 24 that the research were based on two steps, the first step were and
interviewse with the quality managers in each Organisations to determined the implemented
quality management practice and the quality tools such as ISO 9000, EFQM, QFD, TQM and
SURVQUAL and then the questioneres were developed to understand and to test how theses
implemantations affect the project performance and project management processes groups.
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Figure 24: Study research framework
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4.3 Study Instrument
The questionnaire was developed to test this study Hypotheses (check Appendix 4). The link
between implementing the quality and the quality tools with the project performance and project
management processes is illustrated in the questionnaire to insure that the Hypotheses is tested as
shown in Figure 23:
Below is the explanation of the questionnaire (See Appendix 4) sections:
Section 1 (Demographic and General Question): this section is aimed to collect the
demographic data of the customers. This section includes the industry type of the
organization, organization name (the Organizations were referenced with code and not
the actual name), Date of the survey, Nationality, Gender and then age group. This data
will give good details to classify the customers of the organization that participate in this
study. All the questions are mandatory except the organization name.
Section 2 (Satisfaction and Performance): This is the core of the survey which aims to
test the Hypotheses directly. This section is divided to four parts as per the project
management processes group (PMI, 2008) or the project life cycle and all of the
questions in this section are mandatory. These parts are as follows:
o Initiating and Planning: this contains two satisfaction questions on specification of
the service or the product and on the involvement of the customer needs and
requirements in producing and delivering a service/product. The options were
extremely dissatisfied, dissatisfied, natural, satisfied, extremely satisfied and not
applicable on Likert scale (Burns, 2000) from one to five.
o Executing: this category is divided to two parts, the first part is about the
satisfaction on the speed of delivering the service/product and the easiness of
getting the service from the department or the entity, and the other part is an
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agreement questions about the performance of the service centre employees and
to which level they were supportive and treating the customer in respected and
good manner. This parts option were satisfaction levels and agreement levels on
Likert scale (Burns, 2000) from score one to five.
o Monitoring and Controlling: Under this criteria there are three satisfaction
questions and 2 agreement questions, the satisfaction questions is about receiving
the information that helped in getting all the service completed, the quality of the
provided service and then the quality and the type of interaction from the
employees with the customers and if it is aligned with the best practice and the
standards which was addressed at the beginning of designing a product or service,
while the agreement questions is about the competencies and the knowledge of
the employees and going the extra mile in delivering the service. This parts option
were satisfaction levels and agreement levels on Likert scale (Burns, 2000) from
score one to five.
o Closing: This criteria is about collecting the agreement level from customers
about the overall delivery of the processes and the time of delivering the service
or the product and then measuring if the end product or the service (final
outcome) as per their needs and expectation. This parts option were satisfaction
levels and agreement levels on Likert scale from score one to five.
At the end of the performance and the satisfaction section there is a question to collect
information about the duration of getting the service done (the selected time is as per
Canada service model and international customer service standard (TICSI, 2012))
Section 3 (Area of Improvements): In this section customers are asked to determine the
factors and the areas that should be improved in the organization they got service from.
This section consist of two questions, the first one is a multiple choice question where the
customer will select the most important area that needs improvements and related to the
project management processes which are involving customers in the designing and
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imitating stage of the product/service, planning the product/ service requirements,
defining the scope of the product/service, delivering the service in efficient and
satisfactory manner and finally Insuring that the product/service meets the customer
expectations and needs, while the second item is an open end question if the customers
would like to suggest to improve the services provided to them, and this question is
optional.
Most of the core survey questions uses the likert scale which was developed in 1932 by Likert to
be used in the research questionnaires (Burns, 2000) which consist of “ a set of items of equal
value and a set of response categories constructed around a continuum of agreement/
disagreement to which subjects are asked to respond” (Sarantakos, 1998, P.89), and according to
Leedy and Ormrod (2001) that Likert scale have been used for more than fifty years and it is
very popular in measuring the customers satisfaction or people perception and agreement levels.
Table 5 explains the link between the questionnaire (Appendix 4) and the Hypotheses with the
references to the literatures.
Table 4.1: Relation between the research questionnaire and the Hypotheses
Variable
Items
Number
Reference
(Rajani, 2010), Parasuraman,
Satisfaction and Performance –
7.1
Initiating and Planning
7.2
Zeithaml and Berry (1988),
(Juan, 2002), (Partovi, 1999) and
(Barkley and Saylor, 2001)
7.3
(Rajani, 2010), Parasuraman,
Satisfaction and Performance –
7.4
Zeithaml and Berry (1988) and
Executing
7.5
(Dearing, 2007)
7.6
Satisfaction and Performance –
7.7
(Rajani, 2010), (Parasuraman,
Monitoring and Controlling
7.8
Zeithaml and Berry, 1988) and
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RES500
(Dearing, 2007)
7.10
7.11
(Rajani, 2010), (Parasuraman,
Satisfaction and Performance –
7.12
Closing
7.13
Area of Improvement- Duration
of service delivery
Area of Improvement- Which
area needs improvement
Area of Improvement- Customers
Suggestions
Zeithaml and Berry, 1988),
(Partovi, 1999) and (Lawrence
and Ishii, 2004)
(Parasuraman, Zeithaml and
8
Berry, 1988), (EFQM, 2010) and
(Lawrence and Ishii, 2004)
9
(EFQM, 2010)
10
As mentioned previously that the survey consists of three areas, the first one is to collect
demographic information about the interviewed customers, to help in analyzing and segmenting
the data with cross tabulations. While the second one (Satisfaction and Performance) is aimed to
test directly all the hypotheses from H1 to H6. Finally the last section which aims to identify the
improvement areas from the customer point of view to confirm the results of section 2 and help
in finding the recommendation the participated Organizations .
4.4 Pilot Questionnaire
Brodens and Abbott (2011) pointed out that pilot study is a critical stage of conducting a research
and it saves money and time by providing useful information which eliminates the error in the
real study, Moreover, pilot study works very well specially with the large studies that involves
hundreds of surveys in order to select the best suitable method to collect the required data and to
test the Hypotheses. In additional to that pilot test helps in refine the questionnaire and making
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sure the respondents will not face a problem in filling or understanding it (Saunders, Lewis and
Thornhill, 2007).
According to Brodens and Abbott (2011) that the pilot study help in clarifying and determining
the appropriate level of the independent variable and helps in finding all the bugs or error before
conducting the real study. Moreover, in the pilot study the questionnaire should be reviewed by
an expert to check the suitability of the questions in order to test the Hypotheses and then testing
it on a number of respondents to get the comments on the structure of the questions (Saunders,
Lewis and Thornhill, 2007).
The questionnaire was reviewed by the dissertation supervisor before the pilot testing to confirm
the relation between the questions and the Hypotheses with checking the references and the bases
of the questionnaire from the literature review. The participants in the pilot study were from
different experiences and background to insure that the questionnaire will meet the study
objectives. The participants were as followed:
Participant 1: A subject Specialist (PhD in PM from BUiD, dissertation supervisor)
Participant 2: An very well know expert in customer service and works as a managing director
Participant 3: A project manager who manage implementing service quality tools in the service
sector in UAE
Participant 4: An experience service quality consultant
Participant 5: An experience assessor in Dubai Quality Group
Participant 6: A Director of the research in a service quality organization
Participants 7: Few customers from the service quality sector (eight customers)
The questionnaire was send to the customers online and in word format to the experts and
consultants (participant 1 to participant 7), the customers were interviewed face to face to collect
the feedback and a meeting was held with each expert for more than thirty minutes to discuss the
questionnaire and collect the feedback to enhance the survey. The experts suggestions and
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feedback along with the customers feedback are summarized below according to each section in
the survey:
Section 1: Demographic and General Questions
At the begging of the study, the aim was to understand the effect of the quality tools and
quality management on the government sector only, but the supervisor and other experts
advice that it is better to cover different sector as the government sector in UAE have the
same nature and environment, therefore it is much better and beneficial to see the impact
of the quality tools on the project performance and project management processes in
different sector and to compare between these sector. From that the selected sector for the
research are Banking, Retail, Government and Hospitality (all are considered from the
service sector)
The dissertation supervisor advised to include six deferent entities in the research.
Therefore, there were two banks, one organization from the retail sector, one organization
from the hospitality and then three government entities, moreover the experts advised to
give code to each organization and to include that as a question at the begging of the
survey in order to have a clear data analysis per organization and per sector.
The nationality were divided to only four options UAE locals, expat Arabs, Expat Asians
and expat westerners, but one of the experts advises to add other option as there are some
countries which doesn’t fit the previous four categories.
Section 2: Satisfaction and Performance
One of expert advises is to divide the questionnaire as per the project management
processes group and should cover testing all the Hypotheses, moreover, some customers
were not able to understand the questions very easily, therefore the survey language was
reviewed and the questions were made in an easy language that can be understood by all
levels of customers
Section 3: Area of Improvements
In this section, a new open-end question was added to questionnaire to collect any
suggestion that might enhance or help the organization in developing and delivering the
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service, more over the service quality expert advices to add a question related to the
waiting time to check the difference between sectors and to measure the level of the
provided service.
4.5 Research sampling
The used sampling technique in this study is the cluster sampling. This technique is implemented
by identifying certain department and service center and the researcher interviewed customers at
the service location after they were served (see Figure 25), in some Organizations where it was
difficult to find the required number of customers, the customer’s details were provided to the
researcher and the surveys were conducted through the phone. Moreover, Brodens and Abbott
(2011) confirms that cluster sampling is the best sampling techniques if the clusters (organization
or interviewee) are identified, Moreover, it saves time and cost.
Figure 25: Simple Random Sampling
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4.6 Procedure
This study target the service sector in UAE which represent 71% from the business sectors in
UAE (Abdelgalil and Husasain, 2007), due to the difficulties of getting customer information or
reaching customers on the service sector, the researcher selected certain Organizations in the
public and in the private sector where customer can be asked on the service centers. The selected
sectors were:
Banking
Retail
Government
Hospitality
From the banking sector two banks were selected, one organization from the retail sector, three
government entities and one organization from the hospitality sector. The researcher is a project
manager who worked with these Organizations before and was able to get access to these
organization’s customers.
The researcher interviewed the customers in the service center after they get served and it was a
face to face short interview, where the researcher explains the question to the customer. But in
some organization there were few customer at the service center location due to the nature of the
provided service, therefore the researcher arranged with their organization to get accesses to the
customer data base and conducted the survey with their customer on the phone.
During conducting the face-to-face interview the researcher assured to have a verity types of
nationalities and ganders, to see how is the level of interaction with different languages and
different cultures, and to check if the organization classify their customers and understand their
needs and expectations.
According to Sarantakos (1998) that the bigger sample size of the same unit of measurement the
greater is the confidence in the result and in the analyses, therefore the aimed sample size was
determined as per the experts and the dissertation supervisor advice, which is 2000 in total.
Please see Table 4.2 for more details
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Table 4.2: Research sample size
Sector
Organization
Banking
Retail
Government
Hospitality
Sample
size
Banking – O1
052
Banking – O2
052
Retail – O1
022
Government – O1
022
Government – O2
022
Government – O3
022
Hospitality – O1
300
Total
2000
Three software’s were used for the analysis, “Survey Moments” to enter the responses and to
collect it, “Microsoft Excel” to calculate the satisfaction levels and the agreement levels, and
then ”SPSS” was used to do the detailed analysis. The row data was exported from the “Survey
Moment” software in SPSS format and then was imported to SPSS.
4.7 Ethical Considerations
Ethical concern was a crucial part of this study. The below points were considered during the
research:
The study and the research started after getting approval from the dissertation supervisor
and getting the expert opinions.
The anonymity of the participants and the confidentiality of the their responses were
maintained, while conducting the research the researchers insured that the participant
names is not collected or even associated with the answers. Therefore, there were no any
identification questions such as name and contact details.
During the face-to-face quick interview or phone interview, participants were informed
that the collected data is strictly confident and they were informed about the purpose of
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the research, and how their responses will help in developing the organization they deal
with. This encouraged them to give clear and honest feedback about the received service.
Permission were taken from all the concerned organization to take the feedback from
their customers, even some organization provided the contact details of their customers
to conduct phone survey with them
During the study, the researcher made sure that the identification information of the
participated organization are not shared, and the Organizations were given code by
mentioning the sector name and then “O” for organization and then the number of the
organization such as Hospitality-O.
4.8 Methods of Analysis
Different analysis were involved in this research by using three software’s which are SPSS V21,
Survey Moments and Microsoft Excel. The analysis was done on nominal and ordinal variables.
Detailed analysis were conducted using Survey moments and Microsoft excel to. The analyses
were calculating the customer satisfaction score using excel, independent t-test, reliability test
using SPSS, agreement score and demographics using Survey moments.
5
Chapter 4: Questionnaire Results
5.1 Descriptive Statistics
This sections gives and overview about the respondents, about the sectors, about the participant
Organizations , Nationalities, Genders and age groups.
5.1.1 Descriptive Statistics Summaries
The total respondents to the survey 2000, all of them are customers for different Organizations
that belong to the service sector. Table 5.1 shows the descriptive statistics for the survey items
and Table 5.2 shows the sample distribution.
Table 5.1: Survey items descriptive analysis
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Descriptive Statistics
N
Minimum
Maximum
Mean
Std. Deviation
2000
1
4
2.50
1.025
2000
1
7
4.13
1.965
3. Date of the Survey:
2000
16-JAN-2013
23-JAN-2013
20-JAN-2013
2 19:07:48.180
4. Nationality
2000
1
5
2.16
.983
5. Gender
2000
1
2
1.20
.396
6. Age group
2000
1
6
2.94
1.084
2000
1
5
3.65
1.194
2000
1
5
3.58
1.223
2000
1
5
3.65
1.336
2000
1
6
3.74
1.232
2000
1
5
3.83
1.254
2000
1
5
3.80
1.236
1. Please select the sector
of the department/company
that served the customer?
2. Please select the
department/company that
served the customer?
7.1 Overall, how satisfied
were you with the
specification of the
product/service?
7.2 Overall, how satisfied
are you with the
department/organization in
taking your opening and
feedback to improve their
services/products?
7.3 Overall, how satisfied
were you with the time taken
to receive the required
service?
7.4 Overall, how satisfied
were you with the easiness
of getting the service from
that department?
7.5 I was treated fairly by
the employees of that
department who assisted
me with the service.
7.6 The employees showed
their respect while delivering
the service/ transaction.
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7.7 I have received
information that helped me
regarding all I should do
2000
1
5
3.98
1.145
2000
1
5
4.02
1.159
2000
1
5
4.00
1.096
2000
1
5
3.94
1.164
2000
1
5
4.00
1.145
2000
1
5
3.15
1.447
2000
1
5
3.71
1.296
1999
1
5
1.97
.991
until getting my services
completed.
7.8 Overall, how satisfied
were you with the quality of
service provided by the
employees of that
department?
7.9 Overall, how satisfied
were you with the
department staff you directly
dealt with and provided the
service to you?
7.10 Employees were
competent and
knowledgeable enough to
provide the requested
service.
7.11 Employees did their
best and went the extra mile
to make sure I received the
proper aid and required
service.
7.12 I waited for a
reasonable period of time in
the department until I
received my requested
service.
7.13 At the end, did you
manage to get the service
you needed?
8. How long did you have to
wait until you got served?
(Minutes)
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9. In your opinion, which of
the factors that influence the
department’s service
delivery performance needs
2000
1
7
4.20
2.170
immediate improvement and
development?
Valid N (listwise)
1999
Table 5.2: Sample Distribution
Sector
4. Nationality
6. Age group
Organization
Dissertation
Retail
Government
Hospitality
Count
Count
Count
Count
UAE Local
121
46
343
44
Expat Arab
260
146
371
56
Expat Asian
85
67
118
103
Expat Westerner
30
41
53
97
4
0
15
0
442
169
778
221
Female
58
131
122
79
Under 21
14
2
66
1
21-30
179
89
402
41
31-40
172
112
259
135
41-50
86
54
118
90
50-60
34
32
41
24
+60
15
11
14
9
Banking – O1
250
0
0
0
Banking – O2
250
0
0
0
Retail – O1
0
300
0
0
Government – O1
0
0
300
0
Government – O2
0
0
300
0
Government – O3
0
0
300
0
Hospitality – O1
0
0
0
300
Other
5. Gender
Banking
Male
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5.1.2 Sectors
Table 5.3: The survey was conducted in four sectors, Banking, Retail, Government and
Hospitality. The biggest percentage of the customers were in the government sectors which
represent 45% from the total number of the respondents and then the minimum sector were both
the retail and the hospitality the both represent 15% each from the total sample size. Figure 5-1
shows the distribution of customers as per the sector.
Table 5.3: Participant Sectors
Sector
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Banking
500
20.0
25.0
25.0
Retail
300
12.0
15.0
40.0
Government
900
35.9
45.0
85.0
Hospitality
300
12.0
15.0
100.0
2000
79.8
100.0
505
20.2
2505
100.0
Total
Missing
System
Total
Sectors
Banking
Retail
15%
Government
Hospitality
25%
15%
45%
Figure 5-1: Participant Sectors
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5.1.3 Participant Organizations
Table 5.4: The survey were conducted in seven deferent Organizations or entities, two from the
Banking sector, one from the retail sector, three from the government sector and one from the
hospitality sector. The Organizations were given a code for the confidentiality purposes.
Table 5.4: Participant Organizations
Organization
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Banking – O1
250
10.0
12.5
12.5
Banking – O2
250
10.0
12.5
25.0
Retail – O1
300
12.0
15.0
40.0
Government – O1
300
12.0
15.0
55.0
Government – O2
300
12.0
15.0
70.0
Government – O3
300
12.0
15.0
85.0
Hospitality – O1
300
12.0
15.0
100.0
2000
79.8
100.0
505
20.2
2505
100.0
Total
Missing
System
Total
5.1.4 Nationalities
Table 5.5: the nationalities were grouped under five main groups as shown in Figure 5-2, The
Expat Arabs represents the majority of the respondents with 41% and then the UAE locals with
22%, and that because of the big number of the participants from the government sector, the
smallest percentage was for the westerners with 8.8 %. There are some other nationalities, which
don’t fit in the main categories such as Australian customers, and they represent only 0.8% from
the sample size.
Table 5.5: Customers Nationalities
4. Nationality
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
UAE Local
554
22.1
27.7
27.7
Expat Arab
833
33.3
41.7
69.4
Expat Asian
373
14.9
18.7
88.0
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Expat Westerner
Missing
RES500
221
8.8
11.1
99.1
Other
19
.8
1.0
100.0
Total
2000
79.8
100.0
505
20.2
2505
100.0
System
Total
Nationalities
833
554
373
221
19
UAE Local
Expat Arab
Expat Asian
Expat
Westerner
Other
Figure 5-2: Customers Nationalities
5.1.5 Gender
Table 5.6: The majority of the respondents are males, as shown in Figure 5-3 that they represent
80% (Figure 5-3) and that because of the nature of the service center where the survey were
conducted. As shown in Table 5.5 that the majority of the government sector customers are
males and as shown in Figure 5-1 that the government sector represent 45% of the sample size,
which explains the high percentage of males.
Table 5.6: Customers Gender
5. Gender
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Male
Valid
Female
Total
Missing
System
Dissertation
1610
64.3
80.5
80.5
390
15.6
19.5
100.0
2000
79.8
100.0
505
20.2
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Total
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2505
RES500
100.0
Gender
Male
Female
20%
80%
Figure 5-3: Customers Gender
Table 5.7: Cross-tabulation between Sector and Gender
Count
5. Gender
Male
Sector
Total
Female
Banking
442
58
500
Retail
169
131
300
Government
778
122
900
Hospitality
221
79
300
1610
390
2000
Total
5.1.6 Age Group
Table 5.8: The majority of customer’s age is between 21 and 40 years, which represent 55.5 % of
the interviewee, the lowest percentage was the customers above 60 and that represent 2% only of
the customers.
Table 5.8: Customers Age Groups
6. Age group
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Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
RES500
Cumulative
Percent
Under 21
Valid
83
3.3
4.2
4.2
21-30
711
28.4
35.6
39.7
31-40
678
27.1
33.9
73.6
41-50
348
13.9
17.4
91.0
50-60
131
5.2
6.6
97.6
49
2.0
2.5
100.0
2000
79.8
100.0
505
20.2
2505
100.0
+60
Total
Missing
System
Total
Age Groups
711
678
348
131
83
Under 21
49
21-30
31-40
41-50
50-60
Above 60
Figure 5-4: Customers Age Groups
5.2 Quality Manager’s Interviews results
This research aims to understand the link between implementing quality management and quality
tools and the project management processes and project performance; therefore, it was very
important to understand exactly what kind of quality management practice or quality
management tools, which are used by the participant’s Organizations in order to test the
Hypotheses.
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Table 5.9 Gives and an overview about the implanted quality management tools and practice in
each organization.
Table 5.9: Implemented Quality Tools in the participant Organizations
#
Organization
Quality Tool
1
Banking – O1
ISO, EFQM, TQM
2
Banking – O2
ISO, SURVQUAL
3
Retail – O1
QFD
4
Government
– EFQM, ISO, SURQUAL
O1
5
– ISO
Government
O2
6
–
Government
O3
Hospitality – O1
7
SURVQUAL
5.3 Inferential Statistics
5.3.1 Reliability Testing
Reliability test was done using Crobach’s Alpha (details are shown in Appendix 7). Table 5.10
shows that the test was done to all of the responses (N=2000) and only one case is excluded
which has missing data. The Cronbach’s alpha for the scale is 0.597 (Table 5.11)
Table 5.10: Case Processing Summary
N
Valid
Cases
a
Excluded
Total
%
1999
100.0
1
.1
2000
100.0
a. Listwise deletion based on all variables in the
procedure.
Table 5.11: Overall Reliability Statistics
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Cronbach's
Cronbach's
Alpha
Alpha Based on
RES500
N of Items
Standardized
Items
.597
.606
20
Table 5.12: Cronbach Alpha value for all process Groups
Survey
Items
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
7.7
7.8
7.9
7.10
7.11
7.12
7.13
Process
Group
Cronbach
Alpha
Initiating and
Planning
0.3
Executing
0.57
Monitoring
and
Controlling
0.698
Closing
0.171
Table 5.13 shows the descriptive statics’ if the item deleted, most of the satisfaction and
agreement items (from 7.1 to 7.13) are a consistent part of the scale, except item 7.2 where the
correlation is very low (0.99 only)
Table 5.13: Item-Total Statistics
Item 1 (Sector)
Item 2
(Organization)
Item 4 (Nationality)
Scale
Mean if
Item
Deleted
65.63
Scale
Variance
if Item
Deleted
71.405
Corrected
Item-Total
Correlation
.155
Squared
Multiple
Correlation
.949
Cronbach's
Alpha if
Item
Deleted
.590
64.01
74.159
-.085
.959
.648
65.97
73.069
.065
.050
.600
Item 5 (Gender)
66.94
76.275
-.187
.079
.608
Item 6 (Age group)
65.19
72.624
.072
.044
.600
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Item 7.1
64.48
71.465
.111
.285
.596
Item 7.2
64.56
71.592
.099
.317
.598
Item 7.3
64.48
65.883
.344
.279
.563
Item 7.4
64.39
67.233
.316
.226
.569
Item 7.5
64.30
65.738
.385
.274
.559
Item 7.6
64.34
65.336
.414
.280
.555
Item 7.7
64.15
66.126
.414
.278
.557
Item 7.8
64.11
66.813
.368
.226
.563
Item 7.9
64.13
66.674
.406
.287
.560
Item 7.10
64.19
65.154
.459
.319
.551
Item 7.11
64.13
66.771
.377
.267
.562
Item 7.12
64.98
65.780
.309
.178
.567
Item 7.13
64.42
66.319
.338
.205
.565
Item 8 (waiting time)
66.16
76.711
-.147
.258
.622
Item 9 (Area of
Improvement)
63.94
69.801
.017
.234
.635
5.3.2 Satisfaction and Agreement results
Measuring the customer’s satisfaction and agreement scores for the project management
processes groups are aimed to study the all of the developed Hypotheses. The result will be
based on linking the satisfaction and agreement score and the implemented quality management
practices and quality tools, which are QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000 and SURVQUAL. For
example this test will study if the organization that implements quality tools has a good
satisfaction and agreement score, and to see if there is a significant relationship between
these tools and the customer satisfaction. This test is aimed to study the entire developed
Hypotheses (H1, H2, H3, H4 and H5). For quick reference, Table 5.14 lists the entire
Hypotheses.
Table 5.14: Study Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1
There is positive impact for the quality tool (QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000
(H1)
and SURVQUAL)
Hypothesis 2
(H2)
on the project performance.
Implementing quality tools (QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000 and
SURVQUAL)
in Organizations improves the project management
processes.
Hypothesis 3
There is positive impact for the quality management on the project
(H3)
performance.
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There is statistically significant positive relationship between
Hypothesis 4
implementing of the quality tools (QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000 and
(H4)
SURVQUAL)
and the customer satisfaction about the services and products
in the service sector.
Hypothesis 5
The implementation of the quality management improves the project
(H5)
management process.
The satisfaction and agreement questions have five options starts from extremely dissatisfied,
disagree to extremely satisfied, or agree, and the values starts from one to five on the Likert scale
(Burns, 2000). The followed ways to calculate the satisfaction or agreement overall score were
used by the Canadian Service Center and was developed by Schmidt and Strickland (1998). The
calculation is done as per the following: Total for each option = Count (number of respondents
for the same option)* Score, then the overall satisfaction calculation will be the
Sum(Total)/(highest score * Total Number of Respondents).
Table 5.15: Customers were satisfied the most about the specification of product/service in
Government – O1 and Banking – O1 Organizations and they were dissatisfied the most with the
Government O2 entity.
Table 5.15: Item 7.1 satisfaction score
Organizations
7.1 Overall, how satisfied were you with the specification of the
product/service?
Banking – O1
Extremely
Dissatisfied
0
Dissatisfied
9
Neutral
12
Satisfied
59
Extremely
Satisfied
170
Banking – O2
24
45
78
83
20
Retail – O1
8
40
25
94
133
Overall
Satisfaction
89%
53%
75%
0
11
21
61
207
89%
32
51
99
98
20
52%
29
55
92
100
24
22
48
98
111
21
53%
55%
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
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O1
Total
115
259
425
606
595
Table 5.16: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Government –O3 organization.
Table 5.16: Item 7.2 satisfaction score
Organizations
7.2 Overall, how satisfied are you with the department/organization in
taking your opening and feedback to improve their
services/products?
Banking – O1
Extremely
Dissatisfied
0
Dissatisfied
9
Neutral
13
Satisfied
48
Extremely
Satisfied
180
Banking – O2
16
48
77
89
20
Retail – O1
8
49
29
94
120
Overall
Satisfaction
90%
55%
72%
0
16
26
48
210
88%
15
64
93
115
13
54%
42
109
66
58
25
43%
22
64
99
101
14
52%
103
359
403
553
582
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
Table 5.17: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.17: Item 7.3 satisfaction score
Organizations
7.3 Overall, how satisfied were you with the time taken to receive the
required service?
Banking – O1
Extremely
Dissatisfied
0
Dissatisfied
7
Neutral
26
Satisfied
67
Extremely
Satisfied
150
Banking – O2
6
36
24
67
117
Retail – O1
42
126
78
43
11
Overall
Satisfaction
86%
75%
38%
0
6
33
79
182
86%
2
50
46
91
111
85
105
16
28
66
72%
40%
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
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O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
5
55
43
83
114
140
385
266
458
751
71%
Table 5.18: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.18: Item 7.4 satisfaction score
Organizations
7.4 Overall, how satisfied were you with the easiness of getting the
service from that department?
Banking – O1
Extremely
Dissatisfied
0
Dissatisfied
6
Neutral
21
Satisfied
69
Extremely
Satisfied
154
Banking – O2
6
31
25
75
113
Retail – O1
52
107
68
58
15
Overall
Satisfaction
87%
76%
40%
0
7
23
84
186
87%
9
58
38
84
111
69%
9
100
54
66
71
58%
0
56
64
108
72
66%
76
365
293
544
722
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
Table 5.19: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.19: Item 7.5 agreement score
Organizations
7.5 I was treated fairly by the employees of that department who
assisted me with the service.
Banking – O1
Strongly
Disagree
0
Disagree
8
Neutral
16
Agree
59
Strongly
Agree
167
Banking – O2
6
33
28
75
108
Retail – O1
52
121
81
40
6
16
26
20
57
181
6
46
35
96
117
Government –
O1
Government –
Dissertation
Overall
Agreement
89%
75%
36%
80%
73%
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O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
9
42
27
89
133
75%
8
38
41
101
112
73%
97
314
248
517
824
Table 5.20: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.20: Item 7.6 agreement score
7.6 The employees showed their respect while delivering the service/
transaction.
Organizations
Banking – O1
Strongly
Disagree
0
Disagree
5
Neutral
13
Agree
60
Strongly
Agree
172
Banking – O2
5
44
38
82
81
Retail – O1
57
97
60
65
21
Overall
Agreement
90%
69%
41%
11
23
19
66
181
82%
4
47
55
92
102
70%
16
60
47
96
81
64%
3
36
29
105
127
76%
96
312
261
566
765
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
Table 5.21: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.21: Item 7.7 satisfaction score
Organizations
7.7 I have received information that helped me regarding all I should
do until getting my services completed.
Banking – O1
Extremely
Dissatisfied
0
Dissatisfied
10
Neutral
6
Satisfied
56
Extremely
Satisfied
178
Banking – O2
0
28
10
109
103
Retail – O1
37
119
96
45
3
Overall
Satisfaction
90%
79%
38%
Government –
O1
0
7
6
65
222
92%
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Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
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RES500
0
38
16
131
115
77%
8
44
14
114
120
75%
0
51
20
111
118
75%
45
297
168
631
859
Table 5.22: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.22: Item 7.8 satisfaction score
Organizations
7.8 Overall, how satisfied were you with the quality of service
provided by the employees of that department?
Banking – O1
Extremely
Dissatisfied
0
Dissatisfied
16
Neutral
12
Satisfied
56
Extremely
Satisfied
166
Banking – O2
0
23
8
115
104
Retail – O1
42
103
58
71
26
Overall
Satisfaction
87%
80%
45%
0
19
11
61
209
88%
0
26
5
124
145
82%
20
50
18
104
108
69%
0
39
13
108
140
79%
62
276
125
639
898
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
Table 5.23: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.23: Item 7.9 satisfaction score
7.9 Overall, how satisfied were you with the department staff you
directly dealt with and provided the service to you?
Banking – O1
Extremely
Dissatisfied
0
Dissatisfied
2
Neutral
10
Satisfied
79
Extremely
Satisfied
159
Banking – O2
0
24
8
123
95
Retail – O1
51
111
79
49
10
Dissertation
Overall
Satisfaction
90%
79%
38%
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Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
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RES500
0
1
14
121
164
87%
0
25
7
142
126
81%
13
38
23
124
102
72%
0
24
2
148
126
81%
64
225
143
786
782
Table 5.24: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.24: Item 7.10 agreement score
Organizations
7.10 Employees were competent and knowledgeable enough to
provide the requested service.
Banking – O1
Strongly
Disagree
0
Disagree
3
Neutral
13
Agree
70
Strongly
Agree
164
Banking – O2
0
24
9
108
109
Retail – O1
58
114
62
56
10
Overall
Agreement
90%
80%
37%
0
6
11
94
189
89%
0
21
7
165
107
80%
32
61
23
95
89
62%
0
19
6
162
113
81%
90
248
131
750
781
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
Table 5.25: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.25: Item 7.11 agreement score
Organizations
7.11 Employees did their best and went the extra mile to make sure I
received the proper aid and required service.
Banking – O1
Strongly
Disagree
0
Disagree
3
Neutral
8
Agree
81
Strongly
Agree
158
Banking – O2
0
15
4
109
122
Dissertation
Overall
Agreement
89%
84%
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Retail – O1
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
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RES500
45
92
59
72
32
46%
7
23
19
88
163
81%
0
25
8
146
121
80%
30
49
23
83
115
67%
0
20
12
139
129
81%
82
227
133
718
840
Table 5.26: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.26: Item 7.12 agreement score
7.12 I waited for a reasonable period of time in the department until I
received my requested service.
Banking – O1
Strongly
Disagree
14
Disagree
28
Neutral
10
Agree
44
Strongly
Agree
154
Banking – O2
50
73
31
55
41
Retail – O1
57
102
75
53
13
Overall
Agreement
80%
46%
39%
21
55
19
61
144
71%
68
94
41
53
44
43%
65
97
49
49
40
42%
39
62
24
99
76
59%
314
511
249
414
512
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
Table 5.27: Customers were also satisfied the most about considering there feedback to improve
the services/product in Banking – O1 and Government-O1, and there were dissatisfied with the
Retail-O1 organization.
Table 5.27: Item 7.13 agreement score
7.13 At the end, did you manage to get the service you needed?
Organizations
Banking – O1
Strongly
Disagree
7
Disagree
14
Neutral
19
Agree
62
Strongly
Agree
148
Banking – O2
15
37
11
107
80
Dissertation
Overall
Agreement
83%
70%
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Retail – O1
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
Dissertation, BUiD
RES500
67
107
61
57
8
36%
15
28
27
73
157
77%
12
38
11
121
118
75%
34
56
19
109
82
62%
10
30
9
160
91
74%
160
310
157
689
684
Table 5.28: This table represents the conclusion of the satisfaction and agreement score for each
organization divided by the project management process groups, as shown in Table 5 that the
survey items in the performance and agreement section are distributed as per the project
management process group, therefore the below table represent the overall satisfaction and
agreement score of these items together.
From Table 5.20 we can see that the satisfaction were high in the initiating and planning phase
for Both Banking –O1 and Government –O1 while customers were dissatisfied about the same
phase in Government-O3. In the executing phase customer were satisfied the most with BankingO1 and they were dissatisfied the most with the Retail-O1 organization, while it is the same with
monitoring and controlling and closing process group.
Table 5.28: Organizations overall satisfaction and agreement score
Banking – O1
Banking – O2
Retail – O1
Government –
O1
Government –
O2
Government –
O3
Hospitality – O1
Overall score
Dissertation
Overall Satisfaction and Agreement Score
Monitoring
Initiating and
Executing
and
Closing
Planning
Controlling
89%
88%
89%
81%
54%
74%
80%
58%
74%
39%
41%
37%
88%
84%
88%
74%
53%
71%
80%
59%
48%
59%
69%
52%
53%
66%
71%
69%
79%
75%
67%
61%
Overall
score
87%
67%
48%
83%
66%
57%
68%
68%
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Table 5.29: Banking sector gained the highest satisfaction and agreement score, the Government,
then hospitality and finally the retail sector. Moreover, the overall satisfaction and agreement
score for all sector and all project management process groups is 68%.
Table 5.29: Sectors overall satisfaction and agreement score
Sector
Banking
Retail
Government
Hospitality
Overall score
Overall Satisfaction and Agreement Score
Monitoring
Initiating and
Executing
and
Closing
Planning
Controlling
72%
81%
85%
70%
74%
39%
41%
37%
63%
71%
79%
62%
53%
71%
79%
67%
66%
69%
75%
61%
Overall
score
77%
48%
69%
68%
68%
5.3.3 Area of Improvements Analysis
Item 9 in the survey (Appendix 4) is a question to know which area needs to be improved as per
the customer perception, Table 5.30 shows that 41% customers in Banking - O1 (which
implements ISO, EFQM, TQM) wants’ the bank to improve the end products (closing phase),
while 42% of them thinks that the bank is doing great job from all the aspects. In Banking - O2
customers mostly wants’ improvements in Initiating and Planning phase and they want to be
involved in the product designing stage (this organization implements ISO and SURVQUAL). In
Retail - O1 customers think that the organization needs to improve the way they execute
delivering the product and monitoring it. Government – O1 is almost like Banking O1 and the
implemented quality tools is the same. While in Government – O2 customers looking forward
for improvements in planning the products requirements and involving them in the designing
phase of the service. In Government – O3 customers almost wants improvements in all the
aspects, as this organization does not implement any quality tool or quality management practice.
And finally Hospitality – O1 customers wants to improve their involvement in designing the
service based on their expectation and needs. These test is to study the Hypotheses H1, H2, H3,
H4 and H5.
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Table 5.30: Area of Improvements analysis
Areas that needs Improvements
Initiating
Organization
s
Banking –
O1
Banking –
O2
Retail – O1
Government
– O1
Government
– O2
Government
– O3
Hospitality –
O1
Total
Planning
Executing
Monitori
ng and
Controlli
ng
Insuring
that the
product/s
ervice
meets
the
customer
expectati
ons and
needs
Total
Closing
Ensuring
that the
customer
s are
satisfied
about the
end
product
No need for
improvement,
everything is
good
4%
41%
42%
250
1%
0%
14%
12%
250
0%
32%
35%
14%
18%
300
3%
3%
8%
10%
37%
33%
300
32%
30%
3%
4%
10%
8%
14%
300
14%
20%
15%
21%
16%
12%
2%
300
27%
33%
4%
4%
3%
21%
8%
300
17%
15%
7%
11%
12%
21%
18%
2000
Involving
customers
in
designing
the
product/ser
vice
Plannin
g the
product
/service
require
ments
Defining
the
scope of
the
product/
service
Delivering
the
service in
efficient
and
satisfactor
y manner
3%
3%
2%
6%
38%
14%
20%
1%
0%
5%
Table 5.31 shows that most of the customers in Banking – O1, Banking – O2, Retail – O1,
Government – O1 and Government – O2 Organizations waited between 1 to 10 minutes to be
served while in Government – O3 they had to wait between 11 to 20 minutes to be served. While
in Hospitality – O1organization customers had to wait for their service between 6 to 15 minutes.
Table 5.31: Waiting Time to be served
Waiting time to be served (Minutes)
Organizations
Banking – O1
Banking – O2
Retail – O1
Dissertation
Total
1-5
6 - 10
11 - 15
16 - 20
21 - 25
138
84
27
0
0
249
108
105
37
0
0
250
122
100
50
28
0
300
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Government
– O1
161
131
4
4
0
300
Government
– O2
150
150
0
0
0
300
Government
– O3
34
55
92
79
40
300
Hospitality –
O1
39
142
99
16
4
300
Total
752
767
309
127
44
1999
5.3.4 Independent t-test
The independent t-test compares two groups together to see if there significant difference
between them (Brace, Kemp and Snelgar, 2009) the test is done on all the satisfaction and
performance variables for all the project management process groups that was covered by the
research. The test is done twice, once between “Banking –O1” organization which implements
ISO, EFQM and TQM quality tools and “Retail – O2” organization which implements QFD
quality tool, and then between “Government – O1” organization which implements ISO, EFQM
and TQM quality tools and Government – O3 organization which does not implement and
quality tool. The aim from these tests is to see if there are significant differences between these
Organizations to test the developed Hypotheses.
Table 5.32: Customers were more satisfied and agreed with the “Baniking-O1” organization in
all of the project phases (project management process groups), the mean for Banking-O1 in
imitating and planning is 4.58, while in the Retail-O1 is 3.96, so the difference between both is
0.62. The difference between the two Organizations in Executing phase is 1.97, Monitoring and
Controlling phase is 1.93 and in the closing phase is 1.76.
Table 5.32: Group statistics for Banking - O1 and Retail - O1
Group Statistics
N
Mean
Banking –
O1
300
4.58
0.75
0.05
Retail – O1
300
3.96
1.16
0.07
Banking –
O1
300
4.52
0.75
0.05
Organization
Initiating
and
Planning
Executing
Std.
Error
Mean
Std.
Deviation
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Controlling
Closing
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Retail – O1
300
2.55
1.09
0.06
Banking –
O1
300
4.57
0.69
0.04
Retail – O1
300
2.63
1.11
0.06
300
4.25
1.14
0.07
300
2.49
1.11
0.06
Banking –
O1
Retail – O1
Table 5.33: The 95% confidence interval for the two Organizations for initiating and planning
phase is between 0.462 and 0.79, for the executing phase is between 1.815 and 2.124, for the
monitoring and controlling phase is between 1.78 and 2.086 and then for the closing phase is
between 1.57 and 1.95. The effect size for Initiating and planning phase is quiet large (d = 0.65),
while in the other phase is much larger, in the executing and monitoring and controlling phase it
is 2.15, but in the closing phase it is 1.56. The independent t-test showed that the difference
between two Organizations was significant as showed in the values under t and df in the table.
Table 5.33: Independent t-test for Banking - O1 and Retail - O1
Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test for
Equality of
Variances
Satisfactio
n and
Agreemen
t Variables
Initiating
and
Planning
F
Equal
variances
assumed
Monitoring
and
Controlling
0.000
Equal
variances
not
assumed
Equal
variances
assumed
Executing
38.537
Sig.
58.466
0.000
Equal
variances
not
assumed
Equal
variances
assumed
Dissertation
84.844
0.000
t-test for Equality of Means
t
df
Sig. (2tailed)
Mean
Difference
Std.
Error
Differ
ence
95% Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Lower
Upper
7.308
548.000
0.000
0.623
0.085
0.456
0.790
7.587
517.765
0.000
0.623
0.082
0.462
0.784
24.31
8
548.000
0.000
1.969
0.081
1.810
2.129
25.10
3
524.591
0.000
1.969
0.079
1.815
2.124
24.25
7
548.000
0.000
1.933
0.081
1.774
2.092
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Equal
variances
not
assumed
Equal
variances
assumed
Closing
4.840
0.193
Equal
variances
not
assumed
RES500
25.21
7
504.671
0.000
1.933
0.078
1.780
2.086
18.33
8
548.000
0.000
1.760
0.097
1.571
1.950
18.32
9
522.776
0.000
1.760
0.097
1.570
1.950
Table 5.34: Customers were more satisfied and agreed with the “Government-O1” organization
in all of the project phases (project management process groups), the mean for Government-O1
in initiating and planning is 4.53, while in the Government –O3 is 2.92, so the difference
between both is 1.61. The difference between the two Organizations in Executing phase is 0.99,
Monitoring and Controlling phase is 0.74 and in the closing phase is 0.88.
Table 5.34: Group Statistics for Government - O1 and Government – O2
Group Statistics
Organization
Initiating
and
Planning
Executing
Monitoring
and
Controlling
Closing
N
Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std.
Error
Mean
Government
– O1
300
4.53
0.82
0.05
Government
– O3
300
2.92
1.14
0.07
Government
– O1
300
4.36
0.96
0.06
Government
– O3
300
3.37
1.30
0.07
Government
– O1
300
4.50
0.75
0.04
Government
– O3
300
3.76
1.26
0.07
Government
– O1
300
3.97
1.29
0.07
Government
– O3
300
3.09
1.35
0.08
Table 5.35: The 95% confidence interval for the two Organizations for initiating and planning
phase is between 1.451 and 1.769, for the executing phase is between 0.803 and 1.172, for the
monitoring and controlling phase is between 0.575 and 0.909 and then for the closing phase is
between 0.672 and 1.095. The effect size for Initiating and planning phase is quiet large (d =
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1.64), while in the other phase is less effect, in the executing phase d = 0.88, in the monitoring
and controlling phase d = 0.74 and in the closing phase d = 0.67. The independent t-test showed
that the difference between two Organizations was significant as showed in the values under t
and df in the table.
Table 5.35: Independent t-test for Government - O1 and Government – O2
Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test for
Equality of
Variances
Satisfaction
and
Agreement
Variables
Initiating
and
Planning
Equal
variances
assumed
Executing
Monitoring
and
Controlling
Closing
Dissertation
Equal
variances
not
assumed
Std. Error
Difference
Lower
Upper
Sig.
t
df
39.328
0.000
19.817
598.000
0.000
1.610
0.081
1.451
1.769
19.817
544.294
0.000
1.610
0.081
1.451
1.769
10.574
598.000
0.000
0.988
0.094
0.803
1.172
10.574
528.026
0.006
0.988
0.094
0.803
1.172
8.793
598.000
0.000
0.742
0.085
0.575
0.909
8.793
484.750
0.000
0.742
0.085
0.575
0.909
8.137
598.000
0.000
0.883
0.108
0.672 1.095
8.137
592.880
0.000
0.883
0.108
0.672 1.095
101.532
0.000
87.529
0.000
Equal
variances
not
assumed
Equal
variances
assumed
Mean
Differe
nce
F
Equal
variances
not
assumed
Equal
variances
assumed
95%
Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Sig. (2tailed)
Equal
variances
not
assumed
Equal
variances
assumed
t-test for Equality of Means
9.058
0.372
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6
Chapter 5: Discussion
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Questionnaire Results
The aim of the research as explained in first chapter is to see the relationship between the quality
management or/and implementing quality tools and the project performance and the project
management processes. Moreover, the research was conducted in UAE for four different sectors
that falls under the service industry. The studied quality tools are Quality Function Deployment
(QFD), Total Quality Management (TQM), EFQ, ISO and SURVQUAL.
The survey questionnaire were collected by interviewing customers who were served by different
Organizations that belong to Banking, Government, Retail and hospitality sector, to study the
relationship between the implemented quality practices and tools and the handled projects in
these Organizations . The findings and the detailed analysis of the survey are in chapter 4.
Moreover, these findings are discussed in details in this chapter as shown in the below.
6.2.1 The Quality Tools and Quality Management – Project Management Processes
and performance Relationship
From the survey satisfaction and agreement items analysis results we can see that customers
were satisfied about the most about the organization that implements more quality tools such as
Banking – O1 and Government – O1 organization. Both of them implement ISO, EFQM,
SURVQUAL. Moreover, according to Tutuncu and Kucukusta (2010) that implementing EFQM
in organization leads in to involving customers in the scoping and planning the product or the
services to insure that the product or the service will be as per the customer’s needs and
expectations.
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In Banking – O1 and Government – O1 the customer satisfaction and agreement were above
80% in most of the survey items and in the initiating and planning and monitoring and
controlling phases they were satisfied the most (88% to 89%). These results (Table 5.28) indicate
that these two Organizations are implementing ISO in effective way which makes the executing
and controlling the projects is as per the customer’s requirements (Russell, 2000), moreover
implementing SURVQUAL improves monitoring and controlling the project. SURVQUAL is a
tool that checks customer’s perception about the product, which insure that what the organization
executes is what the customer need.
The improvement areas analysis (Table 5.30) shows that 98% of the Government – O3
customers think that there should be an improvement for all of the aspects in the organization,
and that because this government organization doesn’t implement any quality tool. Moreover,
42% of the Banking – O1 customers said that everything was good in the bank and there are no
needs for improvement. In addition to that waiting time increased in the organization that
implement one quality tool or does not implement any quality tools (Table 5.31). These points
explain that implementing quality tools improve the project management performance and
project management processes.
Independent t-test was also done on the survey items to compare if there is significant difference
between Organizations that implements different quality tools. Table 5.33 shows that with 95%
confidence interval for Banking – O1 and Retail – O1 for all of the phases quiet large and the
effect size for Initiating and planning phase is also quiet large (d = 0.65), while in the other
phase is much larger. The independent t-test showed that the difference between two
Organizations was significant as showed in the values under t and df in the Table 5.33. This
means that there are significant differences between implanting EFQM, ISO 9000 and
SURVQUAL and implementing only one quality tools (QFD in Retail – O1). Moreover, the
independent t-test was also done on Government – O1and Government – O3. Government – O1
implements EFQM, ISO 9000 and SURVQUAL as a quality tool and as a quality management
practices, while Government – O3 does not implement any quality tool or quality management
practice. The test results (Table 5.35) shows that 95% confidence interval for the two
Organizations for initiating and planning phase is between 1.451 and 1.769, for the executing
phase is between 0.803 and 1.172, for the monitoring and controlling phase is between 0.575 and
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0.909 and then for the closing phase is between 0.672 and 1.095. The effect size for Initiating
and planning phase is quiet large (d = 1.64), while in the other phase is less effect, in the
executing phase d = 0.88, in the monitoring and controlling phase d = 0.74 and in the closing
phase d = 0.67. The independent t-test showed that the difference between two Organizations
was significant as showed in the values under t and df in Table 5.35.
6.2.2 The Quality Tools – Customer Satisfaction Relationship
The conclusion of the overall satisfaction score which is shown in Table 5.28 shows that
Customers are more satisfied about all of the stages of providing a service or product and all of
the project management process groups for the organization that implements more than one
quality tool. In Banking – O1 and Government – O1 the implemented quality tools are ISO 9000,
EFQM and SURVQUAL, therefore the overall customer satisfaction score for Banking – O1 is
87%, and for Government – O1 is 83%. The lowest overall satisfaction score was for Retail - O1
48% (Implements QFD) and then Government – O3 57% (no implemented quality tool).
From the above and from Table 5.28 results we clearly see that there is statistically significant
positive relationship between implementing of the quality tools (QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000
and SURVQUAL)
and the customer satisfaction about the services and products in the service
sector
6.2.3 Hypotheses Test Summary
Many tests and analysis were done on the collected data to study the Hypotheses. The tests are
explained in the following list:
Customer Satisfaction and Agreement analysis: this analysis was done on the
performance and satisfaction section items (Appendix 4), to check the satisfaction level
of the customer on the different phases of the project, and to check the differences
between the Organizations that implements quality tools and quality management
practices with the Organizations that does not implement quality tools and quality
management.
Improvement Areas Analysis: the third section in the survey talks about the
improvement areas that the customers thinks it should be enhanced. The analysis for this
section pointed out that customers in the organization which does not implement quality
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tools and quality management practices wants’ more improvements than the customers of
the organization that implements quality tools and quality management practices.
Independent t-test: this test was done to see if there is a significant difference between
the organization that implements quality tools with the one that doesn’t implement these
tools or even quality management practices. The independent t-test showed that the
difference between such Organizations were significant.
The results of the Hypotheses testing are summarized in Table 6.1.
Table 6.1: Hypotheses tests summary
Hypotheses
Description
Hypothesis
There is positive impact for the quality tool (QFD, TQM, EFQM,
1 (H1)
ISO 9000 and SURVQUAL)
Hypothesis
on the project performance.
Confirmed
Implementing quality tools (QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000 and
SURVQUAL)
2 (H2)
Findings
in Organizations improves the project management
Confirmed
processes.
Hypothesis
There is positive impact for the quality management on the project
3 (H3)
performance.
Confirmed
There is statistically significant positive relationship between
Hypothesis
implementing of the quality tools (QFD, TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000
4 (H4)
and SURVQUAL)
and the customer satisfaction about the services
Confirmed
and products in the service sector.
Hypothesis
The implementation of the quality management improves the
(H5)
project management process.
Confirmed
6.3 Data Limitation
The research has few limitations, which restricted the questionnaire, and the analysis to be in
certain was, however the research approach and design was able to study the relation between the
quality tools and management and the project performance and project processes. The data
collection limitations are listed below:
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a) As described before that the major limitation of the study is that the used data is the same
data, which was collected for different organization by the company that the researcher
works for. Moreover, there were difficulties to collect data specially in the government or
the academic sector as there are many procedures that the researcher should go through
before getting approval on collecting data in curtain organization. This difficulty leads to
only study four sectors (Banking, Retail, Government and Hospitality) where that data
was available.
b) It was difficult to customize the survey, as it is a template that is used by the researcher
company, otherwise the collected data cannot be analyzed if new questions or the way the
questions is listed are changed. Despite this, the survey was good enough to study all of
the developed hypotheses
c) The aim of the study and the research design is based on understanding the customer
needs, requirement and satisfaction. Therefore, there were limitations on the type of test
that can be used to study the hypotheses. To test the hypotheses the researcher had to
focus more on calculating the satisfaction and agreement score for each survey item to
check the relation between the quality tools and the project management performance and
processes.
d) The sample sizes between different sectors are different, therefore it was difficult to focus
the analysis on sector bases, but it was done based on each organization. This limitation
was there because of using an existing data for the required survey, therefore the detailed
analysis was based on each organization and it helped the aim of studying the hypotheses.
7
Chapter 7: Conclusion and Recommendations
7.1 Introduction
This chapter explains the conclusion based on the literature review and the data analysis and
findings. The recommendation in this chapter will be based on the findings for each process
group and for each organization. Moreover, recommendation for further research in the same
field from academic and practitioners perspective is also covered at the end of this chapter.
7.2 Conclusions
The objectives of this study were:
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i.
To develop an understanding of the concept “Customer Driven Project Management”.
ii.
To investigate in the integrating the quality into the project management processes.
iii.
To study the role of the quality tools in customer driven project management and how
that reflect into the customer satisfaction.
iv.
To investigate the integration between quality management and quality tools with the
projects in UAE service sector Organizations through a quantitative research.
v.
To come up with recommendation for project managers and Organizations on how to
deliver projects and having a satisfied customers through the project life cycle.
This study followed a step by step approach and strategy to address the aimed objectives.
Starting by a literature review to understand the involvement of customers in driving the projects
and to know how different quality management practices and quality tools contributes in to the
project management processes and performance and to see the relation between these two
aspects. The hypotheses developed based on the literature review and the research were
conducted in seven different organization in UAE from four deferent sector to understand the
relation between implementing quality tools and quality management practices in the
Organizations in UAE and the effect on the project management processes and performance.
The literature review and the research investigate on the study objectives and the research data
analysis was done to test the developed Hypotheses. The research shows the relation between
quality tools and management and project management process and performance and how
organization could enhance delivering project management by integrating quality into the project
management process. A lot of investigations and analysis was done throughout the research to
answer the research questions. Below is the detailed conclusion about the research for each
question for this study.
RQ1: Does quality management or quality tools help in increasing the project performance
and the customer satisfaction if it is integrated with project management processes?
Based on the analysis of the literature review and the collected survey data, the answer for this
question can be divided to two sections. The relation between quality management and customer
driven project management and the relation between the quality tools and the customer driven
project management. The details are described in the following:
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The relation between quality management and customer driven project management:
The customer driven project management is using the customer needs, requirements and
expectation to drive and deliver the project involving a win-win strategy with the stakeholders.
Moreover, there is more than 40% of the project management process that involves the customer
directly while the other it has impact from and on the customers.
As investigated in the literature review that quality management in Organizations is to identify
and analyze the efficiency of the projects by meeting the customer requirements and also
implementing quality tools could be considered as quality management practices such as
implementing TQM and QFD. Implementing these practices links directly to the customer
satisfaction or even to the project management process. Quality management is divided to three
main phases, which are planning the quality requirements, monitoring and controlling the
delivery processes, then the assurance, and the alignment with the project strategy and objective.
Planning stage is the most critical stage where the project is planed based on customers’ needs
and requirements as they are the end user who will use the product or the service. While in the
monitoring page the quality management helps in insuring that the deliverables or the services is
delivered as per the planned requirement to ensure customer satisfaction, and then finally in the
quality assurance stage there are several tools that can be used which inure that the end product
is exactly as per the expectation, these tools were investigated in the literature review which are
control charts, cause and effect diagrams (Fishbone and Ishikawa), flowcharts, pareto charts,
histograms, run charts and scatter diagrams.
From the analyzing the research data and the literature review, the findings is that there is
positive significant relation between implementing quality management practices in
Organizations and the customer driven project management.
The relation between the quality tools and the customer driven project management:
There are many available quality tools that can be implement in organization and has direct
effect on the project processes and performance, but from the previous literatures the researcher
find out that there are common effective tools which are investigated in this study, the relation
between these tools and the customer driven project management is explained in the following
list:
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Quality Function Deployment (QFD): this quality tool is mostly focused on determine the
product specifications based on the requirements by translating the customer
requirements to a design requirements and the convert these requirements to parts, then
examining the right process to go to the production stage. Moreover, from analyzing the
research and the literature review the finding that this tool has positive impact on the
initiating and planning processes groups as it aims to plan and involve the customers, and
customers were satisfied about the planning and the initiating process groups in the
organization that implements QFD.
Total Quality Management (TQM): This tool is about converting the organization culture
to be customer oriented and focused and it is full quality improvement system that has
direct positive effect on all of the customer project management processes groups.
Moreover, the data analysis shows that customers were satisfied about most of the project
processes specially the initiating, planning and the monitoring and controlling phase.
EFQM: the excellence model considered as one of the most effective quality tools that
improve the project management performance and processes, and it is very easy to
implement. This tool is wily used in UAE by many award offices where Organizations
are assessed against the EFQM standard.
The data analysis finding prove that customers are satisfied about most of the customer
driven project management process groups specially the initiating and planning phases.
ISO 9000: this tool is very widely use tool around the world and it focuses on evaluating
the processes of the projects and the organization and not on the quality of the end
product of the service. The data analysis shows that implementing ISO 9000 has positive
impact on the customer satisfaction about the executing and monitoring and controlling
phase of the project management processes.
SURVQUAL: this is tool to assess the customer perception about the delivered service or
product and to come up with correction action and preventive action which. From the
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literature review and data analysis, the findings prove that customers were mostly
satisfied about the monitoring and controlling process group for the organization that
implement SURVQUAL.
From the above we can see the there is a significant positive relation between implementing
quality tools and customer driven project management.
RQ2: What is the best way to integrate quality tools into project management processes?
From the literature review and the data analysis, we can see that every quality tool has more
effect on certain project management processes. As shown in Table 3.4 and Table 5.28 that if
organization is weak or having problem in the initiating and planning process groups in their
projects, then it is better to implement EFQM, TQM or QFD, but if the organization want to
improve the executing and monitoring and controlling phases in any project so it is better to use
ISO 9000, TQM or SURVQUAL. While for the closing phase EFQM and ISO 9000 are the
recommended quality tools.
RQ3: What are the main success factors for implementing quality tools for organization
and the effect on the customer driven project management processes?
As mention in the previous point that each quality tool has an effect on certain area of the
customer driven project management processes, therefore to insure that these quality tools will
be implemented successfully it is very important to look at the weakness areas and cover theses
gaps with the most suitable tools. Moreover, as per the literature review and the research data
analysis that it is very important to implement tools that enhance the planning stage of the project
as it is very critical to take customers requirements and needs at the begging of each project to
insure the successes throughout the project.
RQ4: What are the main requirements and expectations for the service sector customers in
UAE?
After analyzing, the improvement areas section in the collected data and after reviewing the
customers comment. The main requirements and expectation of the different organization’s
customers in UAE are listed below:
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Customers want to be involved in the designing phase of the service or the product, so in
the hospitality, retail and banking sectors customers want the Organizations to ask them
how the preferred the product to be and what is the suitable product to them and what are
their expectation toward the delivered service. While in the government sector customers
want to finish the service quickly with minimum error rate in their application and that
will be by involving them in designing the service and understanding the customer
journey map of getting the service done.
Customers want the products and the service to be planned very well and they want high
quality and affordable prices and that the scope of the service or the product as per their
needs and requirements.
While delivering the service and the products customers want the suitable premises which
has all the required facilities and the waiting area, comfortable temperature and easy
access, token machine and technology in processing there requirements and needs
Customers is also concerned that the end product should be with high quality and the
services should be delivered based on best practice on customer service such as greeting
the customer and the treating them fairly with respect.
7.3 Recommendations
The study aims to understand the link of the quality tools and quality management and the
project management process and performance, from the literature review and the data analysis
for each organization the recommendations will be divided based on the 5P’s model (TICSI,
2012):
Policies
o Organizations should insure that there strategic intent highlight the importance of
the customer role and that customer satisfaction is a priority
o Polices drives the Organizations , therefore organization objectives should clear
measure the customer service goals to insure that customers needs and
requirements are taken into consideration while developing any service or product
o Organization should also have a clear description about the payment methods and
full information about the product and the services.
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o Organization should have a clear system in place to collect customers feedback
(complaints and suggestions)
o Organization should have a systematic clear description about the employees
development and train them on best practice in customer service
Processes
o The organization should ensure that relevant employees have been involved in the
development and implementing of the processes and their documentation, as these
are the tools of business.
o The processes should be derived from the strategic intent of the organization and
its policies to insure that the execution phase of the project is aligned with the
customer needs and requirements
o Process should be distributed and understood by employees very well to able to
deliver the product or the service as per the requirements, moreover, process
should be explained in a friendly way to the customers and should be available in
visual format at the service center locations
Product/Services
o Products/services sold/delivered are genuine and their origin is from a credible
source which is clearly communicated to the customer
o The organization should ensure development of an appropriate system for
selection of strategic partners. The organization should communicate to the
selected partners the organization’s core values and should measure service
delivery performance against such standards at regular intervals.
Premises
o The Premises are interpreted as inclusive of all the delivery channels of the
organization, therefore it is major contributory factors to the customer's overall
impression of the business and can act as important attractors to new customers
o Premises should be easy and safe for customers to access at all times. It is
important that this factor is considered beyond the physical building to include the
general ambience, environment and ease of use of the Premises.
Moreover, it is highly recommended for organization to implement the suitable quality tools,
which cover the gaps and the weakness areas, and the best two tools for organization is EFQM
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and TQM, and if these two tools implemented effectively that will insure a high customer
satisfaction about most of the project phases. Also organization should focus and give a lot of
attention to the quality and the quality tools as it links directly and positively to the project
management processes and performance and insure better profit and satisfaction.
7.4 Recommendations for Further Research
As mention before in the data limitation section, that due to the time limitation and data access
limitation, there were certain area could be explored which was not cover in this research. the
recommendation for suture research is explained below:
1- The context of this study is only UAE, therefore results and analysis was done on
particular contest, but it will be an opportunity to run this research in different countries
to benchmark the results and to see if the needs and expectations differs between different
culture and then to compare the level of the delivered service between different countries.
2- Access to data was only available for only four sectors that belong the service industry. It
is recommended to include more sectors and organization in further research about the
link between quality and project management.
3- There were only few literature found that investigate about the customer driven project
management concept and the link between the quality management and quality tools and
the project performance and processes, therefore it is recommended to elaborate more
about this area and investigate about the details of link between certain project
management tool and project management.
7.5 Contribution of this research
The research study has significantly contributed from academic and practical point of view. The
study investigates the relation between quality management and tools and the project
management processes and performance. This research not only highlighted about the link
between the quality tools and the customer driven project management but also added a value to
which tool should be used by organization based on the weakness and based on the project
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management areas. Specific contributions from the academic and industry perspective are
explained below:
7.5.1 Academic Perspective
As already explained and discussed in first chapter 1, that there are only few literatures
covers the relation between quality and project management as usually these considered
from different specialization or majors, therefore for this study contributes significantly
on the relationship between both
Secondly this research also elaborate on the suitable quality tool that should be used
which will improve certain processes in the projects, the research investigate the effect of
EFQM, TQM, QFD, ISO 9000 and SURVQUAL on the project management
performance and project management processes
This research also shows the importance of involving the customers in every stage in the
project and how organization can improve the customer service.
Finally, this research is very useful addition to limited research about the link between
project management and quality I UAE, and it provides future opportunities for academic
research in the same field in UAE and the gulf region.
7.5.2 Practitioners’ Perspective
This research adds a significant amount of information for practitioners in different
industries in UAE and in the gulf region. As it explains what are the best quality tools to
be used and how organization could improve their project management and process.
Moreover, the research highlights the exact strength and weakness of each quality tool on
the project management.
In additional to that this study gives a lot of useful information to the Organizations from
different industries to understand what customers is looking for which will allow them to
work toward better service and then better profit. The details customers requirements are
listed in the recommendation section which are based on the analysis of the data and the
literature review.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: relation between Job satisfaction and EFQM research results (Tutunc and
Kucukusta, 2010)
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Appendix 2: Summary of steps of developing SURCQUAL (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and
Berry, 1988)
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Appendix 3: Linkage and contribution of ISO 9001:2000 to Excellence (Russell, 2000)
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Appendix 4: Final Questionnaire
Demographics and General Questions
1. Please select the sector of the department/company that served the customer? *
○ Banking
○ Retail
○ Government
○ Hospitality
2. Please select the department/company that served the customer?
Banking – O1
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Banking – O2
Retail – O1
Government – O1
Government – O2
Government – O3
Hospitality – O1
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3. Date of the Survey: *
_________________________________________________________________________
4. Nationality *
○ UAE Local
○ Expat Arab
○ Expat Asian
○ Expat Westerner
○ Other ____________________
5. Gender *
○ Male
○ Female
6. Age group *
○ Under 21
○ 21-30
○ 31-40
○ 41-50
○ 50-60
○ +60
Satisfaction and Performance
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7. Rate your satisfaction with the following: *
1
Extremely
Dissatisfied
2
3
4
Dissatisfied Neutral Satisfied
5
Extremely
Satisfied
Initiating and Planning
7.1 Overall, how satisfied were you
with the specification of the
2
3
4
product/service?
7.2 Overall, how satisfied are you
with the department/organization in
taking your opening and feedback to
improve their services/products?
1
Executing
Extremely
Dissatisfied
Dissatisfied Neutral Satisfied
5
Extremely
Satisfied
7.3 Overall, how satisfied were you
with the time taken to receive the
2
3
4
5 Strongly
required service? *
7.4 Overall, how satisfied were you
with the easiness of getting the
service from that department? *
1
Strongly
Disagree
Disagree Neutral Agree
Disagree
7.5 I was treated fairly by the
employees of that department who
assisted me with the service. *
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7.6 The employees showed their
respect while delivering the service/
2
3
4
transaction. *
1
Monitoring and Controlling
Extremely
Dissatisfied
Dissatisfied Neutral Satisfied
5
Extremely
Satisfied
7.7 I have received information that
helped me regarding all I should do
until getting my services completed.
2
3
4
*
7.8 Overall, how satisfied were you
with the quality of service provided
by the employees of that
department? *
7.9 Overall, how satisfied were you
with the department staff you
directly dealt with and provided the
service to you? *
1
Strongly
Disagree
Disagree Neutral Agree
5
Strongly
Agree
7.10 Employees were competent
and knowledgeable enough to
provide the requested service. *
7.11 Employees did their best and
went the extra mile to make sure I
received the proper aid and required
service. *
Closing
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Disagree Neutral Agree
Strongly
Disagree
Agree
7.12 I waited for a reasonable period
of time in the department until I
received my requested service. *
7.13 At the end, did you manage to
get the service you needed? *
8. How long did you have to wait until you got served? (Minutes) *
○ 1-5
○ 6 - 10
○ 11 - 15
○ 16 - 20
○ 21 - 25
○ 26 +
Area of Improvements
9. In your opinion, which of the factors that influence the department’s service delivery
performance needs immediate improvement and development? (Multiple selection question –
checkboxes)
Initiating
o Involving customers in designing the product/service
Planning
o Planning the product/service requirements
o Defining the scope of the product/service
Executing
o Delivering the service in efficient and satisfactory manner
Monitoring and Controlling
o Insuring that the product/service meets the customer expectations and needs
Closing
Dissertation
135 | P a g e
No. 100091
Dissertation, BUiD
RES500
o Ensuring that the customers are satisfied about the end product or the overall
process of getting the service/product
o No need for improvement, everything is good
10. What would you suggest to improve the services provided to you?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
Thank you for taking the time to fill in the questionnaire
Dissertation
136 | P a g e
Appendix 5: Detailed Independent t-test results (Banking-O1 and Retail-O1)
Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test for
t-test for Equality of Means
Equality of
Variances
F
Sig.
t
df
Sig. (2-
Mean
Std. Error
95% Confidence
tailed)
Difference
Difference
Interval of the
Difference
Lower
Equal
27.140
.000
Upper
6.494
548
.000
.547
.084
.381
.712
6.734
520.672
.000
.547
.081
.387
.706
8.122
548
.000
.699
.086
.530
.868
8.440
514.857
.000
.699
.083
.537
.862
24.342
548
.000
1.923
.079 1.768
2.079
24.901
545.245
.000
1.923
.077 1.772
2.075
7.1 Overall, how satisfied variances
were you with the
assumed
specification of the
Equal
product/service?
variances not
assumed
7.2 Overall, how satisfied Equal
are you with the
variances
department/organization
assumed
in taking your opening
Equal
and feedback to improve
variances not
their services/products?
assumed
Equal
49.934
19.662
.000
.000
7.3 Overall, how satisfied variances
were you with the time
assumed
taken to receive the
Equal
required service?
variances not
assumed
No. 100091
7.4 Overall, how satisfied
were you with the
easiness of getting the
service from that
department?
Dissertation, BUiD
Equal
61.042
.000
RES500
22.639
548
.000
1.894
.084 1.730
2.058
23.454
523.193
.000
1.894
.081 1.735
2.053
27.732
548
.000
2.117
.076 1.967
2.267
28.408
543.904
.000
2.117
.075 1.970
2.263
22.559
548
.000
1.943
.086 1.774
2.112
23.647
486.024
.000
1.943
.082 1.781
2.104
28.871
548
.000
2.081
.072 1.940
2.223
29.504
546.067
.000
2.081
.071 1.943
2.220
18.757
548
.000
1.701
.091 1.523
1.880
variances
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed
Equal
27.531
.000
7.5 I was treated fairly by variances
the employees of that
assumed
department who assisted Equal
me with the service.
variances not
assumed
Equal
7.6 The employees
variances
showed their respect
assumed
while delivering the
Equal
service/ transaction.
variances not
125.629
.000
assumed
7.7 I have received
information that helped
me regarding all I should
do until getting my
services completed.
Equal
.000
variances
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed
7.8 Overall, how satisfied Equal
were you with the quality
variances
of service provided by
assumed
Dissertation
34.410
55.664
.000
138 | P a g e
No. 100091
Dissertation, BUiD
the employees of that
Equal
department?
variances not
RES500
19.325
535.453
.000
1.701
.088 1.528
1.874
27.227
548
.000
2.060
.076 1.911
2.209
28.497
491.512
.000
2.060
.072 1.918
2.202
26.456
548
.000
2.093
.079 1.938
2.249
27.651
496.501
.000
2.093
.076 1.945
2.242
19.977
548
.000
1.729
.087 1.559
1.899
21.111
453.824
.000
1.729
.082 1.568
1.890
16.205
548
.000
1.641
.101 1.442
1.840
16.031
502.847
.000
1.641
.102 1.440
1.842
assumed
7.9 Overall, how satisfied Equal
were you with the
variances
department staff you
assumed
directly dealt with and
Equal
provided the service to
variances not
you?
assumed
7.10 Employees were
competent and
knowledgeable enough
to provide the requested
service.
7.11 Employees did their
best and went the extra
mile to make sure I
received the proper aid
and required service.
7.12 I waited for a
reasonable period of time
in the department until I
received my requested
service.
Dissertation
Equal
89.592
93.251
.000
.000
variances
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed
Equal
151.302
.000
variances
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed
Equal
.762
.383
variances
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed
139 | P a g e
No. 100091
Dissertation, BUiD
Equal
7.13 At the end, did you
manage to get the
service you needed?
8.917
.003
RES500
20.470
548
.000
1.880
.092 1.700
2.060
20.627
542.705
.000
1.880
.091 1.701
2.059
variances
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed
Appendix 6: Detailed Independent t-test results (Government-O1 and Givernment-O3)
Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test for
t-test for Equality of Means
Equality of
Variances
F
Sig.
t
df
Sig. (2-
Mean
Std. Error
95% Confidence
tailed)
Difference
Difference
Interval of the
Difference
Lower
7.1 Overall, how
satisfied were you
with the specification
of the
product/service?
Equal
.000
18.341
598
.000
1.430
.078
1.277
1.583
18.341 538.900
.000
1.430
.078
1.277
1.583
21.293
.000
1.790
.084
1.625
1.955
variances
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed
7.2 Overall, how
Equal
satisfied are you with
variances
the
assumed
Dissertation
33.041
Upper
45.614
.000
598
140 | P a g e
No. 100091
Dissertation, BUiD
department/organizati
on in taking your
opening and
feedback to improve
their
RES500
21.293 549.687
.000
1.790
.084
1.625
1.955
18.690
598
.000
1.840
.098
1.647
2.033
18.690 441.997
.000
1.840
.098
1.647
2.033
13.776
598
.000
1.167
.085
1.000
1.333
13.776 480.972
.000
1.167
.085
1.000
1.333
598
.024
.220
.097
.029
.411
2.266 597.360
.024
.220
.097
.029
.411
7.564
.000
.723
.096
.536
.911
Equal
variances not
assumed
services/products?
7.3 Overall, how
satisfied were you
with the time taken to
receive the required
service?
Equal
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed
Equal
satisfied were you
variances
with the easiness of
assumed
getting the service
Equal
from that
variances not
department?
assumed
by the employees of
that department who
assisted me with the
service.
Equal
172.715
.702
.000
.402
2.266
variances
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed
7.6 The employees
Equal
showed their respect
variances
while delivering the
assumed
Dissertation
.000
variances
7.4 Overall, how
7.5 I was treated fairly
219.176
13.535
.000
598
141 | P a g e
No. 100091
service/ transaction.
Dissertation, BUiD
Equal
RES500
7.564 591.777
.000
.723
.096
.536
.911
9.269
598
.000
.693
.075
.546
.840
9.269 470.009
.000
.693
.075
.546
.840
8.677
598
.000
.767
.088
.593
.940
8.677 516.092
.000
.767
.088
.593
.940
8.226
598
.000
.613
.075
.467
.760
8.226 454.117
.000
.613
.075
.467
.760
598
.000
1.060
.088
.887
1.233
12.007 431.194
.000
1.060
.088
.886
1.234
variances not
assumed
7.7 I have received
Equal
information that
variances
helped me regarding
assumed
all I should do until
Equal
getting my services
variances not
completed.
assumed
7.8 Overall, how
Equal
satisfied were you
variances
with the quality of
assumed
service provided by
Equal
48.319
58.958
.000
.000
the employees of that variances not
department?
assumed
7.9 Overall, how
Equal
satisfied were you
variances
with the department
assumed
45.822
.000
staff you directly dealt Equal
with and provided the
variances not
service to you?
assumed
7.10 Employees were
competent and
knowledgeable
enough to provide the
requested service.
Dissertation
Equal
236.353
.000
12.007
variances
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed
142 | P a g e
No. 100091
Dissertation, BUiD
7.11 Employees did
Equal
their best and went
variances
the extra mile to
assumed
make sure I received
Equal
the proper aid and
variances not
required service.
assumed
7.12 I waited for a
Equal
reasonable period of
variances
time in the
assumed
department until I
Equal
received my
variances not
requested service.
assumed
Equal
7.13 At the end, did
variances
you manage to get
assumed
the service you
Equal
needed?
variances not
48.195
.106
18.009
.000
.745
.000
5.788
RES500
598
.000
.577
.100
.381
.772
5.788 552.339
.000
.577
.100
.381
.772
598
.000
1.167
.111
.949
1.384
10.543 597.544
.000
1.167
.111
.949
1.384
598
.000
.600
.105
.394
.806
5.731 588.216
.000
.600
.105
.394
.806
10.543
5.731
assumed
Dissertation
143 | P a g e
Appendix 7 – Reliability Test Results
Scale: Initiating and Planning Process Group
Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's
Cronbach's
Alpha
Alpha Based on
N of Items
Standardized
Items
.300
.300
2
Item-Total Statistics
Cronbach's
Scale Mean if
Scale Variance if
Corrected Item-
Squared Multiple
Item Deleted
Item Deleted
Total Correlation
Correlation
Item 7.1
3.58
1.495
.176
.031
.
Item 7.2
3.65
1.426
.176
.031
.
Alpha if Item
Deleted
Scale: Executing Process Group
Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's
Cronbach's
Alpha
Alpha Based on
N of Items
Standardized
Items
.570
.569
4
Item-Total Statistics
Scale Mean if Item
Scale Variance if
Corrected Item-
Squared Multiple
Deleted
Item Deleted
Total Correlation
Correlation
Cronbach's
Alpha if Item
Deleted
No. 100091
Dissertation, BUiD
RES500
Item 7.3
11.36
6.756
.379
.167
.475
Item 7.4
11.27
7.599
.303
.128
.536
Item 7.5
11.18
7.207
.356
.170
.495
Item 7.6
11.22
7.193
.370
.185
.484
Scale: Monitoring and Controlling Process Group
Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's
Cronbach's
N of Items
Alpha
Alpha Based on
Standardized
Items
.698
.699
5
Item-Total Statistics
Cronbach's
Scale Mean if
Scale Variance if
Corrected Item-
Squared Multiple
Item Deleted
Item Deleted
Total Correlation
Correlation
Item 7.7
15.96
10.251
.438
.206
.656
Item 7.8
15.93
10.202
.435
.191
.657
Item 7.9
15.94
10.182
.484
.246
.637
Item 7.10
16.00
9.836
.490
.248
.633
Item 7.11
15.94
10.352
.422
.193
.663
Alpha if Item
Deleted
Scale: Closing Process Group
Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's
Cronbach's
Alpha
Alpha Based on
N of Items
Standardized
Items
.171
.172
2
Item-Total Statistics
Dissertation
145 | P a g e
No. 100091
Dissertation, BUiD
RES500
Scale Mean if
Scale Variance if
Corrected Item-
Squared Multiple
Cronbach's
Item Deleted
Item Deleted
Total Correlation
Correlation
Alpha if Item
Deleted
Item 7.12
3.71
1.679
.094
.009
.
Item 7.13
3.15
2.093
.094
.009
.
Dissertation
146 | P a g e
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