Quality management process

Swansea proactively manages the quality of all services provided

OVERVIEW

Swansea’s core business includes:

• Deliverables-based services in which Swansea provides a teams of consultants responsible for the managed delivery of specific deliverables
• Responsibilities-based services in which Swansea provides consultants to work as members of joint client/vendor teams
• Working offsite for extended periods

Swansea’s highly successful track record and many long-term relationships with our clients attests to the effectiveness of our approach to monitoring the performance of our consultants and subcontractors. To achieve this, Swansea employs a variety of formal and informal processes and best practices with which Swansea has extensive experience. These have been tested in many consulting engagements and are subject to continuous improvement.

Our consultants are highly qualified and empowered to make the decisions needed to make sure that projects proceed in an effective, timely manner. This makes it possible for Swansea’s management to focus on activities that add the greatest value to the services we provide.

To ensure that our consultants provide high quality performance and consistently exceed expectations we:

• Maintain continuous communications with clients and consultants over the duration of the engagement.
• Ensure that detailed project plans are created and maintained and the progress against the plans is closely monitored and reported.
• Ensure that all deliverables are well defined to avoid miscommunications and to have accurate standards against which performance can be measured.
• Ensure that effected and tested methodologies are in place and followed for all engagements and that these include quality assurance processes.
• Ensure that expectations for performance are made clear to consultants and effective performance measures are in place.
• Participate in steering committees and other management processes as required

Swansea understands the factors that contribute to high quality performance and monitors those factors as well as the actual performance. For example, we understand that underutilized resources can lose interest and motivation and we work to prevent and manage this situation.

Although they are rarely required, we make sure that clear problem escalation processes are defined for every engagement. Our flat management structure means that our clients deal directly with someone who is able to make any decisions and commitments needed to ensure high performance.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT PROCESS

The specifics of the project quality management process for an assignment depend on a number of factors including:

• The types of services to be provided (e.g., consulting services v. system delivery)
• The size of the project
• Whether the contract is deliverables-based (i.e., for a specific set of defined deliverables) or responsibilities-based (i.e., for services to be provided as member(s) of a larger team)

In addition, our Quality Plan may be tailored to reduce duplication or otherwise improve the fit with the clients quality processes.

EXAMPLE

The following describes a typical internal quality process for an assignment:

• for which the deliverables are consulting service work products such as reports, plans or designs (as opposed to software);
• where Swansea is responsible for specific deliverables (e.g., a plan) rather than participation as part of a team;
• which is at least medium size or complexity (4 consultants or more, say).

Please note that this section describes Swansea’s internal quality management processes, that is, the processes that apply prior to delivery to a client.

For a project of this type, Swansea would develop a project quality plan that specified:

• Project objectives
• Project scope
• Project deliverables
• Quality targets
• Relevant standards
• Quality roles and responsibilities
• Internal quality processes including: quality deliverables register, and quality templates
• Internal document management processes
• Internal change management processes. These may frequently be combined with the overall project change management process.
• Internal risk management process
• Acceptance management processes including: acceptance register and acceptance templates
• Timesheet management processes and payment procedures
• Reporting processes

In general, Swansea believes that its consultants should be responsible for the quality of their work products and selects resources with the skills and maturity required. As a result, the consultants are generally have the lead responsibility for the development of quality plans and coordinating the management of the plans.