Powerful cost reduction
The project cost accounting will track the quality-related costs which can be an important management tool. For example, suppose there are some features which have been designed in the way that can be awkward and annoying to the customers. This issue can be raised and if the project manager rejects the report it can be pursued to the higher-level managers within the product development or within the organisation. But without additional arguments, this issue will get dropped without making any friends in the process. Instead, if the emphasis is changed then the above could be approached by telling that the customers won't be happy and that the same can be approached by collecting data to prove your evidence. The data can be obtained by doing the following:
- Ask the writer: You can ask the writers who document the product if the design is odd enough to cause extra effort to document. You could also find out if the simple design reduce the writing time and the number of pages in the manual
- Ask the training staff: You can ask the training staff about the extra time be spent in the class? Should more supplementary materials be written because of the design?
- Ask the technical support and customer service: You can ask the technical support and the customer service personnel if the design will increase the support costs. Will it take longer to train the support staff? Will there be more calls for the explanations or help? More complaints? Have the customers asked for refunds in the previous versions of the product because of the features designed like this one.
- Check for the related problems: You check for the related problems by finding out if the design is having other effects on the reliability of the program or if it has caused other bugs?
- Ask the sales staff: You can ask the sales staff if the feature is visible or if it is visibly wrong. If so, then check if it will interfere with the sales demonstrations or add to the customer resistance.
- Magazine reviews: You can check the magazine reviews if the problem is likely to be visible enough to be complained about by the reviewers?