Corrective Actions Versus Preventive Actions Versus Defect Repair

There is often more confusion as to the difference between corrective actions versus preventive actions versus defect repair 

Below is a brief explanation which will help you understand the difference

There are 4 particular types of change request i.e corrective actions, preventive actions. defect repair & Scope Change 
Remember the triple constraints are Time , Cost & Scope and we would add another constraints that is Quality , which would be helpful to when we go through the definitions of these 4 types of change request
Let's start with 
Corrective action is associated with time and cost and it is a reactive change request meaning we are over budget or behind schedule 
Preventive action is also related to cost and time but it is proactive , We are not over budget or behind schedule but we are heading towards negative direction and we wanted to make this change in order to reverse that negative trend 
A defect repair is a quality issue , You need to fix something which doesn't meet the requirements, whether customer sees it before or after it doesnt matter but it has to be repaired 

Corrective Action is an action taken to prevent recurrence!

Preventive Action is an action taken to prevent occurrence other than non compliance in first place i.e if the preventive action would have been in place then the problem would have not have occurred!

There is often more confusion as to the difference between corrective actions and defect repair as many people think it is synonymous , defect is we are fixing something (quality issue) , corrective action is related to schedule or budget 
For Example :
You hang the cabinets in a new house and door doesn't close properly , you may think you need about corrective action indeed it is a defect repair.
It would be a corrective action if you change the cabinets and blew up your budget and then you re-fix the new cabinets.

The Scope change request will update your baselines meaning only an approved scope change request update the baselines.
We don't re-baseline for corrective, preventive and defect repair because we want to track the impact of what the issue was and the resolution 

Another Example :- 
You are on a long drive. Your car breaks down in the middle of the journey.  Discover that the spark plug is full of carbon. Cause was that the car was not serviced for last 6 month, and since the last service it has ran for almost 5000 kms. The situation worsens, when you know that you do not have an extra spark plug.

Corrective Action: From next onward you have be keeping a extra spark plug.

Preventive Action: Before going for a long drive, you shall anticipate what all can go wrong or the undesirable situations. And shall identify the preventive action for all the undesirable situations or problems.

I hope the above example must have clarified your doubts between Corrective Actions Versus Preventive Actions Versus Defect Repair

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What is a Project ?

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Project Statement Work Versus Business Case

Assumptions Versus Constraints in Project Management

Assumptions are those things which we believe to be true , We don't know they are real but we believe they are , things are considered to be true and real .It is very very important for a project manager to document the assumptions specially when it comes to duration , overall cost and should ask questions like how you came up with your schedule , how you are going to identify the resources for the project.

Documenting assumption can help you with 2 major reasons 
First one it provides protection to you as a project manager, What if the sponsor comes back to you and say "Hey PM how did your estimates are completely off, why do you think it is going to take 3 months instead of 2 month" 
Your answer could be "My assumption was my team would be well skilled and willing to work but the team i got was not having skills enough to execute the project"
The second reason is to provide historical record , So in the above case if you are going to document the assumption of estimates completely going off and if in future i have to look at historical records for basis of your project estimates versus mine then i would have a feel of what kind of assumptions were going in.
Plus assumptions can also leads to risk which has to be monitored on a regular basis 

Constraints are basically limitations, limitations placed upon a project.
The most common constraints we call in project management is triple constraints i.e Time, Cost & Scope
We are constraints by the time we have , the budget we have and scope 
Every project is always a deadline based which is called a constraint in project else it wouldnt be a project 

Example : 
Project Name : Build Cabin for Mr / Mrs Shah , Requirements 3 Bedrooms, 2 Bathrooms , plan specifications etc 
Assumptions : 
Budget : Funding provided prior to start
Resources : Unlimited access to property 
Materials available for immediate delivery (material is also a resource)
Scope : Plans are complete, Changes will go through Change Control Board 

Constraints :-
Budget INR 3 crore 
Schedule : 6 Months 
Quality : Pass All Municipality Inspections 

You may also like 

What is a Project ?

What is Progressive Elaboration ?

Project Versus Operations

Project Life Cycle Versus Product Life Cycle

Enterprise Environmental Factors Versus Organizational Process Assets
Project Statement Work Versus Business Case
Corrective Actions Versus Preventive Actions Versus Defect Repair

Project Statement of Work Versus Business Case

Project Statement of Work(SOW) and Business case are both inputs to project charter process as we see in PMBOK guide and here is where the information within PMBOK guide may differ slightly from how you experience it in practice. 

So lets start with project Statement of Work (SOW),It is the document coming from requesting party , requesting party may be an internal team or customer ,but it is the statement that all the work they need must be completed. It is a description of what they need, what business need they have and how the project will meet their business needs.

Business Case on the other hand is done by the sponsor of the project and Business Case is essentially the justification to get a project. They want to look at project work from a value perspective versus how much the money they have to pay to get the project done.

Lot of time you will see in Business Case benefit measurement such as Net Present Value (NPV) or Internal Rate of Return or Returns on Investments (ROI), Essentially the business case if going to justify the funding for the project 

Example :

Let's Say There is an Organization ABC , That ABC organization wants your company to provide training to their employees for PMP Training, they would send you a State of Work which includes "2 Day Fundamental Training for Project Management at Mumbai, India" 

You would evaluate that and say okay well let's see here how much you will be charged for , x amount i have to to my instructor, to pay for materials and travel etc and you would weight those two.

Sometime it is also worth to take on a project which may not have a positive business case means you may have negative NPV chances for such kind of projects are Regulatory or Compliance driven or infrastructure driven.

Both the project SOW and the business case are critical inputs to the development of the project charter. The SOW is generated by the requesting party, detailing what they are requesting, whereas the business case is developed internally, usually by the project sponsor, to provide a financial and feasibility analysis of the project.

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What is a Project ?

What is Progressive Elaboration ?

Project Versus Operations

Project Life Cycle Versus Product Life Cycle

Enterprise Environmental Factors Versus Organizational Process Assets
Assumptions Versus Constraints
Corrective Actions Versus Preventive Actions Versus Defect Repair

Enterprise Environmental Factors Versus Organizational Process Assets in PMP

Let us learn about Organization Process Assets and Enterprise Environment Factors which are two major inputs in Tools and techniques 

Organization Process Assets :- Asset means things which we are going to use owned by the organization. OPA comes in two categories, First Category can be classified into things like policy, procedures , guidelines , lesson learned etc, things we can use in our project may be organization may have a Work Breakdown Structure Template or Project Charter template , that would be considered as on Organizational process asset (OPA)

Second Category can be classified as historical Information and i call this as repository of goodness. It has knowledge base because it has archives of all past project files, lesson's learned etc

Logically all of the historical data.

What we see in project management is historical information is incredibly valuable, We look into the past to predict the future. That is the reason OPA is a very very common input.

Enterprise Environmental Factors :- The important word in EEF is factors, Factors are things we consider  that would influence our project.

For example : Corporate Culture, Work Environment , Availability of capital resources, Market Demand, Financial Considerations etc

Simply saying "Assets" are things we use and "Factors" are things we consider 

I hope the above article was useful to you in understanding the concept of Organizational Process Assets versus Enterprise Environmental Factors.

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Difference between Project and Operations
Difference Between Project Life Cycle and Product Life Cycle
What is Progressive Elaboration ?
Project Statement of Work Versus Business Case
Assumptions Versus Constraints
Corrective Actions Versus Preventive Actions Versus Defect Repair

What is Progressive Elaboration ?

Progressive Elaboration is critical to project success

• Progressive means proceeding in steps, continuing steadily with increment.
• Elaboration means worked out with care and detail, developed thoroughly
• Should not be confused with scope creep.
• Needs to be carefully coordinated with proper project,Scope Definition, particularly if the project is performed under contract.

Why Progressive Elaboration.....?
Because projects are temporary and unique!

Example: Project scope is high-level in the beginning. It becomes more detailed as project team progresses and develops better understanding of project objectives and deliverables.

Many people confuse it with scope creep that happens due to poor scope definition, poor WBS formation and Uncontrolled changes.

Each project’s product is unique.
Hence, its characteristics THAT DISTINGUISH IT must be “PROGRESSIVELY ELABORATED"

That’s why so much emphasis on processes called:
- “Identify stakeholders” (during initiation)
- “Collect requirements” (during planning) 

The distinguishing characteristics are
“Broadly defined” early in the project
  More explicit and detailed as project progresses
THEN, PROJECT TEAM BEGINS TO GRASP THEM
BETTER

You may also like :-
What is a Project ?
Difference between Project and Operations
Difference Between Project Life Cycle and Product Life Cycle
Enterprise Environmental Factors Versus Organizational Process Assets
Project Statement of Work Versus Business Case
Assumptions Versus Constraints
Corrective Actions Versus Preventive Actions Versus Defect Repair

Project Life Cycle Versus Product Life Cycle

A project life cycle depict the linear progression of a project, from defining the project through making a plan, executing the work, and closing out the project. Dividing the project into phases permits for increased project control by the performing organization. These phases are usually sequential and overlapping.

Project life cycles can vary depending on the industry, the organization, or perhaps  the kind of project that's being conducted. There are sometimes transitions between the phases that need some type of handoff or information or data component transfer.

Generally speaking, staffing levels and costs are less at the beginning of the project life cycle and then rise during the middle. Risk, or uncertainty, however, is more at the beginning of the project life cycle and reduces as the project becomes progressively defined.

Each project life cycle produces only one single project.

Let us compare the above project life cycle with product life cycle
Product life cycle is also sequential but they are not overlapping phases.
It doesn't matter what the product is , every product goes through the same product life cycle 

We start up with an Idea, Create the Idea , Introduce the idea in the market, It rose , It matures , It declines then it retires
For Example : It could be a Cell Phone  or a clothing item or Coca Cola
Within a product life cycle there can be multiple project life cycle , so it is one to many relationship i.e one product life cycle against multiple project life cycle
In the above example of coca-cola, every time coke enters a new market , they do their branding, a major new commercials , they add a new product line anything like that are projects within a product life cycle so it is one to many relationships

Comparison

• Project life cycle varies as per Industry, Organization, depends on the methodology

• Sequential overlapping phases

• Product life cycle remains the same regardless of what the product is

• Sequential but not overlapping phases

I hope you found this article valuable and you learn something about difference between project life cycle and product life cycle

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What is a Project ?
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Difference between Enterprise Environmental Factors Versus Organizational Process Assets
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http://pmbypmp.blogspot.in/2016/05/corrective-actions-versus-preventive-actions-versus-defect-repair.htmlCorrective Actions Versus Preventive Actions Versus Defect Repair

Project Versus Operation

Work completed by a performing organization can be considered either operations or projects. As PMP exams test your practical knowledge of project management, the difference between projects and operations should be recognized.

PROJECTS

PMI PMBOK Guide defines Project as "A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result"

Using that definition a project is 

• A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result  
• Definite beginning and a definite end  
• Does not mean short duration
• Produce a product or artifact, quantifiable, an end item or a component item
• A capability to perform a service, such as BPO
• A result, may be a research results or documents 
• An improvement in an existing product or service 

Operations
Operations are basically performing a routine execution of activities in organization primary business. 

Routine activities like issuing pay checks to employees at the end of the month, Follow up of payments from debtors, Maintenance of Hardware are example of operations

 There are similar characteristics between project and operations

• Both are performed by individuals
• Constrained by limited resources such as time, money, people and equipment
• Both are planned, executed and controlled 

I hope with this article you have a clear understanding about project vs operations

You may also like :-
What is a Project ?
What is Progressive Elaboration ?
Project Life Cycle Versus Product Life Cycle
Enterprise Environmental Factors Versus Organizational Process Assets
Project Statement of Work Versus Business Case
Assumptions Versus Constraints
Corrective Actions Versus Preventive Actions Versus Defect Repair