The use of a structured planning model to develop high-quality goals in a quality-implementation programme

The programme KVALIT is an improvement programme with twenty-eight co-operating Norwegian companies within the IT industry. The programme is financed by public and company funding. Public funding is granted by the Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund (SND) and the Norwegian Research Council (NFR). The programme started in Spring 1994 and is planned to end by the beginning of 1997. Before the start of the programme, the funding authorities demanded that the programme should audit and contiguously document the progress of the programme. Therefore, at the start of the programme, a system for project planning and evaluation of results was developed. The specifications for the system contained two elements: (1) the planning system should provide operational and practical means for planning and evaluating internal improvement projects in the participating companies; (2) the measuring system should include means for presentation and visualization of results.