Project Management guide · Risk, quality and control
Project Quality Management: Plan, Assure and Control Quality
Project quality management is the set of activities that make sure a project's deliverables meet their requirements and are fit for purpose. It combines planning what 'good' looks like, building quality into the way work is done, and checking outputs against agreed standards.
Key takeaways
- Quality management covers planning, assurance (process) and control (product).
- Prevention is cheaper than finding and fixing failures.
- Agree measurable acceptance criteria with the customer early.
- Use simple tools such as checklists, Pareto charts and fishbone diagrams.
The three parts of quality management
| Part | Focus | Typical activities |
|---|---|---|
| Plan quality | Define standards and how they will be met | Set acceptance criteria, choose metrics, write the quality management plan |
| Manage quality (quality assurance) | The process: are we working in a way that produces quality? | Process audits, reviews, design standards, training, continuous improvement |
| Control quality | The product: does this output meet requirements? | Inspections, testing, measurements, sign-off against requirements |
PMBOK-based guidance calls these Plan Quality Management, Manage Quality and Control Quality. The underlying idea is that quality is planned and built in, not inspected in at the end.
Quality vs grade
Quality is how well a deliverable meets its requirements. Grade is a category for products with the same use but different features. A basic budget hotel can be high quality (clean, reliable, as advertised) and low grade; a luxury hotel with broken lifts is high grade but low quality. Low quality is always a problem; low grade may be a perfectly sensible choice.
Cost of quality
| Category | Type | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Prevention | Cost of conformance | Training, standards, design reviews, better tools |
| Appraisal | Cost of conformance | Testing, inspection, audits |
| Internal failure | Cost of non-conformance | Rework and scrap found before delivery |
| External failure | Cost of non-conformance | Warranty claims, complaints, lost customers, fixes after release |
Money spent on prevention usually saves much more in failure costs, because defects get more expensive the later they are found.
Quality management plan template
| Section | Content |
|---|---|
| Quality objectives | What quality means for this project and its customers |
| Standards | Regulations, company standards and specifications that apply |
| Acceptance criteria | How each deliverable will be judged complete |
| Metrics | Measures and targets, e.g. defects per release, first-pass yield |
| Roles | Who reviews, tests, approves and audits |
| Assurance activities | Audits, peer reviews and process checks, with timing |
| Control activities | Inspections and tests for each deliverable |
| Tools | Checklists, templates and tracking tools |
| Non-conformance handling | How defects are logged, fixed and verified |
| Improvement | How lessons feed back into the process |
Quality tools
- Checklists and check sheets to make inspections consistent and collect data.
- Pareto charts to show which few causes create most defects.
- Fishbone diagrams to explore root causes.
- Control charts to show whether a process is stable over time.
- Histograms and scatter diagrams to understand variation and relationships.
- Plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycles for continuous improvement, also central to Lean and Six Sigma.
Worked example
A software project sets a quality metric of no more than 5 high-severity defects found in user acceptance testing. In the first release, UAT finds 14. A Pareto analysis shows 9 come from one integration. The team adds contract tests for that interface (prevention) and an extra integration test stage (appraisal). In the next release UAT finds 4 high-severity defects, and rework time falls from 12 to 5 days. The change is recorded in lessons learned and the quality plan is updated.
Common mistakes
- Leaving quality to a test phase at the end.
- Acceptance criteria that are vague or never agreed with the customer.
- Gold plating: adding extras the customer did not ask for, which costs time and adds risk.
- Measuring lots of things but acting on none of them.
- Treating quality as the quality team's job instead of everyone's.
Free templates for this topic
Frequently asked questions
What is project quality management?
The processes that make sure a project's deliverables meet requirements: planning quality, managing (assuring) quality and controlling quality.
What is the difference between quality assurance and quality control in quality management?
Quality assurance focuses on the processes used to create deliverables; quality control checks the deliverables themselves.
What is the cost of quality in project quality management?
The total cost of conformance (prevention and appraisal) plus the cost of non-conformance (internal and external failures).
What is the difference between quality and grade in quality management?
Quality is how well something meets requirements; grade is a category of features or specification. Low grade can be acceptable; low quality is not.
What is a quality management plan?
The part of the project management plan that sets out standards, metrics, roles and activities for achieving quality.
What are the seven basic quality tools in quality management?
They are commonly listed as cause-and-effect diagrams, check sheets, control charts, histograms, Pareto charts, scatter diagrams, and flowcharts or stratification.
What is gold plating in project quality management?
Adding features or quality beyond what was agreed. It increases cost and risk without being requested.
What is PDCA in quality management?
Plan-do-check-act, a repeating cycle for testing and embedding improvements.
Who is responsible for quality management on a project?
The project manager is accountable for the quality approach, but everyone producing work is responsible for its quality.
How does Agile handle project quality management?
Through practices such as a definition of done, automated testing, frequent reviews with users and continuous improvement in retrospectives.
How does ISO 9001 relate to project quality management?
An international standard for quality management systems. Organisations certified to it must follow defined quality processes, which projects often inherit.