Project Quality Management Explained

In a project, with all the aspects that you need to consider, you should not forget about one thing: quality. Quality management is so important because it doesn’t matter if you developed the best software, achieved every goal, or completed the project on time and budget if the quality is not right. This is why quality management is very important. 

What is Project Quality Management?

Project quality management consists of processes and activities that are used to measure the quality of the results produced in the project. In quality management you measure the activities continuously and then optimize the measurs. This happens until you achieve the desired quality.

Quality management helps to control costs, to achieve the goal, and to set the standard. With the help of quality management, you can avoid product defects and dissatisfied customers.

Definition of Quality

But what exactly is quality? Quality is what the customer expects from the project. It is a property, attribute, or characteristic of a project. It depends on the requirements of the customer, so the focus is on what the customer wants.

To be able to define the quality it needs the following: 

• Validation: the product should meet the requirements
• Tolerance: the range in which you accept results
• Verification: requirements must match those of the team
• Accuracy: measure as close as possible to the true value

Different Phases in Project Quality Management

But how can you implemennt quality management in the project?

You can divide this into the following three phases: 

1. Quality Planning

• The requirements and standards for the quality of the project are defined here. The goal is that everyone in the team is clear about the quality of the project and the tasks are given to the individual team members. Here the requirements have to be agreed upon and how the process should be documented. It is also important to provide the information that is needed here, for example, regular meetings, etc…
• The plan should also include metrics for measurement. Checklists can help to keep track of this. The metrics that you achieve can you then mark as completed.

2. Quality Assurance

• Quality assurance is about the process that shows the stakeholders how the quality-related activities have been defined and executed. The process runs throughout the project. It is activities that have been implemented in the quality system. The goal is to ensure that you meet the quality control expectations. A system of metrics is used to determine if quality management is running effectively. This helps to review objectives and make optimizations as needed. It also helps to be able to report on the status of quality management at regular meetings.

3. Quality Control

• Quality control includes operational techniques. This includes identifying, analyzing, and optimizing. During quality assurance, quality control is reactive and is performed when a problem is identified. Then you can give optimization suggestions. In this phase, you can review various results and identify risk factors.
• In addition, you should review time and budget planning in this phase. You can do this, for example, through testing or peer reviews. Then, if there are results that do not meet the established quality standards, you can make adjustments instead of having to recreate them.

What You Need for a Good Project Management Plan

What do you need for a good Project Management plan?

The quality management plan should document the following:

• How the team will enforce the quality policy
• How quality will be assured during the project
• What resources are required
• All activities required for the quality plan

Benefits of Project Quality Management

1. Quality assurance
2. Satisfaction of the customer
3. Higher productivity in the team
4. Overview of time and budget
5. Optimal team collaboration

Quality Management Tools

1. Process Decision Program Diagrams

• The Diagram shows the execution of processes step by step to analyze the effects. In this way, it is possible to see what problems might occur. An example of this is the Lucidchart tool.

2. Network Diagrams

• This diagram shows the schedule of the project. You can plan the project from the beginning to the end. The network diagram can have the form of an arrow diagram or priority diagram. The pathfinder tool helps to document complex IT infrastructures.

3. Affinity Diagrams

• These generate and organize information about a product, process, or problem. With Brainstorming you can generate new ideas, which you can present in a clear and organized way with the help of the diagram.

Final Thoughts

Quality is critical in any project. By going through the phases of quality management, you can carry out projects in such a way that they also deliver the desired results.