Project Quality Management - A Simple Guide 

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a body that incorporates worldwide standards organizations from approximately 163 countries. 

The ISO 9000 definition for quality is, “The degree to which the project fulfills requirements”. Project quality management lays policies and brings protocol to meet the project needs from a customer and client intent. 

Products and services demand a list of features, budget maintenance, and time to achieve. Building an effective strategy and prior quality saves a lot in reducing costs and quality increase. A quality that obtains specifications and sustainability as agreed.

What is Project Quality Management?

Project quality management aims to continuously maintain product quality by identifying, evaluating, direct with the applicable activities and methods. Project quality management is one of the knowledge areas in the PMBOK guide that regards project quality. It briefs the end product and project management of the very project.

A constructive project quality management not only eliminates risks of product failure, fewer chances of unsatisfied clients, and manages the budget, but expands project quality standards to obtain higher quality.

That means, driving a refine project quality through curative measures. The main project quality management processes that involve in a project are:

- Quality Planning

- Quality Assurance

- Quality Control

Stages of Project Quality Management

A fundamental effective way of getting your team quality products and services consistently is through proper project quality management. Quality is the most integral part of a project. It is no doubt that project managers try to implement the best products and services applicable to the market.

Upon bringing the scenario of even after using the latest tools or skills applied, one might ask - Why it may still fail to deliver the client's requirements? Relating to this, a client may not re-show up for collaboration with your product and services. 

One cannot predict the challenges. A project manager and their team should initiate project quality management prior to tackling any conflicts during the whole project cycle.

Here are the four main quality management processes to evaluate your project:

Quality Planning

It caters to types of delivery standards suitable to achieve, direct, expect, and monitor success, and also suggests to stakeholders how quality is applicable to the project. 

Proceeding with project quality management tasks, add them to the project plan. Entrust those tasks to project members to revert or track quality benchmarks.

The strong reasons to conduct quality are:

- A good project quality management plan begins with having start to end goal project definition.

- Strategies for Project Assurance

- Actionable Change Control

- Measure customer and stakeholder satisfaction.

- Product or deliverable within the agreed timeline.

- Determine project success rate.

- Monitor project outcome.

- Risk and Configuration Management.

- Document Process, Define, and Test.

Quality Assurance

Assurance of quality as defined and guaranteed is a huge factor for maintaining services review. Quality assurance ensures that inputs, tools, techniques, and outputs are secure and achievable.

Project management plans and quality are heading in the agreed manner for the products and services, procedures, and processes delivered by a project.

It should be a steady project quality management process with:

- Improvement plan

- Work performance plan

- Implement preventive actions

- Conduct audits and process analysis

- Detect non-compliances

- Use qualitative and quantitative metrics

- Requested changes

- Report project status

- Verify quality and achievement goals

As a result, this proves to the customers and clients that the given product and services are trustable and agreed upon under the given terms.

Quality Control

Quality assurance activity recurrence before a problem wherein focuses on establishing and executing compliance activities. In contrast, quality control monitors and meticulously adjusts the plan to avoid remodeling tasks. These partial fixes resolve issues and prevent from having to touch the project entirely. 

Performing quality control circulates firm techniques, inspects and suggests improvement methods, testing, establishing quality measures, and dissolving delays or errors. 

Ensures the following inputs, tools and techniques, outputs;

- Budget & Schedule

- Risk Factors

- Monitor Project Results through peer reviews

- Track deliverables standards and performance

- Use metrics for tools and techniques

- Defect repair review

- Identify project requirements

- Crosscheck outputs are correct

The measures that are aligned are correct with the procedure being followed.

There should be no compromise with the importance of quality in project management. The competing clients would always want to have higher preferences of quality irrespective of product type.

Any customer or client would pay enough attention to the team's profound quality, service, and clarity.

To continuously deliver quality products and services to your clients and customers, one needs to equip an efficient and quality work in market demand.

Benefits of Project Quality Management

Following are the benefits of Project Quality Management:

- Operational Stability

- Evidence-based Decisions

- Quality Check on Project Activities

- Employee engagement and Onboarding

- Client & Stakeholder's Satisfaction

- Resolve Issues

- Enhance Team Productivity

- Cut down Remodeling

- Continual Improvement & Business Process

- Project Success

- Builds Reputation

- Increased Benefits (internal, external, and signaling)

Quality Management Tools

A few of the tools that help to manage data and activities in the specific project are;

Affinity diagrams

A diagram that organizes, creates and gathers details into a grouping based on their natural relationships.

The affinity process draws ideas for the product, process, issues, or errors refraining from re-determining the process.

Histogram

It is one of the powerful quality planning and control tools that define preventive and right measures. 

A histogram represents a bar graph of a distribution of variables. The bar indicates a particular result and the height of the bar indicates the frequency of a situation.

Scatter Chart

A scatter chart defines whether a correlation exists between two variables i.e., A and B. 

Consider a project quality management example: the closer the data points (A and B) are to a diagonal line, the more closely the two variables are related.

Coping to it, the resource expert can carry a scatter diagram to identify the root cause.

The chart identifies and implements actions to resolve the causes of any silos hindering the product quality.

Control Chart

A control chart is a graphical representation of data that demonstrates the results of a process with time. 

This chart helps to prevent issues ((positive and negative), control changes in the process, and maintain quality assurance of products and services. 

In assessing the required variations on graph display, the professionals from quality management or quality assurance can look into the causes affecting the processes.

Run Chart

A run chart or run sequence plot pictures the process performance that helps you detect signs of potential errors from various sources.

This chart provides the history and various patterns of a process or single variable that is not easily seen in tables or spreadsheets over a specific time.

Pareto Chart

A Pareto chart is a histogram type that picks out and categorizes areas of issues. Pareto analysis is called the 80-20 rule, which means that 80% of issues are because of 20% of the main causes.

Cause and Effect Diagrams

It is also known as Fishbone or Ishikawa diagrams. A cause-and-effect diagram is a graphical method to identify the causes of quality issues, to bring about effective production operations. 

They help with control change and configuration management of a project.

Read about: Total Quality Management - Concepts, Principles And Implementation

Conclusion

Project quality management is an approach to improving that a project perceives the specification, goals, and objectives for which it was purposive sticking to the specific guidelines.

The project managers and professionals can utilize adherence to Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, ISO 9000, or any external industry standards for quality improvements in a project life cycle.

The importance of project quality management has multiple approaches. It creates a consistent growth approach for a company, to continuously keep quality top-notch refraining from off-track with the customer requirements or stakeholders and team member's performance.

The proofing tools re-evaluate and check processes to minimize any budget errors and maintain quality.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q) What are the main processes in project quality management?

A) The main processes in project quality management comprise Quality Planning, Quality Assurance, and Quality Control.

Q) What is meant by project quality?

A) According to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Project Quality is “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements.”

Q) What are quality metrics in project management?

A) Quality metrics define client satisfaction into performance standards in products and services.

These metrics in project management assess the progress, efficiency, and performance of the projects that help companies determine their project management attempts.

Q) What is the purpose of project quality management?

A) The purpose is to remain intact with quality standards and obtain objectives of stakeholders and clients, to cater measures on how to ensure quality in project management.

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