Project Quality Management is a critical aspect of the performing organization, and integral to project management. It includes the processes and activities, that determine the quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities necessary to assure that project requirements are met. Project Quality Management implements the organization’s Quality Management System via policies, procedures, and continuous improvement activities, as appropriate.
Processes critical to the Quality Management System include Quality Planning, Quality Assurance, and Quality Control.
Quality planning: Identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and how to satisfy them.
Quality assurance: Periodically evaluating overall project performance to ensure the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards.
Quality control: Monitoring specific project results to ensure that they comply with the relevant quality standards.
Quality Planning is an integral part of project management. It identifies relevant quality standards and determines how they can best be satisfied.
Quality Assurance ensures that project management utilizes the quality processes needed to meet project requirements in a planned and systematic manner.
Quality Control monitors specific project outputs and determines compliance with applicable standards. It also identifies project risk factors, their mitigation, and looks for ways to prevent and eliminate unsatisfactory performance.
Five Cost Categories Related to Quality
· Prevention cost: Cost of planning and executing a project so it is error-free or within an acceptable error range.
· Appraisal cost: Cost of evaluating processes and their outputs to ensure quality.
· Internal failure cost: Cost incurred to correct an identified defect before the customer receives the product.
· External failure cost: Cost that relates to all errors not detected and corrected before delivery to the customer.
· Measurement and test equipment costs: Capital cost of equipment used to perform prevention and appraisal activities.
