Project quality management is an important part of a project manager’s job. If the project quality is ignored or given less importance then the project will be a poor output and all the efforts will not bear the real fruit as required by stakeholders. It involves a great project risk as discussed in our previous post. The poorer the quality of a project, the higher the risk of the failure and dissatisfaction of the stakeholders.
In this post, we’re going to explore various aspects of project quality management along with the issues a project can face due to poor quality, the causes of the quality issue, the strategies to manage the project quality and so on in an easy to understand way.
Understand Project Quality Management
The stakeholders want a product that works as expected and is reliable. This is handled with the help of project quality management. It’s project manager’s responsibility to make sure that the project meets stakeholder expectations in terms of quality. A poor quality output is a waste of time. One point to note here is that, the quality is actually the factor of the output product, while the management of the quality is done during the development of the project.
What is Project Quality?
Project quality means the quality of the output of the project. The quality of a product or service is defined as having the ability to satisfy customer requirements and serves the intended purpose. It includes planning quality management, performing quality assurance, and controlling the quality.
Importance of Quality Management
Quality is one of the key factors for the success of a project. Project quality management encompasses all areas of a project and the complete life cycle of the project. It means whether the project delivered the required features without issues and were those features useful for the customer?
Quality Management Strategies
Quality Management Strategies include:
- Engage stakeholders including customers & team
- Get continuous feedback on quality matters
- Follow quality management plan
- Perform quality assurance
- Control any quality discrepancies
- Verify deliverables for quality
Causes of Poor Project Quality
What Causes Poor Project Quality?
- Improper or incomplete quality management plan
- Lack of qualified quality people
- Absence of proper tools & techniques
- Lack of stakeholder involvement
- No application of quality methodologies
- Absence of quality control process
Quality Management Tools
Quality Management Tools include the following:
- Control Charts
- Flow Charts
- Check Lists
- Histograms
- Cause & Effect (Fishbone Diagram)
- Scatter Diagram
- Pareto Chart
Quality Management Challenges
Every project has to face various kinds of challenges. These challenges can be faced by any area of the project and project quality is no exception. Project Quality Management Challenges include the following:
- Not clear about quality goals
- No proper quality management plan
- Unable to execute quality management plan
- Not enough time for quality control
- No quality control measures established
- No costs or time allocated to quality management
Quality Management Plan
Quality management plan is a sub plan the project plan and is created at the start of the project which includes all the factors required to make sure that the project produces a quality output. Quality Management Plan includes the following:
- Quality Management Approach
- Quality Standards & Requirements
- Quality Assurance Approach
- Quality Control Process
- Quality Control Measurements
You must have got a good idea of the project quality management from the above tips given in this post. In short, it’s very important to plan quality management right from the start of the project. It’s not something which is considered or done at the done. For example, quality assurance not done at the end of the project, rather it’s on going and continuous process which is done through the project and is responsibility of everyone involved in the project.
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