Project Quality Management is the fifth knowledge area of project management.
It assures that project deliverables meet their identified requirements and project management processes are properly performed.
Based on chapter 8 of PMBOK® Guide 5th Edition, here you will find:
- project management graphic of Project Quality Management, a quick reference guide to its definition and processes
- Project Quality Management WHATs, WHYs, WHENs, and HOWs — by Project Quality Management processes
Read on!
Project Quality Management 101
by Project Management Process Group
1. Plan Quality Management
- WHAT Plan Quality Management Is. The Plan Quality Management process gathers all of the information available to project managers at the beginning of projects and figures out how they will measure quality and prevent defects.
- WHY Plan Quality Management Is Important. A project manager starts the Plan Quality Management process at the beginning of the planning phase of the project, in conjunction with other Planning processes.
- WHEN Plan Quality Management Is Executed. Quality is planned from the start of a project –not just inspected. Indeed, its main output, the Quality Management plan, is a key tool for preventing defects on the project and reduce the cost of quality.
- HOW Plan Quality Management Operates.
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Source: PMBOK® Guide, 5th ed., Chapter 8, section 8.1, p. 232.
2. Perform Quality Assurance
- WHAT Perform Quality Assurance Is. Project Quality Assurance is an executing process concerned with overall process improvement of the activities and processes undertaken to achieve quality. In other words, project managers take all of the outputs from Plan Quality Management and Control Quality and look at them to see if projects are using the correct and most efficient processes to meet their requirements.
- WHY Perform Quality Assurance Is Important. If the quality of both process and activities improves, then the quality of deliverables should improve as well, bringing also positive implications to the other five project constraints (time, scope, cost, resources, and risk).
- WHEN Perform Quality Assurance Is Executed. The Project Quality Assurance process is iterative in nature. A project manager starts performing quality assurance after the other quality processes are complete and continues throughout the life of the project.
- HOW Perform Quality Assurance Operates.
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Source: PMBOK® Guide, 5th ed., Chapter 8, section 8.2, p. 243.
3. Control Quality
- WHAT Control Quality Is. Control Quality process inspects and reviews work products to find defects. In case of mismatches between work performance information and quality plan and metrics, a project manager recommends a change. This way, the problem is either fixed or prevented from happening again.
- WHY Control Quality Is Important. Control Quality process guarantees that every product and project deliverable meets quality standards. Indeed, deliverables can go through the Validate Scope process for customer acceptance only once verified by Control Quality.
- WHEN Control Quality Is Executed. The first product deliverable marks the beginning of the Control Quality process, then carried on throughout much of the project.
- HOW Control Quality Operates.
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Source: PMBOK® Guide, 5th ed., Chapter 8, section 8.3, p. 249.
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