Project Quality Management: Tools, Techniques, & Processes

How to Ensure Quality Management in Project Management?

Project Quality Management is a multifaceted discipline within project management that is focused on fulfilling quality requirements and attaining customer satisfaction. Quality management in project management encompasses a set of planned and systematic processes implemented within the project’s quality system to ensure that the project will meet or exceed stakeholder expectations. These activities cover quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control.

What is Project Quality?

“Project Quality” is defined as the degree to which a project’s outputs and outcomes meet the expectations and requirements of its stakeholders. It is about meeting the agreed-upon standards and specifications delineated at the project’s inception. The ultimate aim of project quality is to deliver a project that performs as intended and creates value without causing excess cost or delay due to rework.

Key Benefits of Project Quality Management

1. Improved Project Outcomes

Quality is achieved through planning, designing, and building it into a product or process from its inception. Quality is planned and not inspected.

2. Increased Customer Satisfaction

Quality is all about meeting the customer’s and stakeholders’ expectations and requirements and creating a product that fulfills the quality needs and is fit for its intended use.

3. Enhanced Reputation

Quality management and process improvement rely on the ongoing plan, do, check, and act cycle. This can be done using quality management improvement initiatives, such as TQM and Six Sigma, and process improvement models, such as OPM3, CMMI, and Malcolm Baldrige.

Grade VS. Quality – Definitions and Differences:

1. Quality

During project initiation, quality is conformance to the requirements. It includes the product and the customer’s requirements. According to the PMP, quality management in project management is defined as “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills the requirements.”

2. Grade

Many people get confused with quality and grade and assume that they are similar; however, they are not the same. There is a big difference between Quality and Grade. A product can be a high-grade (high-end) or a low-grade (low-end). It is perfectly acceptable for a product to be a low grade as long as it fulfills its stated requirements.

3. Difference between Quality and Grade

Low quality does not equal low grade.

• Low quality is usually not acceptable; Low grade is never a problem and is acceptable.
• Regardless of its grade, a product or service must be of high quality.

Accuracy and Precision in Quality Management:

The project management team should determine the appropriate levels of accuracy and precision for use in the quality management plan.

1. Accuracy

Accuracy is an assessment of correctness. Accuracy means the measured values are very close to the true value. If somebody says that measurements are accurate, then you should know that those measurements are very near the target or true value. Scatter doesn’t have any significant role here. The scatter of accurate measurements may or may not be dense.

2. Precision

Precision is a measure of exactness. In project quality management, it means the values of repeated measurements are clustered and have little scatter. Precision doesn’t mean that the measurements are close to the target value – it means that the measurements are close to one another. They may or may not be near the target value. Precision is about how the measured values are close to one another. If the scatter is lesser, measurements are said to have high precision.

3. Difference between the Accuracy and Precision

• Measured values may or may not be near the actual or true value, but if the scatter is lesser, measurements are said to have a high precision.
• When measurements are close to the target value, they are Accurate. Scatter does not have any significant role here.

Project Quality Management Processes

There are three project quality management techniques, and they are performed in the following 3 steps:

1st Process: Plan Quality Management:

It is the process of identifying quality requirements and/or standards for the project and its deliverables and documenting how the project will demonstrate compliance with relevant quality requirements.

Key Note: “This process provides guidance and direction on how quality will be managed and validated throughout the project.”

Inputs to Plan Quality Management

Inputs to create the Plan Quality Management are:

• Scope Baseline,
• Stakeholder Register,
• Requirements Documentation,
• Risk Register,
• Enterprise Environmental Factors, and,
• Organizational Process Assets.

2. Tools and Techniques for Plan Quality Management

Tools and Techniques to create the Plan Quality Management are:

• Cost-benefit Analysis;
• Cost of Quality;
• Seven Basic Quality Tools;
• Benchmarking;
• Design of Experiments;
• Statistical Sampling; and;
• Additional Quality Tools.

3. Outputs of Plan Quality Management

The outputs of the Plan Quality Management process are as follows:

• Quality Management Plan,
• Quality Metrics,
• Quality Checklists,
• Process Improvement Plan, and,
• Project Document Updates.

2nd Process: Perform Quality Assurance:

Quality assurance is sandwiched between Plan Quality Management and Control Quality. This is how it is done:

• First, you Plan the Quality Processes, policies, techniques, methods, and metrics.
• Then, using the tools in Quality Control, you measure the results by using the identified tools, techniques, and methods to see whether they comply with the identified metrics.
• Finally, in quality assurance, you identify whether the process is working and if there are ways to improve it.

Key Note: “Quality assurance is predominately concerned with improving processes, and it leads to improved results.”

1. Inputs to Perform Quality Assurance

Inputs for the Perform Quality Assurance process come from Plan Quality Management and the Control Quality processes. They are:

• Quality Management Plan,
• Process Improvement Plan,
• Quality Metrics,
• Quality Control Measurements, and,
• Project Documents.

2. Tools and Techniques for Perform Quality Assurance

Perform Quality Assurance is concerned with process improvement. The same tools and techniques of Plan Quality Management and Control Quality, can help in this Perform Quality Assurance process. The difference is that they are predominately process-oriented rather than product or project-oriented. In addition to the previously discussed tools and techniques, the following quality management tools are used:

• Affinity diagrams,
• Prioritization matrices,
• Matrix diagrams,
• Quality audits, and,
• Process analysis.

3. Outputs of Perform Quality Assurance

The intended outcome of Quality Audit and Process Improvement activities is to reduce the cost of quality and/or to increase customer satisfaction. The outputs of Perform Quality Assurance are:

• Change Requests,
• Project Management Plan Updates,
• Project Document Updates, and,
• Organizational Process Assets Updates.

3rd Process: Control Quality

It is a process of inspecting and verifying the products and services to assess the project’s performance and create recommendations for changes.

Here are the benefits of control quality:

• Validate the deliverables,
• Meet the requirements as specified by the stakeholders,
• Identify cause of poor product quality, and,
• Recommend actions to eliminate problems related to quality.

1. Inputs to Perform Quality Control process

Here are the inputs to the Perform Quality process:

• Project Management Plan,
• Quality Metrics,
• Quality Checklists,
• Work Performance Data,
• Approved Change Requests,
• Deliverables, and,
• Organizational Process Assets.

2. Tools and Techniques for Perform Quality Control Process

To perform quality control, we use the following tools and techniques:

• Seven Basic Quality Tools,
• Statistical sampling,
• Inspection, and,
• Approved Change Requests Review.

3. Outputs of Perform Quality Control

The results or outputs of the Quality Control process, which are used as inputs for other processes, are:

• Validated Changes,
• Validated Deliverables,
• Change Requests,
• Project Management Plan Updates,
• Project Document Updates, and
• Organizational Process Assets Updates.

7 Basic Project Quality Management Tools

Kaoru Ishikawa was a Japanese organizational theorist who was well-known for his quality management innovations. He developed seven basic visual tools of quality so that the average person could analyze and interpret data. These seven tools are:

• Cause and effect diagram;
• Flowcharts;
• Check sheets;
• Pareto Diagrams;
• Histograms;
• Control Charts; and;
• Scatter Diagrams.

These tools are used worldwide by companies, managers of all levels, and employees.

1. Cause-and-Effect diagrams

The cause and effect diagram is also called “the fishbone diagram.” This tool discovers the possible causes for an effect or problem. This diagram acts as the first step in problem-solving, creating a list of possible causes. Let us see how the fishbone diagram works:

• First, identify and define the problem or effect for which the causes must be identified;
• Place the problem or effect at the right or the head of the diagram;
• Then identify all the broad areas of the problem;
• Then, write the possible causes in each of the broad areas;
• Each cause that has been identified, should now look for more causes;
• Now, view the diagram and evaluate the main causes; finally,
• Set goals and take action on the main causes.

2. Flow Charts

• It is a graphical representation of a process and shows the relationships among process steps.
• It can help a project to identify the points where quality problems might occur and may cause failures.
• Preventive or corrective measures can be taken to avoid problems.

3. Check Sheets:

A check sheet is a structured form that is prepared to collect and analyze data, which leads us to organize facts about a potential quality problem. It is more useful when repeated data is collected from the same person or effect.

For example: 

A check sheet is used to collect data about the frequencies or consequences of defects.

4. Pareto Charts

They are used to identify and prioritize problems to be solved. They are actually histograms, aided by the 80-20 rule introduced by Vilfredo Pareto. The 80-20 rule, as it applies to quality says that:

80% of the problems or outputs come from 20% of causes or inputs. In the 80-20 rule, you prioritize the 20% of factors to produce the best results.

Pareto charts are displayed as histograms that rank and order the most important factors by their frequency over time.

5. Histograms

• They are a special form of bar chart and are used to describe the central tendency, dispersion, and shape of a statistical distribution.
• Unlike the control chart, the histogram does not consider the influence of time on the variation that exists within a distribution.

6. Control Charts

A graphical display of the results over time of a process is used to assess whether the process is in control or it is out of control. A control chart always has the following:

• Central line for the average;
• An upper line for the upper control limit and;
• The lower line for the lower control limit.

These lines are determined from the historical data. In this chart, you may observe that two more lines surround the central line, and they are known as:

• Upper specification limit; and;
• Lower specification limit.

Upper and lower specification limits are provided in the contract, and one cannot cross them:

• Role of a project manager is to determine the upper and lower control limits.
• By comparing current data to these limits, you can determine whether the process variation is consistent or unpredictable.
• If 99.73 percent of the points fall between the upper and lower control limits, the project is considered “under control.”

Rule of Seven

If seven or more consecutive data points fall on one side of the mean, an investigation must be initiated to determine the reason for it, even if these points fall within the control limits. This is known as the “Rule of Seven.”

7. Scatter Diagram

A scatter diagram is a graph that shows the relationship between two variables. It can show a relationship between any element of a process, environment, or activity on one axis and a quality defect on the other axis.

• The points will fall along a line or curve if the variables are correlated.
• The better the correlation, the tighter the points will hug the line.

Leveraging Forecast for Superior Project Quality Control

Forecast is an innovative project quality management tool that can significantly enhance your project’s quality management. Whether you have a project management PhD, a diploma of project management, or a certified project manager, forecast offers advanced AI-driven capabilities to assist in planning, executing, and analyzing all aspects of project quality. It streamlines processes and provides insightful analytics, ensuring that quality objectives are not only set with precision but are also achieved effectively. By leveraging forecasts, project managers can facilitate continuous improvement and maintain control over project quality with greater ease and accuracy, ultimately leading to successful project delivery that aligns with the highest standards.