Ensuring that project deliverables meet the client’s needs and project goals, entails the systematic planning, execution, and monitoring of project activities and procedures.
Project performance measurements are usually based on scope, time, costs, and quality – the so-called Iron Triangle. Thus, the quality (which is significantly influenced by project management practices used) is considered an important outcome of the project.
In today's fast-paced business environment, organizations must be able to deliver projects that match or even exceed clients’ requirements and expectations to remain competitive. High customer satisfaction and corporate success are the results of products, services and innovative projects being delivered in a successful and efficient manner. That requires project management skills with high quality standards. However, various studies such as PMI’s “Pulse of the Profession” (2017) indicate that 40-60% of projects show quality issues.
Before we dive into details, let’s clarify the term project quality management:
Project quality management describes the act of controlling all procedures and duties necessary to uphold a desired standard of excellence. This comprises of formulating a quality strategy, coming up with and carrying out quality assurance and planning, as well as quality control and improvement. In short, it includes the planning, managing, and controlling of quality.
But what is quality within the context of a project?
Quality defines the extent to which a project satisfies its predetermined objectives, aims, and requirements such as project deliverables meet the client’s expectations, the project's needs, and industry standards. In project management, quality control aims to ensure that the final product satisfies or exceeds stakeholder expectations and adheres to given time, budget, and resource restraints.
The importance of quality management in project management
As proven by various studies in several journals (in addition to the above-mentioned PMI), projects that use quality management techniques are more likely to meet their targets and produce high-quality outcomes, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and better commercial outcomes. In theory, we all know that, but in practice it can often feel like superfluous overhead. But what if I tell you, that this effect also works the other way around?
Quality and project management are mutually beneficial, meaning that effective quality management actually enhances project procedures and processes. How? Regular monitoring allows you as a project manager to improve the quality practices within your project continuously, thus inspires new possibilities and areas of improvement, which in turn cuts down waist, boosts efficiency and leads to an overall more satisfying outcome.
Due to their methodical approach in detecting and resolving quality concerns, quality management strategies allow for more precise risk control and ensure adherence to deadlines. Thus, projects are completed in scope, time, and budget.
Having now understood why quality management is crucial in project management, let's talk about how to put these strategies day-to-day project activities by diving into the specifics of the PMI's approach to project quality management.
Project quality management according to PMI
According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), project quality management entails three different phases:
- Plan quality
- Manage quality
- Control quality
During the planning process you specifiy requirements and standards for the project deliverables and develop a plan for ensuring that these quality standards are adhere to, even if this involves modifying cost, schedule, and risk plans. This phase is closed with its final product, the quality management plan, which is may vary in extensiveness and level of detail, depending on factors such as project size, risk, regulation and/or stakeholder expectations.
The quality management plan is a section of the project plan that outlines the methods and resources used to meet the project's quality goals and standards, including policies, objectives, procedures, and tools for quality control and improvement. It should be regularly reviewed to prevent rework.
Managing quality is a project management processes that entails translating the quality management plan into concrete quality actions that adhere to the organization's quality standards. The procedure is used to provide the overall quality status to stakeholders and uses data from the control quality process. It is also referred to as quality assurance, but its definition is broader and takes product design and process improvement into account. The managing quality process aids in the creation of an ideal product, increases assurance that requirements and expectations will be met, makes sure that quality processes are applied appropriately, and enhances process effectiveness and efficiency. The quality assurance division of the company may be of service to the project manager and team.
Controling quality is the process of monitoring and evaluating how well quality management tasks are being carried out to guarantee that project outputs are accurate, complete, and in line with customer expectations. Before final delivery and acceptance, this procedure includes measuring the good or service to ensure it complies with the requirements and is fit for use. Throughout the project, controlling quality is carried out to show that the acceptance requirements have been met with trustworthy data.
5 phases of increasing effective quality management
Quality and project management can be combined in five different ways. We have compiled them according to the ascending effectiveness of quality management:
- Findings and defects: Letting the customer find the defects is typically the most expensive strategy. This strategy may result in warranty problems, recalls, reputational damage, and expensive rework.
- Detection and corrections: In the course of the quality control process, defects are found and fixed before the deliverables are sent to the client. The costs associated with the control quality process are primarily appraisal costs and internal failure costs.
- Process correction: Utilize quality assurance to review and improve the process as a whole rather than just addressing isolated errors.
- Quality incorporation: Include quality in the project and product's planning and design.
- Quality culture: Establish a culture of quality in procedures and products throughout the entire organization.
Challenges, risks, and mitigations
Despite the significance, incorporating quality management standards into projects are both challenging and risky. Based on our 18+ years of experience in project and quality management, we gathered the most important challenges, risks, and their mitigations:
How could this look under real life conditions?
Let’s play through a simple use case and call it “Conducting a quality review”.
The primary actor in this case would be the project manager with the goal to perform a regular review of the project to identify areas for improvement and to ensure that the project is meeting the required quality standards. Let’s assume we already developed a quality management plan in the initialization phase that the project is currently in the implementation phase, meaning the project team is working on the deliverables.
In this case the project manager would schedule a quality review meeting e.g., after the first milestone is completed with the project team in which they review the deliverables produced so far and try to identify quality issues using various methods such as inspections, tests, customer feedback, metrics and KPIs or statistical analysis. As soon as quality issues are identified the next step would be a root cause analysis in which they identify the root of the issue and plan or propose corrective actions. Based on these results, the project manager updates the quality management plan, and the project team continues with the project while implementing the corrective actions.
In addition to an updated and reflected quality management plan, the project manager established awareness within the project team over the quality standards and, last but not least, the quality of the whole project has been improved.
"If you want to ensure your project’s success, invest in project quality management."
Quality management actually enhances project management
As stated previously, quality management is essential for project success as it ensures that project outputs meet client specifications and project objectives. Systematic planning, execution, and monitoring lowers risk and increases efficiency, leading to customer satisfaction and better business results.
However, implementing quality management can be challenging due to stakeholder resistance to change, unclear quality standards, insufficient resources, and poor collaboration and communication.
To mitigate these challenges, organizations should implement effective change management practices, provide clear communication while allocating sufficient resources and lastly establish consistent and unambiguous quality standards.
That leaves us with one final piece of advice: If you want to ensure your project’s success, invest in project quality management.