B.3 Managing Quality

Delivering on the expected level of quality requires quality management activities focused on the project's processes as well the project's deliverables. Often, those two aspects of quality management are broken out into two components: quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC). Quality assurance is proactive and process-focused, while quality control is reactive and product focused.

Quality Assurance (QA)

Quality assurance (QA) comprises the preventive activities and processes designed to "provide confidence that the quality requirements will be fulfilled". QA work requires data gathering and analysis and a careful examination of processes. These activities are often completed through the use of a project audit, which is intended to confirm that the quality standards, policies, plans, and processes are being followed – and that those processes are producing the expected quality results.

As you learned in Lesson 13, audits help the project team determine if any corrective action is required to keep the project on track. Informal audits may be conducted by the project leader or project team during a project, including at the end of a sprint on an Agile project. A more formal, systematic audit conducted by someone external to the project, such as members of the project management office (PMO), may be used to make bigger decisions about a project's future or as a way to gather lessons learned after the project has ended. The Stage-Gate model, discussed in Lesson 2, also typically involves an audit in some form.

Quality Control (QC)

Quality control (QC) includes the techniques and activities used to detect quality defects in the project's deliverables. QC activities include inspection, statistical sampling and analysis, and testing. When initiating QC activities on a project, consider some of the following questions proposed in an article on the American Management Association's website:

  • Does each quality standard in the quality plan have QC activities assigned to it?
  • For each QC activity, consider the following:
    • What will be measured, how will it be measured, and who will perform the measurement activity?
    • How many times will the activity be performed (once, in batches, periodically)?
    • Where and when will the activity be performed (upon delivery, triggered by a specific event, at the end of the sprint or project)?
  • How will you determine if a QC action is producing the desired results?

Effective quality management requires integrated QA and QC activities. Throughout the project, the project team analyzes the results of the QC activities as part of the QA process to determine if any corrective actions are necessary.

Quality Management Tools

Project leaders typically draw from a range of tools when managing quality. Later in this appendix, we'll explore some commonly used quality tools, but it's worth noting that effective communication is often the most critical tool for managing quality over the course of a project. Brian Price, the former chief powertrain engineer for Harley-Davidson and an adjunct professor in the UW Master of Engineering in Engine Systems program, has this to say about the importance of good communication in quality project management:

To me, the most important aspects of quality management are to make sure there is clarity around understanding priorities and what matters to the customer – as well as ensuring that is well communicated, especially as things change over time. In my experience, most quality issues arise from incorrect assumptions, poor communication that results in team members or stakeholders working with outdated scope or quality definitions, and inadequate analysis of impacts when scope changes. That last one can be avoided by checking the iron triangle and making informed trade-offs to accommodate the changes.

Vera Martinovich, an engineering manager at Boeing, also emphasizes the importance of communication in quality management. In particular, she notes that a key component of quality planning and management is ensuring that you and your team understand the project's missions, purpose, and goals:

Take time to lay the foundation of the project and communicate it to your team. You should be able to state clearly why you are doing the project, how you will do it, and what you hope to accomplish. You want the team to use that foundation to help them make decisions as time goes on. If they know the why, they will use that information to tailor the work they do".

Although the tools used to manage quality on a project vary by industry and by project, quality management experts often rely on a core set of tools – called the seven basic tools of quality. The Engineering.com website provides this list of the seven basic quality tools used to analyze and represent quality-related data and resolve quality defects:

  • Check sheet
  • Histogram
  • Run chart
  • Control chart
  • Pareto chart.
  • Fishbone diagram
  • Scatter diagram

You can learn more about the tools listed here by reading the Engineering.com article, "The Seven Basic Tools of Quality," which provides more in-depth descriptions along with examples of each tool: https://new.engineering.com/story/the-seven-basic-tools-of-quality. As you do additional reading on quality management, you'll likely come across variations on this list.

The seven basic tools of quality provide a good starting point for project leaders new to quality management, but they represent just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the available tools and techniques for managing quality on a project. On the American Society for Quality website, you'll find descriptions of more than 60 different quality tools, including details on how to create them and when to use them. You can also access templates and Excel tools, along with suggested articles, case studies, and books related quality management. The Quality Tools page of the association's website is a good place to start: https://asq.org/quality-resources/quality-tools#Resources.