All the activities and processes needed to produce the deliverables should adhere to the process quality standards. If they don’t, then these deliverables might not meet the delivery quality standards. In order to address the problem of quality, a project quality plan is developed by the project manager to guide the team and the stakeholders of the quality requirements, standards and the quality assurance mechanisms of the project.
The Components of a Project Quality Plan
A project quality plan may differ according to the nature of the industry or project but there are a few components that are found in all types of quality plans:
- Management responsibility. All quality plans are controlled by management and the quality of the project is the main responsibility of project managers.
- Documentation. Project management communication depends on documentation. A project’s quality plan describes how to manage and control the documents needed in the project.
- Requirements scope. The project plan contains the correct requirements for implementation to ensure the quality assurance team of the proper way to validate them. Through the requirements scope, the team knows how to test and determine those activities that need to get out of the scope. Testing requirements that are not part of the scope is a waste of time and effort of the provider.
- Control of design. Oftentimes, there are design reviews to determine if the proposed technical design is correct. The design control specifies how the design phase is controlled because the client may come up with changes to the design which should be reviewed and signed-off.
- Development control. Once the project starts, all processes and procedures shall be closely monitored to ensure that the team is progressing in the right direction.
- Testing/quality assurance. An element describing the main quality assurance functions that helps in identifying clearly the quality objectives and the methods to achieve them.
- Risks and mitigation. All project management qualities identify project quality risks so they can prepare for appropriate mitigation plans to address potential risks.
- Audits. Periodic quality audits can help determine if the products and processes adhere to the quality standards. The quality audits to measure compliance can be done by an internal or an external team.
- Defect management. Typically, there are defects during testing and quality assurance. A project quality plan needs to contain guidelines in managing these defects.
- Training requirements. Project team members need a skill gap analysis to identify the training needed at the start of the project. The quality plan needs to indicate the required training and how the staff can get them.
Project quality management is essential and a quality plan is a mandatory document in any project. There is no other way to measure delivery and process quality if your project doesn’t have a quality plan.
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