The seven key principles of project quality management originate from a proactive, customer-focused management philosophy and are consistent with other project management practices we have reviewed. By utilizing these principles, a project manager keeps the quality requirements aligned with both the project and the key stakeholders and gives the project the best opportunity to deliver on the quality success factor.
The seven key principles to managing project quality include the following:
- Identify targets—This is the critical first step in the process. Make sure you identify both the customer’s quality expectations as part of the requirements gathering process and the quality/compliance/security expectations demanded from other key stakeholders, whether these are internal quality departments or external compliance agencies. This is the most common reason for not meeting quality expectations—they are never completely identified.
TipQuality is planned in, not inspected in. Effective project management is quality-focused. - Plan it—Quality is planned in, not inspected in. After you determine the quality level requirements, you must then decide how to meet these requirements. With the quality level targets clearly identified, you can structure the overall approach of the project, allocate resources, and assign necessary tasks to give yourself the best opportunity to meet the quality expectations. In some form or another, you should document and communicate your plan for quality management on the project. Often, this is accomplished using a Quality Management Plan document, which is part of your overall project plan.
- Right-size it—Like other project management processes, use the appropriate level of rigor and formality to meet the needs of the project. In other words, match the investment in quality procedures with the risk level and other critical success factors. For example, does the project need to produce a zero-defect product that must pass FDA validation audits, or is the project more exploratory in nature—a “quick-and-dirty” initiative?
- Set expectations—This principle focuses on two key aspects. One, make sure the customer’s quality expectations are aligned with the project’s needs and the quality management approach to be taken. And two, if the effort (time, costs) to satisfy all quality requirements conflicts with either the schedule or budget constraints on the project, then you must facilitate a compromise via risk analysis and planning scenarios that results in a prioritization of quality management efforts or an adjustment in critical success factor balance.
- Stay customer-focused—Underlying the entire project quality management philosophy is a focus on the customer experience. This means doing things such as defining requirements from the customer’s perspective, asking the right questions to uncover the other requirements that will affect the customer’s perception of the final solution, validating from the customer’s perspective, and clearly communicating (and getting buy-in) on why other quality requirements must be satisfied, too.
- Trust, but verify—This is a tangible example of an overall project management principle: assume nothing. Whether it is work assigned to a project team member, a supplier, or some other external party, always perform some level of verification to ensure the resulting work package meets the targeted completion criteria.
- It’s up to you!—The project manager has ultimate responsibility for the project quality. Although many aspects of quality management are organizational in nature, and you need the support of senior management to make it stick, you are still responsible for the quality success criteria, as you are for the entire project. To this extent, this is why is focused on elements the project manager can control or influence.
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