Project Quality Management and its Processes & Tools | AIMS UK

“Quality management in project management uses policies and procedures to implement, within the project’s context, the organization’s quality management system, and, as appropriate, it supports continuous process improvement activities as undertaken on behalf of the performing organization. Project Quality Management works to ensure that the project requirements, including product requirements, are met and validated.”

It is a measure of exactness. Precision in project quality management 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.

It 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.

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.

Perform Quality Assurance is the process of auditing the quality requirements and the results from quality control measurements to ensure that appropriate quality standards and operational definitions are used. The key benefit of this process is that it facilitates the improvement of project quality management processes.

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. The key benefit of this process is that it provides guidance and direction on how quality will be managed and validated throughout the project, and it is one of the key roles and responsibilities of a project manager once the project scope is clear and understood.

Project Quality Management Tools and Techniques:

“Project quality management tools and techniques are most helpful in identifying problems with quality. Kaoru Ishikawa developed these seven tools, and they are suitable for people with little formal training in statistics. They can be used to solve the vast majority of quality-related issues.”

1. Cause-and-Effect diagrams:

It is also known as fishbone diagrams or as Ishikawa diagrams. This tool helps you explore the causes that might be producing the problem. It is very important for you to know the real cause of the problem before you start thinking about any possible solution. The fishbone diagram gives you a comprehensive list of possible causes to identify the root cause of the problem. The fishbone diagram uses a brainstorming technique to collect the causes and come up with a kind of mind map which shows you all identified causes graphically. Sometimes it happens that the most obvious cause turns out to be minor and the cause thought to be a minor one was causing the issue. It gives you an opportunity to think more thoroughly about the root cause of the problem, which leads to a robust resolution. The fishbone diagram forces you to consider all possible causes of a problem instead of focusing on the most obvious one. Here causes are grouped into several categories to easily identify the correct source of the variation.

2. Flow Charts:

A flowchart graphically depicts the relationships between and among steps. They typically show activities, decision points, and the flow or order of steps in a process. Flowcharts may prove useful in understanding and estimating the cost of quality in a process. This is obtained by using the workflow branching logic and associated relative frequencies to estimate the expected monetary value for the conformance and non-conformance work required to deliver the expected conforming output.

3. Check Sheets:

It is also known as tally sheets and may be used as a checklist when gathering data. Checksheets are used to organize facts in a manner that will facilitate the effective collection of useful data about a potential quality problem. In project quality management, they are especially useful for gathering attribute data while performing inspections to identify defects. For example, data about the frequencies or consequences of defects collected in check sheets are often displayed using Pareto diagrams.

4. Control Charts:

Control charts measure the results of processes over time and display the results in graph form. Control charts are a way to measure variances to determine whether process variances are in control or out of control. A control chart is based on sample variance measurements. From the samples chosen and measured, the mean and standard deviation are determined. In the control chart, there is a center line called the mean or goal which is surrounded by other lines called limits. These lines are the upper control limit and lower control limit (UCL and LCL). These lines are again surrounded by two other lines known as the upper specification limit and lower specification limit. Upper and lower specification limits are provided in the contract and you cannot cross them. This is your final limit. The upper and lower control limit is determined by the project manager so that specific limits are not crossed, and if the process goes above this limit, corrective action must be taken. If 99.73% (3-sigma) of all the points fall between the upper and lower control limits, you will say that the process is under control.

5. Pareto Chart:

Pareto charts 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 a small number of causes (20 percent) create the majority of the problems (80 percent). His theory is that you get the most benefit if you spend the majority of your time fixing the most important problems. Pareto charts are displayed as histograms that rank-order the most important factors—such as delays, costs, and defects, for example—by their frequency over time.

6. Histograms:

It is a special form of bar chart and is used to describe the central tendency, dispersion, and shape of a statistical distribution. A histogram is a bar graph that shows frequency data. Histograms provide the easiest way to evaluate the distribution of data. Histograms can be used to determine the distribution of errors.

7. Scatter diagrams:

Scatter diagrams in project quality management use two variables, one called an independent variable, which is an input, and one called a dependent variable, which is an output. Scatter diagrams display the relationship between these two elements as points on a graph. This relationship is typically analyzed to prove or disprove cause-and-effect relationships. As an example, maybe your scatter diagram plots the ability of your employees to perform a certain task. The length of time (in months) they have performed this task is plotted as the independent variable on the X axis, and the accuracy they achieve in performing this task, which is expressed as a score—the dependent variable—is plotted on the Y axis. The scatter diagram can then help you determine whether cause-and-effect (in this case, increased experience over time versus accuracy) can be proved. Scatter diagrams can also help you look for and analyze the root causes of problems. The important point to remember about scatter diagrams is that they plot the dependent and independent variables, and the closer the points resemble a diagonal line, the closer these variables are related.