Quality Management
The old adage about quality being in the eyes of the beholder is true - quality is ultimately measured by your client. Your goal is to understand the client’s requirements and expectations - and then meet those expectations. This is a critical concept about quality. Sometimes there is a tendency to think that ‘quality’ means the best material, the best equipment and absolutely zero defects. However, in most cases, the client does not expect, and cannot afford, a perfect solution. On the other hand, a flawlessly designed, defect-free solution that does not meet the client’s needs is not considered high quality.
Determine the client requirements for quality
Work with your client to determine their requirements for quality. These are the detailed characteristics that are important to the customer. The high-level characteristics of quality can be uncovered during the project definition process. The detailed quality requirements should be uncovered when you gather business requirements.
Create a Quality Plan
Develop a Quality Plan to identify the major deliverables, completeness and correctness criteria, quality control activities and quality assurance activities. The Quality Plan allows you to understand when the deliverables are complete as well as how to show they are correct. The Quality Plan also describes how you will ensure that the client’s quality requirements are achieved. It is the place to describe the processes and activities that will be put into place to ensure that quality deliverables are produced. The Quality Plan describes the quality assurance and quality control activities used on the project. The actual activities needed to implement these processes need to be identified and included in the schedule to ensure they are completed.
