Marginalia
Project Quality Management is one of the most difficult areas of project management: At first you often hear the susurration «work properly and you don't need the bothering quality management» - without reflecting that one has to reflect what «proper» means. And secondly the team member concerned with tasks of quality management are often viewed as «boring mistake seeker», who permanently communicate what is wrong, not what is good. And these viewpoints are more or less openly stated, although one knows: without managing the quality the degree of the reached quality is an accidentally result. Even if organizing a good communication is normally one of the most extensive work of the project manager, this is especially true for the integration of quality management into a project.
Project Quality Management
The Project Quality Management has to plan and execute all those "[...] activities of the performing organization that determine quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken": the main target is to establish a "quality management system". And this establishing is organized by following the pattern of «plan», «execute», and «control»:
- At first one has to plan the quality by "identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how to satisfy them".
- Secondly one has to assure the quality by "applying the planned, systematic quality activities to ensure that the project employs all processes needed to meet the requirements"
- And last but not least one has to control the quality by "monitoring specific project results to determine whether they comply with relevant quality standards and identifying ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance".
(comp. PMBOK3, p. 179)