CHAPTER 3

QUALITY ASSURANCE

3.1. Process checklists

3.2.  Benchmarking
3.3. Quality (project) Audit
3.4. The PCDA(Plan, Do, Check, and Act)
Cycle
 Project Quality Assurance

 Meaning
 The PMBOK® Guide defines quality assurance as “…
the application of planned, systematic quality activities
to ensure that the project will employ all processes
needed to meet requirements.”
 Quality assurance can be defined as “all the planned and
systematic activities implemented within the quality
system to provide confidence that the project will
satisfy the relevant quality standards.
 This logically follows quality planning, as the processes
employed must satisfy the standards that were identified
during the quality planning process.
 “Quality assurance” can be a somewhat troublesome term.
 Often, “quality assurance” is used in conversation and
writing when the term “quality control” would be more
accurate and more properly applied.
 This may be because people are not well informed about
the difference between the two.
 Or, assuming equivalent meaning, people consider
“assurance” to be a nicer, less offensive word than
“control,” which may have strongly negative, personal
associations.
 Whatever the reason for possible confusion, the project
team must understand the difference between assurance
and control.
 Both are essential elements of quality management and
both are necessary for project success.
 Briefly, quality assurance addresses the program; it is
the combined set of activities that the project team will
perform to meet project objectives.
 Quality control addresses the outcomes; it is monitoring
performance and doing something about the results.
 Quality Assurance The key words in the PMBOK®
Guide definition are “planned, systematic
activities.”
 The activities are the things that the project team
will do to determine if project performance is
meeting the requirements of quality and other
standards.
 The activities are the things the project team will
do to check project performance against the project
plan using specifications as the targets.
 For the sake of clarity, we define quality assurance
activities to start when the key project stakeholders
approve the project plan and the focus of activities
shifts from strictly planning to mostly execution.
 Quality assurance activities continue until the final
project deliverables are complete.
 Quality assurance follows quality planning as the
third stage in the five-stage project quality process
model and runs largely parallel with project quality
control.
 Assurance is the activity of providing evidence to create
confidence among all stakeholders that the quality-related
activities are being performed effectively; and that all planned
actions are being done to provide adequate confidence that a
product or service will satisfy the stated requirements for
quality.
 Quality Assurance is a process to provide confirmation based on
evidence to ensure to the donor, beneficiaries, organization
management and other stakeholders that product meet needs,
expectations, and other requirements.
 It assures the existence and effectiveness of process and
procedures tools, and safeguards are in place to make sure that the
expected levels of quality will be reached to produce quality
outputs.
 Quality assurance occurs during the implementation phase
of the project and includes the evaluation of the overall
performance of the project on a regular basis to provide
confidence that the project will satisfy the quality standards
defined by the project.
 One of the purposes of quality management is to find errors
and defects as early in the project as possible. Therefore, a
good quality management process will end up taking more
effort hours and cost upfront.
 The goal is to reduce the chances that products or
services will be of poor quality after the project has been
completed.
 Quality assurance is done not only to the products
and services delivered by the project but also to the
process and procedures used to manage the project,
that includes the way the project uses the tools,
techniques and methodologies to manage scope,
schedule, budget and quality.
 Quality assurance also includes the project meets
any legal or regulatory standards.
 3.1. Process Checklists

 Process checklists  project audits and PCDA cycle  are the

frequently used methods used for project quality assurance.
 Process checklists are special types of data collection forms in
which processes may be easily verified on the form.
Developing Assurance Activities
 Developing assurance activities involves more than delegation.
 Coherent, integrated activities arise from a disciplined process of
steps:
1. Select the relevant standard or specification.
2. Using operational definitions, define an activity that will collect data
and compare results to the plan. Develop and apply metrics.
3. Define and provide resources.
4. Assign responsibility to a specific entity.
Metrics

 Recall that metrics are a means of measurement to determine the degree

of conformance to specifications.
 They close the loop and link together requirements, specifications,
assurance activities, and the metrics themselves.
 See the examples below.
 Requirement (generally stated) — “Responsive telephone hotline
service.”
 Specification (specific and measurable) — “Answer 99 percent of
hotline service calls within one ring.”
 Assurance activity (action to be taken) — Determine percentage of
calls answered on one ring during a forty-eight-hour period.
 Metric (means of measurement) — Percentage of calls answered on
one ring.
Quality Journey: Quality Assurance Activities.

Customers

Requirements

Specifications

QA Activities
3.2. Benchmarking
 Project management benchmarking is the process of
continuously comparing the project management
practices of your organization with the practices of
leaders anywhere in the world; its goal is to gain
information to help you improve your own performance.
 The information obtained through benchmarking might
be used to help you improve your processes and the way
in which those processes are executed, or the information
might be used to help your company become more
competitive in the marketplace.
 Benchmarking is a continuous effort of analysis and evaluation.
 Care must be taken in deciding what to benchmark. It is
impossible and impractical to evaluate every aspect of project
management.
 It is best to decide on those few critical success factors that
must go right for your business to flourish.
 For project management benchmarking, the critical success
factors are usually the key business processes and how they are
integrated.
 If these key success factors do not exist, then the organization’s
efforts may be hindered.
 Deciding what information to benchmark against is
usually easier than obtaining that information.
 Locating some information will require a critical
search. Some information may be hard to find.
 Some information you would find helpful might not
be available for release because the organization that
has it views it as proprietary.
 Identifying the target companies against which you
should benchmark may not be as easy as you believe.
 Benchmarking has become common since it was first popularized by
Xerox during the 1980s.
 Benchmarking is an essential ingredient for those companies that have
won the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige Award.
 Most of these award winners readily share their project management
experiences.
 Unfortunately, there are some truly excellent companies in project
management that have not competed for these awards because they do
not want their excellence displayed.
 Benchmarking for project management can be accomplished through
surveys, questionnaires, attending local chapter meetings of the Project
Management Institute (PMI), and attending conferences and
symposiums.
 Personal contacts often provide the most valued sources of information.
 Benchmarking should not be performed unless your
organization is willing to make changes.
 The changes must be part of a structured process
that includes evaluation, applicability, and risk
management.
 Benchmarking is part of the strategic planning
process for project management that results in an
action plan ready for implementation.
 Quality assurance includes all the activities related to
satisfying the relevant quality standards for a project.
 Another goal of quality assurance is continuous
quality improvement.
 Benchmarking generates ideas for quality
improvements by comparing specific project
practices or product characteristics to those of other
projects or products within or outside the performing
organization.
3.2. Quality Audits

 The primary mechanism for determining the effectiveness of

quality assurance activities is the quality audit.
 Any audit is a structured review of performance against the
plan.
 A quality audit is a structured, independent review to determine
whether project activities comply with organizational and project
policies, processes, and procedures.
 Quality audits are structured reviews of the quality management
activities that help identify lessons learned that can improve the
performance on current or future project activities.
 The audit may use results obtained from quality control to
determine if quality assurance activities are having the desired
result.
 If results do not show conformance to specification,
quality assurance activities should be reviewed and
improved.
 Quality assurance audits may be conducted on a scheduled basis (for
instance, at the completion of major milestones) or may be conducted
at random (for instance, only if quality control results exceed certain
thresholds or the boss decides to initiate an audit out of the blue).
 Quality assurance audits may be conducted by internal or external
elements.
 Audits are performed by project staff or consultants with expertise in
specific areas.
 External audits often provide more objective results and are often more
respected by third parties, such as higher level management.
 The purpose of quality audit is to review how the project
is using its internal processes to produce the
products and services it will deliver to the
beneficiaries.
 Its goal is to find ways to improve the tools, techniques
and processes that create the products and services.
 A quality audit is a structured review of specific quality
management activities that help identify lessons learned that
could improve performance on current or future projects.
 If corrective actions are needed, these must be approved
through the change control processes.
3.4. The PDCA Cycle

 The most popular tool used to determine quality assurance is the

Shewhart Cycle.
 This cycle for quality assurance consists of four steps: Plan, Do,
Check, and Act.
 These steps are commonly abbreviated as PDCA.
 The four quality assurance steps within the PDCA model stand
for:
1. Plan: Establish objectives and processes required to deliver the
desired results.
2. Do: Implement the process developed.
3. Check: Monitor and evaluate the implemented process by
testing the results against the predetermined objectives.
4. Act: Apply actions necessary
The PDCA Cycle Cont..

 The PDCA is an effective method for monitoring quality

assurance because it analyzes existing conditions and
methods used to provide the product or service to
beneficiaries.
 The goal is to ensure that excellence is inherent in every
component of the process.
 Quality assurance also helps determine whether the steps
used to provide the product or service is appropriate for the
time and conditions.
 In addition, if the PDCA cycle is repeated throughout the
lifetime of the project helping improve internal efficiency.
 The PDCA Cycle Cont…
 The PDCA cycle is a never-ending cycle of improvement.
 Quality assurance demands a degree of detail in order to be fully
implemented at every step. Planning, for example, could include
investigation into the quality of the raw materials used in
manufacturing, the actual assembly, or the inspection processes
used.
 The Checking step could include beneficiary feedback or surveys
to determine if beneficiary needs are being met or exceeded and
why they are or are not. Acting could mean a total revision in the
delivery process in order to correct a technical flaw.
The PDCA Cycle Cont…

 The goal to exceed stakeholder expectations in a

measurable and accountable process is provided by
quality assurance.

 Quality Assurance is used to verify that the project

processes are sufficient so that if they are being
adhered to the project deliverables will be of good
quality. 
The PDCA Cycle Cont…

Assurance vs. Control

 Quality assurance is often confused with quality
control; quality control is done at the end of a process
or activity to verify that quality standards have been
met.
 Quality control by itself does not provide quality,
although it may identify problems and suggest ways to
improving it.
 In contrast, quality assurance is a systematic
approach to obtaining quality standards.
The PDCA Cycle Cont…

 Quality assurance is something that must be planned

for from the earliest stages of a project, with
appropriate measures taken at every stage.
 Unfortunately far too many development projects are
implemented with no quality assurance plan, and
these projects often fail to meet quality expectations
of the donor and beneficiaries.
 To avoid problem the project must be able to
demonstrate the consistent compliance with the
quality requirements for the project.
 A quality assurance plan should include at least the following
elements:
1. The work breakdown structure reference number for the task
concerned
2. A statement of the requirement (usually from the customer)
3. A statement of the specification that is specific and
measurable
4. A description of the assurance activity (what is to be done)
5. Schedule information (when it is to be done).
6. Designation of the responsible entity (who will do it)
 Figure A. quality assurance plan
WBS Requirement Specification Assurance Schedule Responsible
Ref Activity Entity

(from (specific and (what is to be (when it will (who will do

customer) measurable) done) be done) it)

Case Study: Task A — Select some aspect of

your own work and prepare a one-line entry in
the quality assurance plan format shown in the
above Figure . Be specific about what will be
done, when it will be done, and who will do it.
Summary

 Quality assurance is the application of planned, systematic quality

activities to ensure that the project will employ all processes
needed to meet requirements identified during quality planning.
 Quality assurance addresses the program; it is the combined set of
activities that the project team will perform to meet project
objectives.
 Quality control addresses the outcomes; it is about monitoring
performance and doing something about the results.
 Defining quality assurance activities is the fourth step in a seven-
step quality journey that provides a general framework for quality
management.
 Quality assurance activities are based on specifications and
operational definitions.
 They include identified resources and responsible entities.
 Metrics are the means of measurement that link requirements,
specifications, assurance activities, and the metrics
themselves.
 The quality assurance plan lists all assurance activities in one
place to assist in managing project quality.
 Preparing a quality assurance plan is the fifth step in the
quality journey.
 Quality audits are structured reviews of the quality system.
 They may be scheduled or random and conducted by internal
or external elements.
END of Chapter 3