MSG Team's other articles

10003 The Internet of Things

The “internet of things” is the latest buzzword that can be heard in Silicon Valley. It is the newest avenue for innovation and bright minds all over the world are moving towards this rapidly advancing sector. Almost, every business report predicts a massive rise in the value of goods and service that will be enabled […]

9975 International Businesses and Resistance to their Activities

Global Capital, Local Resistance The previous articles in this module discussed how international businesses expand into overseas markets both for selling their products as well as to extract the resources in mineral rich countries. We discussed how the international expansion of these businesses has to equitable and follow the rules of justice. What happens when […]

9791 The Impact of GDPR on Business

The Internet has drastically changed in the past few years. Consumers have now become very aware of their privacy issues. Many consumers want to be in control of the data that they create and share online. Till now, the contracts used to be drawn by social media companies. Hence, they were heavily skewed to be […]

11452 Supply Chain Network Design & Contributing Factors

Designing Supply Chain Network for each industry or business involves arriving at a satisfactory design framework taking into all elements like product, market, process, technology, costs, external environment and factors and their impact besides evaluating alternate scenarios suiting your specific business requirements. No two supply chain designs can be the same. The network design will […]

12010 Why Project Managers Should Not Overpromise and Underestimate at the Same Time

The Perils of Overpromising It is often said that project management is both an art and a science. It is a science because project managers have to estimate time and cost that it takes to actualize the deliverables. It is an art, as they have to manage resources, people, and other stakeholders. In this context, […]

Search with tags

  • No tags available.

Project Management is the art and science of managing projects with emphasis on quality, cost and time. If we take the aspect of quality, this is one of the factors of the “triple constraint” that govern the art of project management.

Quality is defined as the degree to which the project meets the requirements (PMBOK, 2009). The operative word here is meeting the requirements and hence anything that is done that is not conforming to the requirements is said to be deviating from the norm of quality. In the subsequent paragraphs, we look at the distinction between quality management and the processes of quality control.

Quality management is the practice of drawing up plans that determine the standards that need to apply to the project, determining who would be involved in managing quality and their specific duties, meetings to determine if the project is conforming to the quality specifications laid out in the quality management plan and laying out the metrics that are used to measure quality.

As defined by the PMBOK, Project Quality Management is the comprehensive plan that includes all the components of the quality planning process (PMBOK, 2009).

Quality control, on the other hand, is the set of processes that measure the metrics of quality by assessing the specific project results against standards.

Quality control processes are done during project monitoring and controlling functions whereas quality management is done during the initiating and planning phase (PMBOK, 2009). Hence, quality control is the subset of quality management and is the final phase of the project management cycle.

Quality management is all encompassing and consist of laying down standards against which the project quality metrics are defined and need to be measured against. Quality management takes into account the lower level details of how the output of the project is to be tracked and measured.

Quality control is the process of ensuring that the quality metrics are met. Hence, while quality management is the process of planning and managing the requirements of the project from the perspective of quality, quality control is the process of measuring the level of output and the quality of the output and typically consists of measuring the output against the quality metrics that were decided upon in the quality management plan.

The reason that quality management and quality control are used interchangeably is due to the perception that quality control encompasses the planning aspect as well. This is certainly true in organizations that do not have a separate quality department and quality planning and quality control is the domain of the project management processes.

In organizations that have separate quality departments and where there is a well thought out quality plan, quality management and quality control are separate and are handled by different people.

In conclusion, quality management typically produces as its deliverables a comprehensive quality management plan that includes the quality control aspect of it. Quality control in this case is handled by a different set of people who do the tracking and measuring of metrics in a dedicated manner.

Typically, the process of quality management includes the representatives from the quality department and the quality control processes are the reverse with the quality department handling the tracking of metrics and reporting to the project management team.

Quality control is an independent audit of the quality of deliverables and is necessary for the sign off of the project.

Article Written by

MSG Team

An insightful writer passionate about sharing expertise, trends, and tips, dedicated to inspiring and informing readers through engaging and thoughtful content.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles

Costs in Project Management – Costs associated with the Projects

MSG Team

Communications Management during Project Planning

MSG Team

Bidding as an Essential Skill for Project Managers

MSG Team