Quality Management Plan
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Far to often project managers get too caught up in the project management plan and quality management gets left out of the picture. In the book Project Managing E-Learning, A Handbook for Successful Design, Delivery and Management (Lynch and Roecker 2007) it lists two main reasons that project managers give for not implementing a quality management plan.
In my opinion the second reason is why a quality management plan is overlooked. Quality management can be overwhelming when the main focus of the project is getting it done on time, on budget and delivering a good product. This is why the quality management plan is so important to be integrated with the project plan. The quality management plan should be used as an additional measure to produce a high quality product. The quality management plan allows the project manager to be proactive, fixing problems before they arise, thus saving money and time. It allows the PM to validate the quality of the deliverables as they are produced. This goes hand in hand with the triple constraints mentioned in Controlling The Project. Scope, time and resources should be monitored, evaluated and validated as the project moves forward, there has to be a balance between the three, or problems will arise leading to loss of time, loss of money, leading to inefficiency and a project that comes out less than perfect. Quality management is the icing on the cake, if you want your project to be delivered on time, on budget, finished and ready to use, then a quality management plan has to be implemented and used collectively with the project plan.
- It is to complicated to do a plan when the product and services haven’t even been piloted.
- The jargon of quality management is overwhelming. Differentiating between assessment and quality is difficult and confusing.
In my opinion the second reason is why a quality management plan is overlooked. Quality management can be overwhelming when the main focus of the project is getting it done on time, on budget and delivering a good product. This is why the quality management plan is so important to be integrated with the project plan. The quality management plan should be used as an additional measure to produce a high quality product. The quality management plan allows the project manager to be proactive, fixing problems before they arise, thus saving money and time. It allows the PM to validate the quality of the deliverables as they are produced. This goes hand in hand with the triple constraints mentioned in Controlling The Project. Scope, time and resources should be monitored, evaluated and validated as the project moves forward, there has to be a balance between the three, or problems will arise leading to loss of time, loss of money, leading to inefficiency and a project that comes out less than perfect. Quality management is the icing on the cake, if you want your project to be delivered on time, on budget, finished and ready to use, then a quality management plan has to be implemented and used collectively with the project plan.