A number of PMP® test takers have been posting queries to our discussion forum regarding the difference between Perform Quality Assurance and Control Quality Processes of Project Quality Management Knowledge Area. Since this is a crucial topic from PMP® exam point of view, I am offering a detailed perspective on both the processes in the blog today.
Let us understand the basics, i.e. what are these two processes actually.
As per the PMBOK® Guide – Performance quality process is
As the definition states, the process ensure that the project team is using appropriate quality standards and operational definitions while doing the project work. While doing quality planning based on project quality requirements, project team comes up with a quality management plan. This plan also recommends what steps or procedure, we need to follow to ensure that we produce quality deliverables. The Perform Quality Assurance process ensures that the team follows what has been agreed in the quality management plan, this process makes sure we build quality in. In other words, the process audits the way team is doing the work and analyzes the defect trends and recommend corrective and preventive actions.
Example Activities of Perform Quality Assurance Process
| Perform Quality Assurance | Control Quality |
|---|---|
| It’s an Executing Process Group process, so it gets executed when we are executing the project management plan | It’s a Monitoring and Controlling Process Group Process, so it uses the deliverables and data generated by executing process groups and compare them against the project management plan |
| The focus of this process is to ensure that team follows the quality management plan and produces the quality output | The focus of this process is to verify the output of Direct and manage project work (deliverable) for its adherence to project management plan (baselines) |
| This process uses tools like auditing to check how the team is complying the quality management plan | The process uses inspection as a tool to check how the output of executing process (deliverable) is adhering to the project management plan |
| This helps in building quality in the product | This helps in detecting defects left by executing a process so they do not reach to customers |
| The primary output of this process is change requests , these change requests focuses on the changes that need to be made in the quality management plan or executing processes so as to produce better quality products and prevent defects | The process produces many important outputs, for instance, it produces verified deliverables, which are further sent to customer for validation It also produces change request, primarily for the defects found in deliverables Since it’s a Monitoring and Controlling process group process it also produces a work Performance Information |
| The primary inputs for this process come from the quality management plan and the observations noted by the Control Quality Process. This process takes Quality control measurement into account while analyzing the execution process. | The primary input for this process is the deliverable which needs to be tested against the project management plan |
| Perform Quality Assurance is our first line of defense against producing non compliant product | Control Quality is our second line of defense which checks the product to verify is it good to deliver to the customer |
As per the PMBOK® Guide
Method of monitoring and record-keeping results of executing the quality activities to assess performance and recommend necessary changes.
As the definition states, the process is about executing the quality activities to assess the performance of deliverables produced by the project team. This process is a second line of defense to ensure that the customer does not get the non-compliant products. The control quality process looks at the deliverable and marks it verified if it is line with the project management plan, else it raises the change request in the form of a defect.
Example Activities of Control Quality Process
Raising defects in the form of the change request
Let us study an example to get more clear perspective.
Project- Develop software for tracking traffic information
First, you will do the planning you will plan how to ensure adherence to quality requirements. While you work on the deliverables, you will also put quality assurance processes in place to ensure that the quality procedures and steps are followed as expected. The assurance process may involve frequent audits, recommending changes in the development processes and training staff so they produce better deliverables. Once your deliverables are ready, like even if one module is ready, the Quality Control comes into the picture and the team will be looking finished deliverable and inspecting it for its conformance to project’s baselines. If any issues are found, they raise defects. The deliverables which looks good to the QC team are sent for customer acceptance testing.
To conclude, we can treat Perform Quality Assurance as a continuous guiding process which keeps reminding us to follow quality procedures to produce quality outputs while Quality Control is like a controller or a tester which asks the project team to show what they have produced and verifies whether it is good to go to the customer or not.
I hope this blog has sufficiently answered your all queries related to Quality Assurance and Quality control and how these two processes are different from one another. Good Luck with your PMP® Certification Exam.
Happy reading and do post follow up questions here on our Discussion Forum. You can also log into our YouTube channel watch the video on the related topics.
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