HKSM

Defines how the project will meet quality expectations—what “good” looks like, which metrics will be used, how work will be verified and accepted, and who is responsible for quality activities.

Purpose & When to Use

• Set a clear, shared view of quality goals, metrics, and acceptance criteria for the project and its deliverables.
• Decide how to prevent defects, how to check work, and how to handle nonconformance and rework.
• Align with organizational quality policies, standards, and any legal or regulatory requirements.
• Use early in planning and update whenever requirements, scope, risks, suppliers, or standards change.

Mini Flow (How It’s Done)

• Review needs and rules: requirements, stakeholder expectations, organizational standards, and regulations.
• Set quality objectives that support project and product goals, including priorities and tolerances.
• Select measurable metrics and thresholds; write clear operational definitions for how each metric is measured.
• Choose prevention and control approaches (e.g., training, checklists, peer reviews, testing, sampling) and balance cost of quality.
• Plan quality activities and integrate them into the schedule and budget (audits, reviews, inspections, tests).
• Define roles and responsibilities for quality work, approvals, and sign-off.
• Plan data collection, tools, templates, and reporting cadence for quality performance.
• Define defect and change handling: logging, triage, root cause analysis, rework, and escalation paths.
• Plan supplier quality and acceptance requirements and ensure contracts reflect these needs.
• Document outputs: Quality Management Plan, quality metrics, checklists, acceptance criteria, and updates to the plan and registers.

Quality & Acceptance Checklist

• Quality objectives linked to business and project goals.
• Defined metrics with units, data source, sampling method, frequency, and thresholds.
• Acceptance criteria for each deliverable, including how acceptance will be verified.
• Entry and exit criteria for reviews, inspections, and tests.
• Prevention actions: standards, design guidelines, training, peer reviews, and checklists.
• Control actions: inspections, test types, sampling plans, and defect recording.
• Defect workflow: logging, prioritization, root cause analysis, rework, and retest.
• Tolerances and control limits for key measures where applicable.
• Data collection plan and quality reporting schedule.
• Supplier quality requirements and acceptance gates.
• Compliance and regulatory obligations and how they will be evidenced.
• Cost of quality considerations included in estimates and budget.
• Authority for approvals and final acceptance, including sign-off roles.
• Continuous improvement approach and triggers for plan updates.

Common Mistakes & Exam Traps

• Confusing quality with grade; low-grade features can be high quality if they meet stated needs and are defect free.
• Over-relying on inspection; prevention activities are generally more effective and cheaper than fixing defects later.
• Skipping operational definitions, leading to unclear metrics and disputes during acceptance.
• Not integrating quality activities into the schedule and budget, causing late surprises and cuts.
• Mixing processes: planning metrics and acceptance belongs here; performing audits is Manage Quality; measuring results is Control Quality.
• Delaying acceptance criteria until closeout; define them early to guide design and testing.
• Gold plating by adding extra quality beyond requirements without sponsor agreement.
• Ignoring stakeholder tolerance for variation and risk when setting thresholds.
• Failing to update the plan when requirements, risks, or suppliers change.
• Mixing up verification (did we build it right) and validation (did we build the right thing).

PMP Example Question

While planning, the team is debating which defect rate threshold and sampling method to use for incoming materials. What should the project manager do next?

1. Begin inspections and adjust thresholds later based on early results.
2. Document the chosen metrics, thresholds, and sampling approach in the Quality Management Plan.
3. Schedule a quality audit to verify if the supplier follows their internal procedures.
4. Raise a change request to add more testing resources to the execution team.

Correct Answer: B — Document the chosen metrics, thresholds, and sampling approach in the Quality Management Plan.

Explanation: Selecting metrics and how to measure them is part of planning. Audits and execution resource changes happen after the plan defines the quality approach.