Difference between Project Management and Quality Management

Since projects are engines of strategic growth and innovation for businesses. Project Management constructs the building blocks of a project by redefining the project scope and collecting the project requirements. Aligning organizational goals results in trackable data that a specialist monitors.

A qualified project manager can develop a precise plan to achieve the project's objectives without exceeding an approved budget limit. A few key elements of quality management are gaining ground in project management, including quality control, kaizen (continuous improvement), value-added management, and project planning tools and techniques.

Essential Navigaters in Complex Project Workflow:

The fundamentals of Project Management depend on breaking down information into a sequence of tasks, activities, and decision points involved in an approved project. The classification below between Projects and Operations will lay the bedrock of what the project manager is expected to achieve.

• Business Projects assigned to a project manager are non-repetitive in nature. Thus, they involve creating something new or implementing change. Projects are highly valuable because they reinvent the workflow dynamics, as required.
• Business Operations comprise other routine tasks that must be renewed to ensure continuity. These routine operations have no specific end date for completion. The simplistic workflow is fixed and expected to be completed on the same day.

When aiming to meet a certain standard in defined quality standards to satisfy customer expectations, the Project Manager has to report the stages of development as they occur simultaneously—classified into three key areas.

1.) New Scope The new scope steers the project in a direction that considers all available options. The project scope helps determine goals, constraints, workflow management strategies, and tasks; its inception is crucial.

2.) Ongoing Project Project maintenance is an ongoing process for an approved project. Over time, updates occur in the product, which is essential for monitoring project development. The ongoing project includes technical skills that will enable continuous support for end users, rectify errors, and resolve necessary alignment issues.

3.) One-Time Project Delivering projects on time means avoiding a backlog of old projects. The art of project planning involves calculating the cost of risk management and maintaining the project budget’s minimum overrun costs, which are vital to achieving on-time projects.

Key Difference: Project Management vs. Quality Management

Highlight the interconnected relationship between the complexity of quality management and project management. It becomes essential to constantly assess the quality of all activities and take corrective action until the designated project coordinating team achieves the desired standard.

Let's explore the key distinctions that distinguish project management from quality management.

1.) Focus Area:

• Project Management: The project focuses on delivering the decided outputs within the defined scope, time, and budget. Planning, organizing, and overseeing resource allocation activate the stages necessary to complete the assigned project.
• Quality Management: The project aims to achieve outputs meeting prerequired standards and specifications. It focuses on continuous improvement. Quality managers emphasize maintaining the quality of processes, products, and services throughout the project lifecycle. Their detail-oriented approach makes them rigorous and technical.

2.) Goals:

• Project Management: The goal is to deliver the project on time while meeting stakeholders' needs and expectations. The project manager determines the project scope and allocates resources according to the project budget.
• Quality Management: A quality manager ensures that the final product or service meets the pre-defined quality standards. The aim is to deliver a product or service that satisfies customer expectations, creating a more significant ripple effect on business products and services. Hence, consistency, performance, and defect-free results are landmarks of quality management.

3.) Processes:

• Project Management: The designated project manager is responsible for the various processes incorporated into a project, such as initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and closing. The general focus remains on handling the project lifecycle and resource utility to manage the cost of production.
• Quality Management: Quality management heads the processes of secure quality planning, assurance, control, and continuous improvement. They ensure that the standards are met and traced by the scope of improvement throughout the project to fine-tune the output.

4.) Scope:

• Project Management: Its scope is broad and includes all aspects of project delivery, including scope management, time management, cost management, resource management, and stakeholder management. Project management drives negotiation and strong leadership throughout the project lifecycle.
• Quality Management: Its scope views more intricate details of the quality specialization while concentrating on implementing and monitoring quality standards. The designated quality manager processes to ensure the project's outputs adhere to the high quality to be of the value proposition for the organization of the delivery of the project.

5.) Methods and Tools:

• Project Management: Project Tools such as spreadsheets and a timeline named Gantt charts, project schedules, work breakdown structures (WBS), risk management techniques, and project management software are frequently utalised.
• Quality Management: Methods such as Six Sigma, Total Quality Management (TQM), Statistical Process Control (SPC), and quality audits are applied to ensure the product meets the desired quality levels.

6.) Scope of Responsibility:

• Project Management: The project manager is responsible for delivering the overall project and coordinating all its aspects.
• Quality Management: The quality manager or team is specifically responsible for overseeing and ensuring compliance with quality procedures, policies, and standards.

7.) Approach to Changes:

• Project Management: Reforms and changes are incorporated to proceed with a change in control, and they focus on assessing their impacts on scope, time, and cost.
• Quality Management: Changes are often related to improving or adjusting quality standards, processes, or testing methods to ensure better results.

8.) Output:

• Project Management: The output is the successful completion of a project that meets its objectives (scope, time, cost) and delivers the desired results.
• Quality Management: The output is a product or service that meets quality standards, is free from defects, and performs consistently.

9.) Risk Management:

• Project Management: Focuses on identifying, assessing, and managing risks that may affect the project’s objectives, timeline, or budget.
• Quality Management: Focuses on identifying and mitigating risks that could affect the quality of the project’s output or processes.

Managing resources in project management varies from personnel, finances, technology, and intellectual property. Hence, a globally renowned certification in project management by Beingcert can help you embark on your leap to mid-level management with industry-ready skills. Streamlining the project budget will be crucial for minimizing cost overruns.

According to top leaders, the three most important things for future success are being able to quickly change how your organization works (35%), making smart choices about the technology (like PPM Express) you use (32%), and having the right skills (31%).

Conclusion

Organizations increasingly opt for project management to achieve their strategic quality objectives in formulating a project initiation structure. The value proposition achieved through a subset of project management, called quality management adds the distinction on the offered quality and services, making the business indebted to calculative risk assessment through a certified Project Management aptitude.

Although project Management looks into multidisciplinary solutions to integrate a cohesive value addition to project planning, the objective remains to enhance quality and foster accountability. That is why businesses perform comprehensive risk assessments with the guidance of experienced, certified project managers. It’s an exciting time for growth and improvement!

Orchestrate the next-level growth and innovation strategy aligned with the outstanding certification by a Certified Project Management Professional at Beingcert to unlock your organization's potential.