Project Toolkitby Maxime Lab
Scope and Quality · tool 8 of 9

Scope and Quality · tool 8 of 9

Quality Assurance and Quality Control

Quality Assurance and Quality Control: separates checking the process from checking the product.

Best for: Planning quality · Time: 1–2 hours
Domain: Scope · Focus area: Executing

How it works

Quality assurance asks whether we’re working in a way that should produce a good result, through audits and process reviews. Quality control asks whether this deliverable meets the specification, through inspection and tests. You need both.

  • QA prevents, QC detects.
  • Do quality work early; late fixes cost far more.
  • Fix causes rather than adding inspections.

How to apply it

  1. Define what “good” means, with measures.
  2. Decide on checks at each step.
  3. Audit the process at a milestone.
  4. Feed defects back into the process.
In practice

QC: test every release against acceptance criteria. QA: audit whether the team is actually running those tests.

Pro tip

If defects keep recurring, more inspection won’t help. Change how the work is done.

Use it

Quick check

Which is quality control?

Sources

  • PMBOK® Guide, 8th edition, and The Standard for Project Management (PMI, 2025)

Last reviewed 2026-11-02 against the PMBOK® Guide, 8th edition · Practitioner review pending · How this guide is made