Quality Control vs Verify Scope

In today’s blog post I am going to discuss the perform quality control process and the verify scope process, and the difference between these two processes. These processes play an important role in the monitoring and controlling process group to help you produce a defect free and compliant product. Complying means meeting all stated requirements.

As I said earlier, these processes are very important for you to build a good quality and acceptable product. These processes are also very important from a PMP exam point of view, because you are going to see a lot of questions about these processes. Therefore, understand these processes well.

There is another process – perform quality assurance – which is often misunderstood with perform quality control. Therefore, I have written another blog post to explain the difference between the quality assurance process and the quality control process.

Visit: quality assurance and quality control

Since both processes involve some inspection activities, you might think that they are similar processes; however, they are not the same. Both processes are different and are performed to achieve different objectives.

Anyway, let’s discuss them one by one.

Perform Quality Control

Perform quality control is a process belonging to the project quality management knowledge area, and is performed throughout the monitoring and controlling phase.

Quality control activities are performed internally during project execution to ensure that the product is defect free and all parameters are within the acceptable limits set in the quality control plan.

Here you will use tools like a cause and effect diagram, control chart, run chart, scatter diagram, inspection, etc.

The quality control activities are performed by the quality control engineer with the team members while executing the project.

Now let’s see a real world example of the quality control process.

Your company has gotten a government contract to build a 1000 km road. You have been appointed the project manager for this project, and you start working on it. You develop your team, and in the team you keep a quality control engineer to monitor the quality activities.

This quality control engineer will be available on site to check the quality of the work at each level. He will see if the received coal-tar is as per the specified quality in the contract, the stones are properly being crushed, the ground level is correct, and if the footpath is properly aligned, etc.

In the above example, the activities performed by the quality control engineer are known as quality control activities.

Now, let’s discuss the verify scope process.

Verify Scope

The verify scope process belongs to the project scope management knowledge area, and is performed during the monitoring and controlling phase of the project.

You can see that both the quality control and verify scope processes are performed during the monitoring and control phase of the project. This is the only similarity between these two processes.

The verify scope process is performed with the client at the end of the project to verify that the product is complete, all requirements are met, and that the product is ready to be accepted by the client.

The objective of the verify scope process is to get a formal acceptance from the client that the deliverable is acceptable to him.

Now let’s see verify scope activities in a real world example.

Let’s continue with the example given for the quality control process.

You have built the 100 km road and it is ready to be handed over to the government. You invite the authorities to come and inspect the completed part of the road and formally accept it.

The government representatives come and verify whether all the requirements have been met or not. They will check if the road width is correct, road leveling is okay, and the length of the completed part of the road.

Once these representatives are satisfied, they will formally accept the completed part of the road and you get the money for your work.

The above example shows verify scope activities.

Regarding the verify scope process, please note that it is not necessary that the verify scope process should always be performed at the end of the project. It can be happen far before the project ends. It can also be happen with the perform quality control process as you have seen in the given example.

In the given example, both processes are being performed in parallel. The representatives are verifying the scope for the completed part of the road with you, and at the same time your team is building the rest of the road.

Differences Between Quality Control and Verify Scope

The following are a few differences between the quality control and verify scope processes:

• The quality control process belongs to the project quality management knowledge area, and the verify scope process belongs to project scope management.
• Quality control activities are performed internally by team members. On the other hand, the verify scope process is performed by the project manager with the client.
• Quality control activities are performed during the project execution, and verify scope functions are performed usually at the end of the project or phase.
• The objective of the quality control process is to produce a defect free product, while the objective of verify scope is to get the deliverable accepted by the client.

Conclusion

Quality control and verify scope – these processes help you successfully complete your project. Quality control helps you create a good quality product, and the verify scope process helps you deliver the product to the client. Quality control activities are performed throughout the execution phase, and verify scope activities are needed when the deliverable is ready to be handed over.

Here is where this blog post on the quality control and verify scope ends. If you have something to share, you can do so through the comments section.