Quality Assurance

Program quality assurance examines whether the processes, standards and cross-component controls needed for acceptable outcomes are designed and operating effectively. The 2013 program-management reference used here emphasises its distinctive program-level concern: one project’s quality decision can affect another component, an integrated capability or the benefits the program is meant to realise.

When to use it

• Establish quality assurance during program definition and continue it throughout delivery, transition and closure.
• Use it when component projects share specifications, data, suppliers, interfaces, acceptance criteria or benefit dependencies.
• Align program teams and quality specialists on standards, evidence, escalation routes and improvement action.

Context

Quality planning defines requirements and methods, quality assurance evaluates whether the management system is adequate and followed, and quality control examines the characteristics of outputs. At program level these practices must be coordinated across projects and non-project work. Tailor the approach to regulatory exposure, stakeholder expectations, delivery methods and governance.

What it is

The reference artifact states the central program-level emphasis:

Quality Assurance. Quality planning, assurance, and control are continual on programs as explained in the Standard for Program Management—Third Edition (2013). At the program level, the emphasis on quality assurance is on cross-program, inter-project relationships. The program manager and his or her team, often working in conjunction with the Quality Department, focuses on a project’s quality specifications that may impact another project or the entire program. At the program level, quality assurance emphasizes analysis of the quality control results, drawing on the related impact-analysis guidance, of the various projects and non-project work to foster overall program quality.

In practice, assurance provides independent or appropriately objective confidence that quality requirements can be achieved. It reviews process design, compliance, capability, audit findings, control results, recurring defects and systemic causes. It is preventive and learning-oriented: the goal is to improve the system, not merely to inspect finished outputs or assign blame.