What is it?!
A project quality plan (PQP), sometimes referred to as a quality management plan, quality assurance plan or project quality management plan, is a project-specific quality plan that describes the activities, standards, tools and processes necessary to achieve quality in the delivery of a project.
Benefits
Quality planning is important because neglecting quality makes it harder to deliver a successful project. Before the execution of the project, the project manager sets the standards to meet in order to qualify the project as a success.
Not only does the project manager define the standards for success, but also the steps necessary to meet those standards. That’s why quality planning is part of the overall project planning phase; it also impacts other areas of the plan, such as costs, scheduling, etc. Without taking this extra step when planning a project, you increase the risk that your stakeholder will not be satisfied with the final deliverable.
A project manager also needs to determine the scope of what will be measured, and the metrics to measure. That quality assurance includes audits, testing, peer review and other measures. All of this requires interviewing stakeholders to understand what their expectations are.