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Quality versus Grade
The reason we’re looking at Quality versus Grade is that they are not the same concepts, and you will come across one or the other during the PMP exam. So you will need to know the difference between quality and grade.
What is the actual difference? Well quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements. In other words we’re checking whether it has met the requirements that we are wanting to deliver. If it’s yes, then we’re looking at high quality. Think of Quality Testing for example – when we’re quality testing we’re checking that our product meets those requirements. If it does not meet those requirements then it is of a Low quality, according to the Project Management Body of Knowledge.
Now that is different to Grade. Grade as a design intent is a category assigned to deliverables having the same functional use but different technical characteristics, and that’s how I remember it. Think would you give an “A”, or would you give this a “D” as a grade, thinking that you’re back at school.
For example for Apple products would usually get an “A” grade as they have a lot of features that are usually well looked upon.
So Grade is your feature set – is it a lot of features? Is it a high feature set that we really want?
Quality asks “Does it correctly deliver and meet all of those features that we are wanting to deliver?” and if it is yes, then it is a high quality.
So it might not be a problem if a suitable low grade, (i.e. a “D” grade) or a product with a limited number of features, is of a high quality. So it has a limited number of features, but it meets all those features. That might not be a problem. That’s fine. The product will be appropriate for its general purpose of use – not many features.
However, it might be a problem if a higher grade product (i.e. an “A” grade product) where we have a lot of features here and we are expecting a lot from this particular product. Now if that is of a low quality (so it doesn’t meet all those features when we’re delivering), it has many defects when we’re using it, then that could be a big problem. And apple probably wouldn’t have been around very long if that actually had happened, as you can imagine.
So the high-grade feature set – lots of features, nice things would prove ineffective and or inefficient due to the low quality where we’ve got many defects on those features.
And that is the difference between quality and grade.
– David McLachlan