Separate checking from helping

What you will understand

• Identify assurance activities performed for board interests.
• Distinguish support administration from independent oversight.
• Separate project assurance from quality control and organisational quality assurance.

The idea

Several people can read the same report for different reasons. One person may format it, another may challenge its reliability on behalf of the board, and a third may inspect a product mentioned in it. The document does not determine the role. Purpose, accountability and independence determine what kind of work is being performed.

Project assurance helps the board obtain confidence that the project is being conducted appropriately. Business assurance examines matters such as justification and sound use of resources; user assurance examines user needs and expected benefits; supplier assurance examines the technical and delivery interests. Board members are accountable for assurance in their areas. They may perform checks themselves or delegate suitable activities to people with relevant skills and sufficient independence.

Assurance must be independent of the project manager’s management of the project. The manager cannot provide the board with independent assurance about their own management decisions. Assurance should be planned and proportionate: a specialist might examine whether a migration plan realistically protects service continuity, report concerns to the relevant board member and follow up agreed actions. Assurance is not an extra management layer taking over every project-manager decision.

Project support provides practical assistance with project administration, information, tools and established procedures. It may help maintain registers, arrange meetings, administer a planning tool or compile report data. The project manager retains support responsibilities when a separate support role is not appointed. Accurate records make oversight possible, but maintaining those records does not by itself make support independent assurance. Self-checking must not be presented as independent oversight.

Quality control concerns whether a specific product meets its defined quality specifications. A tester inspecting data accuracy is performing quality control, even if the results later inform project assurance. Quality assurance has a different organisational focus: confidence that suitable quality standards and procedures exist and are followed. It is typically independent of the project management team. These activities can share evidence while answering different questions.

A useful decision sequence is to ask what the task is trying to establish. Is it helping the team run its management procedures? That points to support. Is it independently checking project conduct for a board interest? That points to project assurance. Is it examining the fitness of a particular product? That points to quality control. If the question is about the organisation’s quality system, consider quality assurance. Do not infer the answer merely from words such as check, review or report.

Checking and helping

Points to remember

• Project assurance is independent of the project manager.
• Board members retain accountability for assurance even when activities are delegated.
• Project support and product quality control do not automatically constitute project assurance.

Your takeaway

Assurance provides independent confidence about project conduct for the board. Support helps the team administer the project. Product testing and organisational quality assurance have their own purposes and should be identified separately.