Quality Management Is How You Catch Your Own Mistakes Before the Contractor Does
Every architect makes mistakes in design and documentation. The question is not whether errors will occur - they will - but whether they are caught before the drawings leave the office or after the contractor finds them in the field (where every error costs more to resolve). Quality management in architecture is the systematic process of checking, reviewing, and coordinating design deliverables to reduce the number of errors that reach construction - and to ensure that what the client reviews and approves accurately represents the intended design. Quality management is tested on the ARE PjM exam as a project management competency because it is the project manager's responsibility to establish and enforce quality standards for the project team's work.
Types of Quality Reviews
Architecture firms typically employ several types of quality review processes: Self-check: The individual drafter or designer reviews their own work against the project requirements before passing it to anyone else. While this is the least reliable (it is difficult to catch your own errors), it is the first filter and should be done as a matter of professional discipline. Technical review (in-house): A technically qualified reviewer (a project architect or senior designer) reviews the work for technical correctness - code compliance, coordination with other systems, specification consistency, drawing standards compliance. Coordination review: Review of all disciplines' drawings overlaid against each other (using BIM or manual overlay) to identify conflicts. This is the multi-disciplinary equivalent of the technical review. Peer review: Review by a qualified professional who was not involved in producing the work - provides an independent perspective that often catches errors that the production team has become blind to through familiarity. In some firms, the project architect from a different project is asked to review major deliverables before they are issued.
Quality Checklists
Firms that produce the most consistent-quality construction documents use formal checklists that must be completed before any major deliverable is issued. The checklists itemize specific items to check: Are all drawing sheets properly titled and stamped? Are all grid lines labeled consistently across all sheets? Are all door and window marks on the plans shown in the schedules? Are all dimensions verified to be consistent between floor plans and reflected ceiling plans? Are all specified materials listed in the specifications with a corresponding spec section? Do the specifications reference the correct edition of each standard? Checklists are particularly effective for high-volume deliverables - when the same package type (permit set, design development package) is produced repeatedly, a standard checklist ensures that known common errors are always checked.
Key Exam Points
- Quality management goal: catch errors before construction, where they cost the most to resolve.
- Review types: self-check, technical review, coordination review (multi-discipline), peer review.
- Coordination review: overlay all disciplines to identify conflicts; most effective in BIM environment with clash detection.
- Peer review: independent reviewer not involved in production; most effective at catching blind-spot errors.
- Quality checklists: standardized items to verify before each deliverable is issued; ensures consistent quality across projects.
AREprep's PjM quality management content covers review processes, coordination procedures, BIM quality management, and the project manager's responsibility for deliverable quality - giving ARE PjM candidates the practical quality management knowledge the exam tests in the context of a project manager's overall project delivery responsibilities.
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