Quality Management Planning comprises defining and documenting the quality objectives, requirements, and steps to achieve these objectives in the project. It lays out the quality standards and guidelines for the desired end-result. It forms the foundation of the execution of Project Quality Management. A well-laid plan ensures that quality is maintained at every step, rather than just inspected in the final product. The plan includes resources required, responsibilities assigned, and operations planning for performing quality management.

Quality Assurance ensures project quality by evaluating overall project performance against the predetermined quality standards. It focuses on preventing defects and focuses on the process used to create the product or deliver the service. Quality Assurance is performed throughout the entire project life cycle to ensure every procedure is designed to meet the required quality standards. Audits and process review techniques are commonly used in this phase to identify areas of improvement in the process.

Quality Control is about inspecting and verifying the project results to ensure they meet the required quality standards. It entails identifying and correcting defects and errors in the product or service before delivery. Quality Control often includes activities like testing, inspection, defect tracking, and reviews. This phase verifies that the outcome of the project meets the expectations set in the Quality Management Plan.

Quality Improvement is a systematic approach to assess the performance and enhance efficiency. This ongoing process aims to improve processes, products, and services through increased productivity and reduced waste. Implementing quality improvement requires gathering and analyzing data, identifying gaps, and taking corrective measures. By leveraging various tools and strategies, such as Lean, Six Sigma, and TQM, organizations realize quality improvement.

Quality Risk Management involves identifying and rating risks that could impact the project's quality, planning risk responses, and implementing risk mitigation strategies. It is a systematic process to understand and manage risk that could compromise quality. Implementing effective risk management helps mitigate potential threats and opportunities. This overall approach involves risk identification, risk analysis, risk response planning, and risk monitoring and control.

Quality metrics is a concept that involves using specific, predefined measures of quality to assess the performance of a project. These metrics are usually quantifiable and allow for standardized comparisons across different projects. They can include delivery timelines, cost estimates, and defect frequency, among others. Relevant quality metrics help in maintaining control over specific project areas and allow appropriate responses if the project veers off from the set standards.

Quality Audits involve a structured, independent process to determine whether project activities and results comply with organizational policies, processes, and procedures. It's an internal or external process executed by third parties to ensure that the project is following the predefined quality metrics set by the company and the project team. These audits are a significant part of continuous improvement, as the findings can provide valuable insights and feedback into improving the project and future ones.

Quality checklists are simple but very efficient tools in project quality management. They consist of a list of items, tasks or criteria, that need to be checked or done. Quality checklists are used to ensure that the set steps and processes within a project have been followed. By providing a clear groundwork for what needs to be done to achieve the quality objectives, checklists help ensure consistency and completeness in accomplishing tasks.

Quality Management and Improvement Tools include various methodologies, techniques and tools designed to track a project's quality and make necessary improvements. They aid project managers in ensuring a high standard of quality is maintained throughout the project life cycle. Tools such as flow charts, histograms and Pareto diagrams help visualize the processes, identify key areas for improvement and analyze data for informed decision-making.

A Process Improvement Plan is a vital component of quality management. It details the steps for analyzing, identifying, and implementing improvements in processes to enhance their performance. This can result in better efficiency, lower costs, and improved quality of the project's outcomes. A process improvement plan would typically cover the approach, performance baselines, process boundaries, and targeted process improvement areas.