4. Plan design project quality assurance milestones

It is important to incorporate quality assurance stages or "milestones" into design project planning. These include :

• review of inputs ;

• design verification stages ;

• design validation steps ;

• approval of output data.

Quality assurance has a cost and a time impact, so we need to plan the necessary and sufficient activities and stages, and the associated resources, at a level commensurate with the stakes and risks involved.

It is preferable to plan activities and associated milestones from the very start of the project, to ensure that verification and validation activities are synchronized as closely as possible with project progress. This planning can evolve according to the results...