30 Days of Quality Day 4: Perspectives

Todays’s challenge in 30 Days of Quality is:

Capture 5 different perspectives on “Quality” and share their similarities and differences

What 5 perspectives have you captured?

Are you not a day ahead, Heather ? :thinking: :slightly_smiling_face:

nope, today is the 4th of March :slight_smile:

It’s the 3rd of March ?

seems my watch has a leap year bug :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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This is a tough one since quality is mostly a subjective observation by the end user, even though we have very objective measurements on levels of quality.

That’s why quality is in my opinion “the perceived value of a product or service by the user of that product or service”. A good example of this is selling high quality winter tires for people in tropical areas. Even though the product or service is of superb quality, it has no value for a user who has no need or usage for.

Quality is also the total sum of all forms of tests and measurements. A product or service can not have a label of quality when not all tests and measurements indicate it is good. The often dropped “good enough” statement doesn’t fit in a quality oriented business.

Against common beliefs, quality is also something that requires continuous improvements or changes because quality fades over time. Indirectly related to the first statement about “perceived value”, quality is also influenced by market shifts and public opinions. Where coals were awesome for heating houses in the late 60’s up until the late 90’s, today public opinion agrees they are too damaging for the environment. Having friends in the fashion industry, it’s even a seasonal thing where high quality designs are not given a second look 6 months later.

Quality is not something that can (easily) be bolted on once a product or service is already completed or in usage. Quality should be part of the earliest stage in the design and development phase and a mentality of “quality by design” should be adopted by all stakeholders. Even though everyone knows about it, I still see it being pushed further ahead by most participators in a project. Often resulting in impossible situations where quality flaws have to be accepted as it is already too late and too costly to address them.

Finally I just have this last perspective: quality can not be bought in a box with blinking lights. Too many times I have walked into a project where they told me that quality was provided by product/service X that they purchased. I thought we were already past the fairy tales, but apparently there are still lots of people who believe a good marketing campaign and spend money on an empty promise.

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