Quality.
The term itself seems to lend itself to all the wrong images and connotations. It seems to give off an ‘eat your broccoli’, ‘floss your teeth’ kind of feeling.
Looked at that way, Quality is boring. When you think about the non-fun aspects of ensuring a quality product: Inspections, reviewing the results of inspections, identifying methods to improve your defect finding, it can certainly seem a little dry.
- Inspections
- Requirements Reviews
- Tracking Adherence to requirements
- Identifying Critical Customer Requirements (CCR)
- Prevention over Inspections or Build in quality
- Continuous Improvement
Remembering the why and the who helps keep me on point. It reminds me that it’s ok to make a few people unhappy in the short term. The why is to ensure a quality product for our customer. Knowing who helps me understand why they need the service to be reliable.
It reminds me of the story of the 3 bricklayers, now so well known that it is probably a cliche.
“Once there were 3 bricklayers. Each one of them was asked what they were doing.
The first man answered gruffly, ‘I’m laying bricks.’
The second man replied, ‘I’m putting up a wall.’
But the third man said enthusiastically and with pride, ‘I’m building a cathedral.'” –Author Unknown
Keeping the Why and the Who in sight helped the third bricklayer remember why each brick had to be laid to the best of his ability.
Looking at Quality with the end in mind gives you a different perspective when you ask for a re-inspection or the review of a document.
Seeing the end result: a happy customer – makes all the difference. Leave a comment or send me a tweet, my id is jgodfrey.
Shisso 