(Image
Courtesy: https://www.linkedin.com/company/quotient-ltd-)
So..What is your Quality Quotient? :-)
8 years back, late in the evening
I was packing up to go back home from office, I found one of my teammate, a developer,
working alone. I asked him “Why don’t you go home as it is late”. He told me
that “tomorrow I have to deliver 2 stories for testing to the test
team and I want to ensure no defects from test”. Later I used to observe that the
person always used to take pride in the
work which he delivers and his aim used
to be ensure zero issues or complains from his work. I was really touched and
still whenever there is a context of “Building a brand and having credibility
for oneself”, I remember that person.
In my experience, I have seen
that when the work is done by certain set of members it always comes out with
good quality. If there are some products released by some companies we are very
sure that, it would be of good quality.
If there are products from certain country we are very confident that that
Quality is high. For example “Made in Japan” always had a brand for quality and
in my opinion it still has. Cars from Germany always have a brand of precision
and quality. Similarly watches from Switzerland. Being in Quality Assurance for
a large portion of my professional life, I always used to wonder that how is it
possible that there is a pattern at individual, organization and country level.
I have also met many very high performers in various organizations and I have
seen an underlying behavioral pattern. All of these high performers have a
strong underlying commitment. Commitment to always consider Quality above all,
commitment to go beyond their responsibilities, commitment to update their own
skills to ensure that the output, which they deliver always come up with good
quality. Based on these observations and my own experience working in Quality,
I want to say that at all levels there is Quality Quotient. Like Intelligence
Quotient and Emotional Quotient, to deliver work with good quality, we need to
have high Quality Quotient. Quality Quotient is not any a big jargon or funda,
it is what differentiates between a product which is of low quality to high
quality, it differentiates between a country which always deliver with poor
quality versus a country which is known for the high quality and individuals who
always gives quality output irrespective of the situation in which he or she
is.
So what is Quality Quotient? It
is the ability to effectively apply the power of Intelligence and emotions for
producing anything with high quality. It can be applied at individual, organization,
and nation or at any level.
Quality output is not about mere
intelligence. It starts with right
thinking. In this post I would list done some of those factors derived based on
my experience in working in quality assurance. These factors can be applied at
all levels for anybody irrespective of the domain we are in. These are purely
my personal opinion and I have found a strong correlation between the quality
of the output and these factors. Well I don’t have correlation coefficient and
regression equation for that J
Intelligence (Know)
Know your Quality Goal and Plan for it: We need to have a quality goal and have a
plan to achieve that. Quality Goal for a mobile app may be different than for a
network management system. In the former, usability aspect should be the key
quality goal. Even if we have zero defects in the app, but not very
user-friendly, in my opinion we have not identified the right quality goal. Once
we have identified the Quality goal we should plan to achieve it. The plan can be at year/month/week/daily
level. For some project or individuals, we may or may not document the plan. But
as long as the clarity is there how to achieve that , I feel it is fine.
Know your Done Criteria: For every work, task or activity, we must
define the Done criteria. When can we say that the activity is really completed.
Many times the defects come when we complete the task without meeting the Done
criteria.
Know your Strength and Weakness: We must know our true strengths
and Weaknesses and we should be very frank with ourselves on this. If we really
understand our strengths and overcome our weaknesses through that in a
systematic manner, it would be really great. Sometimes we don’t do real
competency assessment and don’t take actions for improvement of our skills and
knowledge. If we can't do right assessment about our competency, strength and
weaknesses, in my opinion we can never achieve good quality and quality will be
a matter of sheer luck.
Know your Stakeholders:
We must pay special attention to
our customers, stakeholders or the real audience. We must understand their real
requirements and try to validate that as soon as possible in an iterative or
quick fashion. Stakeholders are members who have direct or indirect interest in
the success of the work or project. We must keep our stakeholders updated about
the work and the progress of that. It gives a lot of confidence about us and our
work. Sometimes I have seen that we do many things but we don’t keep our
customers and stakeholders in loop. This really worries them and creates a kind
of vacuum. Timely progress update is not a mundane task. Also this should not
be considered as some kind of marketing about ourselves. This is an important
activity and we must do that.
Self Review, Self Review, Self Review
Harry (name changed) always
finishes his task very quickly and gives to the technical reviewer. Reviewer
knows that Harry doesn't finish the task completely ("Done criteria" don’t
meet). How do you feel about Harry.. I am very sure all of us would agree that
this is not good. We all may have an
"Harry" in us who wants to complete the task quickly and move to the
next work. Only the members who reviews his/her own work and then give it
further in the chain for review or release, delivers with good quality. My personal
opinion is that we are our brand and any work that goes out from us should have
a signature of quality. Self Review can help in that. We should never be in a
hurry to pass the work to next in the flow or the chain without doing adequate
check by ourselves.
(Image courtesy: judythewriter.com
)
Emotional (Believe)
Believe that Your Output is your brand
We should believe that every
output which we deliver is our brand and we must take pride in what we deliver.
Every time when work is delivered from our side we should think that our
credibility is at stake if the output has any issue. Any good brand or name is
built after years of hard work and consistent quality. One mistake can damage
the whole name. So our approach should be to consistently deliver with same
quality irrespective of whether the work is small or big.
Believe in Quality First, Always..
Sometimes we believe that when
many task comes in parallel, mediocre or little less quality is ok as people
know that we had been good and we are doing many things in parallel, so there
will be a discount in the way people look on to us on quality. My observation
is that people forget what situation we were when something was developed or
delivered. It is the product or service
which we deliver that remains. No customer wants to know what as a service
provider, we are going through. Sometimes the customer may empathize with us.
Quality of our product, services or anything will outlive us and the situation
in which we are in.
Believe in going an Extra Mile for Quality
My experience is that every time
we may not get all situations favorable to ensure quality output. Sometimes it
may that our competency is not up to the mark for the deliverable or time available
is short or any other. In all such situations do we go beyond our limits to
ensure that what we deliver goes with good quality. If we feel we can’t deliver
with the right quality, do we refrain ourselves from delivering. Remember every
time we deliver, our credibility and our brand is at stake. We are our brand.
We should do everything possible one time and every time to delivery this.
Retrospect in yourself.. continuously improve..
I have seen many times whenever
there is an issue or problem; we first look for external factors for the
problem. As humans our first nature is to defend ourselves and find faults in
others work due to which the problem came. In my opinion even if the proportion
of the problem from our side is 0.01%, we should retrospect and improve on that
part. Of course, we should not take accountability for others problem. It is
needless to mention that. This can help us in focusing on continuously
improving ourselves. It will keep us grounded and ensure that every time we
learn something from our mistake. Lets say even if the problem is not from our
side we will learn from the mistakes from others. Remember life is too short to
make all the mistakes which others have done and then learn from it.
Quality is a result of Intelligent effort
I believe that quality output is
not a matter of luck, it is the result of intelligent effort. With luck we can
deliver good product or services one time or two times but only through intelligent
effort we can deliver quality output in a consistent way.
(Image courtesy: grouphigh.com)
I believe that Intelligence and
Emotional aspects are equally important for giving quality product and
services. I have seen a pattern in this in many individuals, teams and
companies. Quality of anything starts with me, us and the team. Everybody
should take equal responsibility in that. Let’s build and give quality
products, services and take pride in being ourselves. Remember we are our
brand..
