In a world that often prioritizes speed and convenience, the art of making an effort and providing quality is becoming increasingly more difficult. With a high need for instant gratification and quick solutions to pending matters – there seems to be little room for the slow, thorough deliberate process to achieve a high-quality long-term goal.
This doesn’t mean that high quality can only be provided via long-term solutions, but there is some truth in the project triangle (Time, Cost, Quality). If you change one value, the other values will also change – meaning there is a choice to be made in an environment where you cannot pick all, but where there is still a choice to be made between Time, Cost, and Quality – so which values do you choose?
Both as employee and as a current freelancer, my attention has always been on quality, with a focus on small stepwise improvements while acknowledging the constraints of the project triangle, because I believe that prioritizing quality leads to significant long-term benefits.
Making an effort in the context of quality is very much a focus on continuous improvements, just as much as it is a genuine desire to create a result which is more than “good enough”. A quality focus is, or should be, a long-term aim, with small additions of quality where you begin with a baseline, or a foundation, which can carry all the small improvements which will be added one by one.
I once had the pleasure of having responsibility for a large system with a very large number of users.
On certain calendar days, the system were heavily utilized and unfortunately also very unstable.
Together with the vendor, a foundation was established, and small incremental improvements were added.
Within 3 months, the system were in such a stable condition that it was noted by end-users in their feedback, and the increased stability provided windows of opportunities which meant allowed for implementation of further improvements.
This method is also known as “Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA)”, which is an improvement cycle based on a method of proposing a change, implementing the change, measuring the results of the change, and finally evaluating and taking appropriate action based on learnings.
Within IT, where the constraints are everywhere, there are often demands for a fast and speedy solution, which means that a thorough planning can be an issue.
This is, of course, a challenge considering the project triangle, but there are very few shortcuts to be made in this context – because there some dependencies we have to consider. Just like the farmer and his field – we can’t skip sowing if we want to harvest.
And, while it may seem counter-intuitive to invest in quality, and spend time and cost, investing in quality often leads to significant long-term benefits because of reduced rework, increased efficiency, and improved user satisfaction will decrease longterm cost and time, which will lead to faster time to market and improved project cost.
For me, quality has always been a primary target.
