Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.
Quality has to be one of the most elusive and vague concepts a person or organization can deal with. Perhaps this is because quality comes in many flavors and is so dependent upon its context. A visit to Wikipedia provided some quality musings as the discussions around quality are quite intense taking on an almost evangelical tone.
So how does IT develop a framework for quality if it is so indefinable? First, IT must define quality in terms of its various products and in context to its stakeholder’s expectations. After all, for the most part quality is in the eye of the beholder. Once the definitions of quality (and there will be many) are established, IT can begin to develop a framework around which quality can be attained, maintained and even improved upon.
As with most endeavors seeking to establish clarity from abstraction, we will begin with a general definition and work toward more finite terms. The best general definition of quality that I could find comes from http://inherentquality.com/ and states:
“Simply stated [quality] is joy associated with a mindset that seeks to embed value and excellence within people, processes and products.”
How’s that for a vaporous goal? So quality is about joy. Another impossible term to define external to the beholder. Nonetheless, if we replace “joy” with “satisfaction” …
"Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world."
