Quality is a topic I think on a lot but have rarely figured out how to put down in a clear way. Almost everyone will agree that quality is necessary and important but debates rage over how to define quality.
Perfect processes don’t exist. Every human process in the world has some potential opportunity for error, mistake or omission. To me, quality does not mean error free. Quality is defined as:
- Check your math. Don’t make simple mistakes.
- Verify intentions. Are you solving the problem the right way for the right reasons.
- Follow through. Do all the things that are supposed to get done or provide a reason for exceptions.
- Communicate. Make sure everyone knows what was done, why it was done and what it means.
CRE decisions are rarely based purely on the known information of today. They are made based on future projections, business objectives, market forecasts, financial realities, service level desires, etc. These factors are hard to know with any degree of certainty which means that quality cannot be error free because the factors themselves are unknowable for certain.
Knowing that any given solution is likely to be less than perfect means that quality needs to be more qualitative than quantitative. It means that intentions matter – of both the provider and the client. It means that variations, changes and unknowables must be accounted for appropriately.