Comments on: The Illusion Of One Dimensional Quality http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/04/28/the-illusion-of-one-dimensional-quality/ Lidor Wyssocky's Blog on Optimizing Software Development Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:56:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.2 Comment on The Illusion Of One Dimensional Quality by: Lidor Wyssocky http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/04/28/the-illusion-of-one-dimensional-quality/#comment-194 Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:45:46 +0000 http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/04/28/the-illusion-of-one-dimensional-quality/#comment-194 <p> Hi Scott, </p><p>Thanks for responding to the article review. </p><p>I agree with your approach regarding the communication with customers. But I think there is still a need to emphasize the improtance of internal quality. </p><p>By that I am not referring solely to internal metrics (such as the one you mentioned in your comment). Internal quality deals with entirely different aspects of the product: its maintainability and extensibility as reflected in the quality of its design and code. </p><p>This is not just another metric, nor is it the quality of the process. It is part of the quality of the product, but not its functional quality. Maybe the customer does not care about these qualities (although I believe he does, implicitly). But other stakeholders should have these attributes at the top of their list... </p><p>Lidor</p> Hi Scott,

Thanks for responding to the article review.

I agree with your approach regarding the communication with customers. But I think there is still a need to emphasize the improtance of internal quality.

By that I am not referring solely to internal metrics (such as the one you mentioned in your comment). Internal quality deals with entirely different aspects of the product: its maintainability and extensibility as reflected in the quality of its design and code.

This is not just another metric, nor is it the quality of the process. It is part of the quality of the product, but not its functional quality. Maybe the customer does not care about these qualities (although I believe he does, implicitly). But other stakeholders should have these attributes at the top of their list…

Lidor

]]> Comment on The Illusion Of One Dimensional Quality by: Scott Sehlhorst http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/04/28/the-illusion-of-one-dimensional-quality/#comment-193 Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:17:04 +0000 http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/04/28/the-illusion-of-one-dimensional-quality/#comment-193 This is definitely the most eloquent critique of anything I've written. Thanks very much. I used customer and stakeholder interchangeably in that post - probably not a good idea. What I was trying to capture was the idea of "everyone not on the team, who cares about the output of the team." I think of all of those people as customers, not just the people who give us money. I completely agree that maintaining internal quality is critical to success. My point was that while it is important to the people on the team, the only thing that is important to people not on the team is the result of that high internal quality. The analogy of a plant manager for a manufacturing site holds pretty well, I think. That plant manager tells his customers about the defect rate in shipped products - that's how quality is shared. Inside the building, that plant manager reviews control charts, six sigma reports, sampling data and status reports from every element of the manufacturing system. By monitoring those controls, he can make sure that he delivers a low shipped-product-defect-rate. The plant manager isn't going to tell the customer that the spring-angle on the contact arms is running at +/- 1.8 sigma within tolerance bounds. Granted, some customers may want to audit the quality processes - but this isn't the common-course for communication, and should be treated as the exception to the rule that it is. Thanks again for your great feedback, and thanks for reading. I hope you'll stay with us, and continue to point out where we can do better! Scott This is definitely the most eloquent critique of anything I’ve written. Thanks very much.

I used customer and stakeholder interchangeably in that post - probably not a good idea. What I was trying to capture was the idea of “everyone not on the team, who cares about the output of the team.” I think of all of those people as customers, not just the people who give us money.

I completely agree that maintaining internal quality is critical to success. My point was that while it is important to the people on the team, the only thing that is important to people not on the team is the result of that high internal quality.

The analogy of a plant manager for a manufacturing site holds pretty well, I think. That plant manager tells his customers about the defect rate in shipped products - that’s how quality is shared. Inside the building, that plant manager reviews control charts, six sigma reports, sampling data and status reports from every element of the manufacturing system. By monitoring those controls, he can make sure that he delivers a low shipped-product-defect-rate. The plant manager isn’t going to tell the customer that the spring-angle on the contact arms is running at +/- 1.8 sigma within tolerance bounds.

Granted, some customers may want to audit the quality processes - but this isn’t the common-course for communication, and should be treated as the exception to the rule that it is.

Thanks again for your great feedback, and thanks for reading. I hope you’ll stay with us, and continue to point out where we can do better!

Scott

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