
Quality != Quality - kungfudoi
http://qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2017/10/quality-quality.html
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kuwze
I have a book on quality (I forget the title) that pointed out the fact that
while everyone talks about quality, it is rarely defined. The book went on to
define quality thusly: "Quality is the ability to meet a specification"
(that's my rephrasing as I can't find the book).

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eqmvii
Defining quality is easy enough that I always had a hard time fully buying
into _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance._

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abritinthebay
If it's that easy - please provide a definition?

Because quality is often _subjective_ , I'll be shocked if you can provide a
generalized definition.

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khedoros1
Perception of quality is subjective. An objective measurement of quality would
be how well something fits a set of requirements. Something fitting that
definition of "quality" could still be _perceived_ as low-quality, of course,
but I think that's a different question.

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troymc
That's _not_ what the book concluded. One of Phaedrus' realizations was that
quality is neither subjective (depending on the judge) nor objective (an
objective fact, like the mass of a book in kilograms).

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khedoros1
I never said that it was. I've never read _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance_. The previous comment asked for a definition of quality. I
provided one that made sense to me.

> One of Phaedrus' realizations was that quality is neither subjective
> (depending on the judge) nor objective (an objective fact, like the mass of
> a book in kilograms).

Sounds like a contradiction in terms, like a binary value that's neither true
nor false. Unless the conclusion was that quality is a composite of some
objective properties and some subjective ones.

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chiph
I think the important part of this is that all three circles in their Venn
diagram _must_ intersect. If they don't, you'll fail. Either because the
production quality is non-existent, no business value is being added, or the
product doesn't have the right attributes to be saleable.

How big does this sweet spot intersection need to be? "As large as possible"
doesn't sound right - because it says you've spent too much time polishing and
not enough time getting it in front of customers. Too small and your value
isn't obvious enough, inviting the competition to steal your lunch. So ..
perhaps it should be "just right", whatever that means for your market.

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mannykannot
The author says these are Venn diagrams, but he omits saying what the domain
is. Are the members of these sets programs? If so, then he is saying that a
program may have any combination (including possibly none) of these three
concepts of quality, but a given program (or whatever the elements are) either
possesses a given quality, or it does not - the model, as presented, does not
allow for degrees of quality. In this interpretation, as large as possible a
sweet spot would simply mean that you have many programs having all three
qualities, and if that is not optimal, then the model is not complete.

To be clear, I don't think this is what the author meant; I suspect either I
have guessed wrongly about the set's domains, or he has just chosen a flawed
way of expressing himself.

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entropy_ai
there is one important aspect of "quality" that leads to all other: quality is
achieved at global maximum. A lot of engineering methodology is focused
finding a local maximum.

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sago
Unfortunately, for even highly simplified idealised problem spaces of only
moderate complexity, the best algorithm would take longer than the life of the
universe to find the global maximum. Worse, for most of them, even if I gave
you the global maximum solution, it would take you longer than the life of the
universe to verify that.

Or, put another way, actually producing something before the heat-death of the
universe is, imho, a prerequisite for quality.

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contingencies
_Great artists ship._

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troymc
Van Gogh was a great artist, but he sold almost none of his paintings.

One source: [https://www.thoughtco.com/van-gogh-sold-only-one-
painting-40...](https://www.thoughtco.com/van-gogh-sold-only-one-
painting-4050008)

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contingencies
I believe that ship in this context means to complete, not to market
successfully and close a deal which presents a different set of challenges.

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Chiba-City
There are no private languages. Quality is a social determination. Preferences
are idiomatic to exposure. They never matter in defining words.

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pcunite
duh != dough

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bryanrasmussen
Is Quality NaN?

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amelius
Everything is a Boolean.

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trisimix
Yeah why are they trying so hard to objectify this?

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contingencies
It's design or management thinking versus nuts and bolts engineering. Even if
it seems superfluous for a given problem, it has value in generality (eg.
broadly applicable to complex project management/planning) and optimization
(eg. prioritization of development effort/resource allocation against
perceived customer experience impact) at macro level.

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mianos
Why not just go for an ISO standard definition, like 9000 or 9001? It means to
meet specifications. Specifications specify sold gold and it is solid, then it
is quality. If it is gold plate then it is not.

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walshemj
No ISO 9000 means to follow a set procedure the procedure could be such that
quality isn't a concern.

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mianos
Yes the standard is about a process, but it's a process to meet
specifications. The process is followed to repeatably meet them.

