Quality is an abstract concept, which few people can really define, let alone measure. In this talk, I am going to work on helping to define quality in a positive light and cover some of the potential manners in which something as abstract and emotive as this can actually be translated into practical and quantifiable values.
Assembly of Japanese bicycle requires peace of mind - Peter Leeson
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“Assembly of Japanese Bicycle
Require Great Peace of Mind”
Peter Leeson
@PeterLeeson
Quality Manager White Clarke Group
Author of “Orchestrated Knowledge”
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A Brief History of Mine
• 2013
• Intelligent Evolution
• 2014
• Managing Fear
• Can Process Make You Happy?
• 2016
• Suddenly Reality
• Talk with No Title
• 2015
• Organizational Sociology and the Anthropology of an Engineer
• Orchestrated Knowledge
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Quality Does Not Depend on Your Processes
• Controls, audits, standards, documentation, policies,
metrics
• None of this will guarantee your quality
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Q:P/X – Customer Satisfaction
Vision
Identify customers by organization / by key contacts
Determine customer requirements and expectations
Meet customer requirements
Exceed customer expectations
Anticipate customer needs
Innovation and
implementation
Gain
customer
loyalty
BuildTrustMeetCommitments
OffensiveStrategyDefensiveStrategy
Mission
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Quality is a Relationship
• Quality is how your client / customer perceives your
product or service
• Different points of view of the same product will give
different estimates of quality
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#1. Quality is Created by People
• “There is no secret: find the best people and don’t let
them go”
(Czar Peter the Great when asked how an emperor goes about assembling his staff
“The System of the World”, volume 3 of the Baroque Trilogy by Neal Stephenson)
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Job Satisfaction1/2
“Peace of mind isn't at all superficial, really. It’s the whole
thing. That which produces it is good maintenance; that
which disturb it is poor maintenance. What we call
workability of the machine is just an objectification of this
peace of mind. The ultimate test is always your own serenity.
If you don’t have this when you start and maintain it
while you’re working you’re likely to build your
personal problems right into the machine itself.”
Robert Pirsig in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
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Job Satisfaction2/2
“The material object of observation … can’t be right or
wrong. Molecules are molecules. They don’t have any ethical
codes to follow except those people give them. The test of
the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn’t any
other test. If the machine produces tranquillity it’s right... If it
disturbs you it’s wrong until either the machine of
your mind is changed. The test of the machine is
always your own mind. Their isn’t any other test.”
Robert Pirsig in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
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How Hard Can It Be?
• Objective Characteristics of
System Complexity
– Chaotic Behaviour
– Non-Mechanical
– Self-Organizing
– Multiple Scales
– Tight Coupling
– Decentralized
– Non-Linear
– Large Size
– Emergent
– Adaptive
Dave Snowden, released under CC BY 3.0
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MEASURING QUALITY
What do you believe is the right measure of quality for your product or service?
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If You Cannot Measure It
• "In physical science the first essential step in the direction of
learning any subject is to find principles of numerical
reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some
quality connected with it. I often say that when you can
measure what you are speaking about, and express it in
numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot
measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your
knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be
the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your
thoughts advanced to the state of Science, whatever the
matter may be.” -
» Lord Kelvin, 1893, Lecture to the Institution of Civil Engineers, 3 May 1883
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Cost of Quality
• Performance: the cost of doing the job
• Cost of Conformance
–Appraisal: the cost of measuring whether you have
achieved it
–Prevention: the cost of avoiding deviations
• Cost of Failure
–Internal Failure: defects found in testing, including
corrections
–External Failure: defects found in the field
These are
measures of your
of effectiveness
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Understanding Quality Design
Designed by an
Architect
Designed by a
Poet
Designed by an
Engineer
Designed for
Living
Designed for
Working
Designed for
Dreaming
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Designers need to Understand Needs
• You need to design
quality into a system
• But quality depends on
your users
• So…?
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The need for Quantification
• The fact that we can set numeric objectives and track
them is powerful: but in fact it is not the main point
• The main purpose of quantification is to force to
think deeply and debate exactly what we mean so
that others, later, cannot fail to understand us
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Key Concepts of Manufacturing Quality
• Top-level critical objectives
• Stakeholders (all of them)
• Focus on Quality, not just functionality
• Quantify requirements
• Capture explicit values
• Ensure specifications are more than requirements
• Quality Control of Specifications
• Whole life cycle
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Measuring vs Quantifying
• Focus first on quantifying, not measuring
• Quantification: Speed
• Measurement: Speedometer
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Understanding Value vs Cost
What are your company values?
What is your product’s value?
What does your client value?
What do you value?
At what cost?
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Quality is the Value you Add
What is the value you are adding to your client / user
Perceived Value Realized Value
represent the requirements
and expectations
is more important and
represents Client
Satisfaction
(“I think that would be
useful”)
(“This was, in practice, more
valuable than we thought it
would be, because…”)
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Value Points
• Allocate value points
– Business
• Sales increase
– Capability a
» Feature 1
» Feature 2
– Capability b
• Customer experience
– Etc.
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Values vs Needs
• Business matrix
–Start-up company values
–Scale
–Mature
–Decline
http://luckyrobot.com/what-makes-a-startup/
http://keywordsuggest.org/gallery/724926.html
http://keywordsuggest.org/gallery/150279.html
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• Communicate the long-term vision
• Integrate knowledge gain in the value stream
• Define stakeholder expectations
• Systems that allow to do it right
• Reduce Time to Market
• Level scheduling and WIP
• Reduce waste
• Sustain transformation
Manage for Value
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• Cost
– Understand value-cost
• Portfolio
• Project
• Capability
• Feature
• Story
– Top-down allocation of value
– Bottom-up calculation of cost
• Schedule
• Scope
Monitor Quality Constraints
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• Work to plan
• Interruptions
• Overtime
• Need for escalation
• Coverage
• Change Management
– Urgency
– Impact
• Business
• IT infrastructure
• Non-IT infrastructure
• Resources
• Continuity plan
• Capacity plan
• Schedule
– Criticality
Measure activities
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Conclusion
• Measuring Quality or Value is not more difficult than
measuring cost
• Estimating Quality or Value is not more difficult than
estimating time to market
…if you can define what you mean by quality!