Quality is Happiness
Tanmay Vora
Quality is not just “degree of excellence” or “conformance to requirements”. Quality is Happiness.
Happiness of people who work on product development. Happiness of clients who receive the product and are delighted to use it.
Only happy internal customers (peers, sub-ordinates, project team members, testing department) ultimately lead to happy customers.
If people don’t find the product they are developing to be useful, they would not be happy working on it. No one likes to produce anything that is useless.
When people believe in the vision/purpose of the product they are developing, they will happily “walk-that-extra-mile” to deliver Quality.
Happy people are more likely to produce better Quality. Great Quality delivered to clients makes them happy.
Unfortunately, most quality models focus heavily on “process” and less on “happiness”.
To comply with a rigid process is Management. To have happy, motivated people using process as a tool to ultimately deliver Quality is Leadership.
Nice analysis. Dot on target
Tanmay,
Can not agree more 🙂
Happiness is the “why” of quality and the process is the “how” – both are important however, answer to “why” is more important – this will enable the “Quality Careers” to outperform the processes to deliver the happiness.
Regards,
Utpal
@Vikas – Thanks for the affirmation! I am glad that you liked it.
@Utpal – Thanks for adding that interesting perspective. At the end, people who know the “Why” outperform people who just know “How”. It is the purpose (happiness) that should derive the process of anything we do.
This was really nice. Happiness is an attribute of Quality.
Thanks for such a wonderful thought. In a way everything boils down to success if there is happiness attached to it. When one is clear about purpose of the action they tend to perform better.
Regards,
Shripal Shah
Thanks Shripal! Have a nice week ahead!
Yep, agree with the earlier commenters – spot on analysis.
Thanks Matt – I am glad you liked the ideas represented in the post.
Keep reading!
Cheers!
Tanmay
Completely agree with Tanmay’s comment – “Why” outperform people who just know “How”. It’s a corporate saying that – “One who knows ‘Why’ is the boss and one who knows ‘How’ does the job'”.
Ultimately from QA management and process stand point, it’s extremely important to concentrate on “Why” along with “How”.
@Jay – Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
I am glad you liked the ideas in the post and in comments.
Best,
Tanmay
[…] Quality is not just ”degree of excellence” or “conformance to requirements”. Quality is Happiness. (Read the full post here) […]
Excellent post! Quality is indeed an attitude. Excellence is achieved through an engaged worker. My first 15 years in quality were mostly tools/methods/process focused. While knowledge and application of tools will enhance the rate of improvement, my last 15 years have demonstrated the power of leadership, strategic planning, customer focus and employee engagement. Quality is personal.
On one hand, sustained excellence cannot be achieved by best efforts alone – a process must be developed, operated, maintained and continuously improved. However, a customer-focused, engaged workforce will take a process to even greater levels of efficiency and effectiveness.
@Robert (QualityBob) – Thanks for the affirmation and sharing your experience here. Process is important but the human aspect of quality is gaining more importance as we go forward.
“a customer-focused, engaged workforce will take a process to even greater levels of efficiency and effectiveness.” – Amen to that!
[…] August 2009: Quality is Happiness […]
ગુણવત્તા એટલે ખુશી – તન્મય વોરા
ગુણવત્તા એ માત્ર ‘ઉત્કૃષ્ટતાની કક્ષા’ કે “જરૂરીયાતોનું અનુપાલન’ જ નથી. ગુણવતા એ ખુશીની અનુભૂતિની અભિવ્યક્તિ છે.
ઉત્પાદન સુધારણા સાથે સંકળાયેલાં લોકોની ખુશી. આપણાં ઉત્પાદનો વાપરતાં અને વાપરીને ખુશખુશાલ થઇ જતાં ગ્રાહકોની ખુશી.
જો આંતરીક ગ્રાહકો (સહકર્મચારીઓ, આપણી દેખરેખ હેઠળ કામ કરતાં કર્મચારીઓ, પરિયોજનામાં સહયોગીઓ , ચકાસણીમાં સંકળાયેલાં કર્મચારીઓ..) ખુશ હશે, તો આપણાં ગ્રાહક ખુશ થશે જ.
જે ઉત્પાદનોની સુધારણાથી પોતે ખુશ નથી, તેના ઉપર કામ કરતાં પણ તેઓ ખુશ નહીં હોય. ઉપયોગી ન હોય તેવું ઉત્પાદન કરવું કોઇને જ પસંદ નથી હોતું. ઉત્પાદનનાં ઉદ્દેશ્ય અને ઉપયોગીતામાં જ્યારે લોકોને વિશ્વાસ બેસી જાય છે, ત્યારે પછી તેની ગુણવત્તા માટે તેઓ, ખુશી ખુશી, પરસેવાનાં બે વધારાનાં ટીપાં પણ પાડે છે.
ખુશ લોકો વધારે સારી ગુણવતા સિધ્ધ કરવાની શક્યતાઓ ધરાવે છે. તેમનાં ગ્રાહકોને મળતી ઉત્કૃષ્ટ ગુણવતા તેમની ખુશીને બેવડાવે છે.
કમનસીબે, મોટાં ભાગની ગુણવત્તા તંત્રપધ્ધતિઓ “ખુશી”ની સરખામણીમાં “પ્રક્રિયા” પર બહુ વધારે ભાર આપે છે.
પ્રક્રિયાનું જડબેસલાક અનુપાલન તો વ્યવસ્થાપન થયું, નેતૃત્વ તો છે – ગુણવત્તા માટે પ્રક્રિયાનો એક સબળ સાધન તરીકે ઉપયોગ કરતાં ખુશ,ઉત્સાહિત લોકોનો સંગાથ બનાવ્યે રાખવામાં.
અનુવાદકઃ અશોક વૈષ્ણવ, અમદાવાદ ǁ જુલાઇ ૧૦, ૨૦૧૩