Introducing ISO 26000 – Guidance on Social Responsibility (Part 2/2)

In Part 1, we have learned what ISO 26000:2010 is about. In this post we are going to go deeper and understand a little bit more about its implementation.

How to use the standard? – Schematic overview –
(Click on the image to enlarge)

This image is intended to assist organizations in understanding how to use the standard. Here are some points ISO highlights as useful to follow when applying the standard: 

• After considering the characteristics of SR and its relationship with sustainable development (Clause 3), it is suggested that an organization should review the principles of SR described in Clause 4. In practicing SR, organizations should respect and address these principles, along with the principles specific to each core subject (Clause 6). 
• Before analyzing the core subjects and issues of SR, as well as each of the related actions and expectations (Clause 6), an organization should consider two fundamental practices of SR: recognizing its social responsibility within its sphere of influence, and identifying and engaging with its stakeholders (Clause 5). 
• Once the principles have been understood, and the core subjects and relevant and significant issues of SR have been identified, an organization should seek to integrate SR throughout its decisions and activities, using the guidance provided in Clause 7. This involves practices such as: making SR integral to its policies, organizational culture, strategies and operations; building internal competency for SR; undertaking internal and external communication on SR; and regularly reviewing these actions and practices related to SR. 

NOTE: While not all parts of the standard will be of equal use to all types of organizations, all core subjects are relevant to every organization. All core subjects comprise a number of issues, and it is an individual organization’s responsibility to identify which issues are relevant and significant for the organization to address, through its own considerations and through dialogue with stakeholders.

Clause 4: 7 Principles

ISO 26000 highlights the 7 principles of SR that any company should apply in good faith:

1. Accountability: An organization should be answerable to those affected by its decisions and activities, as well as to society in general, for the overall impact on society and its decisions and activities.
2. Transparency: An organization should disclose, in a clear, accurate manner and to a reasonable and sufficient degree, the policies, decisions, and activities for which it is responsible, including known and likely impacts on society and the environment. .
3. Ethical behavior: An organization’s behavior should be based on the ethics of honesty, equity, and integrity.
4. Respect for Stakeholder Interests: Although an organization’s objectives may be limited to the interests of its respective owners, members, customers or constituents, other individuals or groups may also have rights, claims or specific interests that should be taken into account. Collectively, these individuals or groups comprise the organization’s stakeholders.
5. Respect for the Rule of Law: An organization should comply with all applicable laws and regulations. The rule of law refers to the supremacy of law and, in particular, to the idea that no individual or organization stands above the law and that government is also subject to the law.
6. Respect for International Norms of Behavior: An organization should respect international norms of behavior while adhering to the principle of respect for the rule of law. 
7. Respect for Human Rights: An organization should respect human rights and recognize both their importance and their universality. In situations where human rights are not protected, take steps to respect human rights and avoid taking advantage of these situations.

Clause 6: 7 Core subjects and issues of SR
(Click on the images to enlarge)

Increase your awareness on the environmental issues. Get information. Get involved.

REFERENCES
– All the information in this post was extracted from from ISO.org Link1 and Link2.

– If you are interested, you are invited to read what the Influential Voices group has discussed about Quality and SR the past July 2012. Click here.

Introducing ISO 26000 – Guidance on Social Responsibility (Part 1/2)

What is ISO 26000:2010 – Guidance on SR?
ISO 26000 is an international standard released by ISO – International Organization for Standardization – in November 2010, that focuses its discussion on Social Responsibility (SR).

It was developed using a multi-stakeholder approach involving experts from more than 90 countries and 40 international or broadly-based regional organizations involved in different aspects of SR. These experts were from six different stakeholder groups: consumers; government; industry; labor,  non-governmental organizations (NGOs); and service, support, research, academics and others. In addition, specific provision was made to achieve a balance between developing and developed countries as well as a gender balance in drafting groups.

What does SR means?
It refers to the responsibility of an organization for the impacts of its decisions and activities on society and the environment, through transparent and ethical behavior that:

• contributes to sustainable development, including health and the welfare of society;
• takes into account the expectations of stakeholders;
• is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behavior; and
• is integrated throughout the organization and practiced in its relationships

What is ISO 26000 goal?

The main goal of this standard is to provide guidance on how businesses and organizations should act in an ethical and transparent way that contributes to maximize its contribution to sustainable development, including health and  welfare of society, emphasizing in the importance of results and improvements in performance on SR.

The guidance focus on:

• underlying principles of SR (see 7 Principles in Part 2) 
• recognizing SR and engaging stakeholders, 
• the core subjects and issues pertaining to SR (see Table 2 in Part 2) 
• ways to integrate socially responsible behavior into the organization (see Schematic Overview in Part 2). 

Why is SR important? Benefits by implementing ISO 26000

An organization’s performance in relation to the society in which it operates and to its impact on the environment has become a critical part of measuring its overall performance and its ability to continue operating effectively. This is, in part, a reflection of the growing recognition of the need to ensure healthy ecosystems, social equity and good organizational governance. In the long run, all organizations’ activities depend on the health of the world’s ecosystems. 

Organizations are subject to greater scrutiny by their various stakeholders. The perception and reality of an organization’s performance on SR can influence, among other things:

• its competitive advantage; 
• its reputation; 
• its ability to attract and retain workers or members, customers, clients or users; 
• the maintenance of employees’ morale, commitment and productivity; 
• the view of investors, owners, donors, sponsors and the financial community; and 
• its relationship with companies, governments, the media, suppliers, peers, customers and the community in which it operates. 

The good news is that organizations around the world, and their stakeholders, are becoming increasingly aware of the need for and benefits of socially responsible behavior.

Does it have to be certified?
No. ISO 26000 provides guidance/advises/information about the implementation of SR principles rather than requirements, so it is neither intended nor appropriate for certification purposes.

Apply/use ISO 26000 is a voluntary election.

Who can use the standard?
Every organization is encouraged to become more socially responsible by using this standard.
It is intended to be useful to all types of organizations:

• in the private, public and non-profit sectors, 
• whether large or small, 
• whether operating in developed or developing countries,
• for those beginning to address SR, as well as those more experienced with its implementation.

ISO 26000 outline
(Click on the image to enlarge Table 1)

NOTE: Although the standard is meant to be read and used as a whole, readers can look for specific types of information on SR in the previous Table 1.

Follow this link to read Part 2, where you can learn a little bit more about ISO 26000 and how to implement it.

REFERENCES
– All the information in this post was extracted from ISO.org Link1 and Link2.

– If you are interested, you are invited to read what the Influential Voices group has discussed about Quality and SR the past July 2012. Click here.

Defining Quality

Paul Borawski asked in his new post a simple/complex question: 

How do you define quality? 

As the world keeps changing, the definition of quality does too. So Paul extended his question to: “What do you use as the best, most inclusive, and illuminating definition of quality? Test your definition against a variety of questions. Does your definition cover the difference between cassette tapes and CDs? Does it cover an explanation between a low-cost vehicle and a luxury vehicle? Could you use your definition in explaining quality to the CEO of your company? Does your definition embrace what benefit quality brings to humanity if fully realized?”

Quality is, by nature, cross-disciplinary; encompass from engineering through philosophy fields; it is a complex and multifaceted concept. There are as many definitions of quality as people exist; so I encourage you to explore 3 sources where you can read a lot of different and all-interesting definitions of quality.

1. Gurus and Standards: the very first post I’ve wrote in this blog was about the definitions of quality, where I exposed the most well known definitions by Gurus and Standards. Take at look at the post here. 
2. For the past World Quality Month, I asked people to write in a few words what quality means for them, and I got really good answers from all around the world. Check the answers here. 
3. It is worth a read how Paul Borawski listed different definitions of quality grouped as: Quality as Philosophy, Quality as a Personal Ethic, Quality in the Eyes of the Customer, Quality in the Eye of the Producer, Quality for the Enterprise in the article conducted by ASQ called the 2011 Future of Quality Study (page 39) 

The definition I like and use whenever I have to tell somebody what quality means is a mix-made definition focusing on what Joseph Juran and ISO 8402 exposed:

“Quality is a characteristic / feature / property of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy / meet / fulfill / be conformance to and exceed stated or implied customer / consumer / user  needs / wants / requirements / expectations, and thereby provide customer / consumer / user satisfaction.”

I like this definition because I think that every single aspect of quality has a customer / consumer / user that is going to “define” the quality of a product.

However, Is any definition “more correct” than the others? There still is no official definition of quality that serves all purposes. So, what do you think about this endless debate?

Because of this topic, the “Quote of the Month” I’ve selected is: “Reconsider your definitions. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

What does QUALITY mean to you? – WQM

With the purpose of celebrating November – The World Quality Month, I’ve asked people on Twitter (hash-tag #qualitymeaning) and LinkedIn a simple/complex question:

What does QUALITY mean to you? 

I’ve received a lot of replays and of course, I would like to share some of them with you, and you are more than welcome to comment!

* Jaume Alemany (‏@JaumeAlemany): “To me Quality is a process that drives people away of the short-term goals through a mindset of excellence. It is cultural.”

* Scott Gonsalves (‏@scottgonsalves): “You Can Always Do It Better (…process, strategy, service, people, measurement, learning, leadership…)”

* Marco (@zweverig): “Deliver want your customer wants against the agreed price and on time. Not less and not more (=extra costs)”

* Arturo Montero ‏(@artmontero): “Meeting customer requirements every time.”

* Vikram Thouta: “Quality – Highly Motivated to make processes error proof at any point of time”

* Dean Applegreen: “Quality means… Life or Death.”

* Victor Fonseca: “Meeting or exceeding customer requirements.”

* Mathieu Bussels: “Quality is fulfilling the customers’ purpose in a way that matters to them. Without that purpose having been artificially created through an elaborate marketing campaign, by delivering a product and/or service that is worthy of human beings.”

* Wayne Mack: “I prefer to think of the qualities of a product or service. The overall quality of a product or service is the subjective priorization of the sum of its qualities.”

* Richard Steele: “Quality – A quantitative description of an output characteristic from a process – Measurable or not-measurable. Quality improvement – Altering the characteristic in a desired manner.”

* Kennie Yallop: “Quality means everything or nothing which is inherent in different people’s understanding.  Based on ISO9000:2005 3.1.1 quality degree to which a set of inherent characteristics (3.5.1) fulfils requirements (3.1.2)
NOTE 1 The term “quality” can be used with adjectives such as poor, good or excellent.
NOTE 2 “Inherent”, as opposed to “assigned”, means existing in something, especially as a permanent characteristic.”

* Jim Myaard: “Quality is fulfilling the customers’ purpose in a way that matters to them.” Dr. Deming in “The New Economics” on page 2 of Chapter 1 said, “A product or a service possesses quality if it helps somebody and enjoys a good and sustainable market.” “

* Kahleong Cheong: “Quality to me is attaining the satisfactory and desirable outcome that matter to me. What the producers of products and services promise to deliver is fulfilled.”

* Hans Norden: “I like the description given by Robert Pirsig in his epic book “Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance”. He calls quality the “continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live.” He also recognizes that quality is different for different people because PEOPLE are different; they have different back grounds, experiences or as he puts it MYTHOS.
In our work we can choose to do a good job or a shoddy job and we KNOW the difference without having a concrete definition of quality; we just know! Whenever you see a craftsman totally absorbed in his/her work; when time stops, that’s quality and the craftsman will experience Peace-of-Mind, or as Deming would say “Pride of Workmanship”. Quality depends thus on the business environment or CULTURE. If the highest value professed by every decision taken by management is “Making Money”, then quality WILL suffer!!! As Deming said, Quality is the responsibility of MANAGEMENT! Unfortunately, those managers fail to appreciate the bigger picture relationship between Pride of Workmanship and lowering OVERALL cost.
Here’s a single observation; compare US-made coaches with European-made coaches and you’ll see or I should rather say HEAR the difference. The European culture (mythos) is more concerned with environmental issues and so manufacturers CHOOSE to focus more on, in this example, noise reduction.”

* Madhav Sinha: “Quality is really about poor quality, including the defects, deficiencies, rework, fix and repairs, frustrations, customer complaints, late deliveries, unkept promises, low morale at work, and wasted time, energy and money. Quality control teaches us how to restrict the effects and occurrences of these things. Quality assurance ensures they don’t happen. Quality management systematizes the affairs of a business and turns negatives into positives to make continuous improvements for the betterment of human lives. [Excerpted from my quote from ASQ’s monthly magazine, Quality Progress, August 2002, v.35/8]”

* Steve Eckhardt: “I think it was Henry Ford or someone of that era that said “Quality is doing what is right when no one is watching””

* John Royalty:  “QUALITY IS MUTUAL COOPERATION BETWEEN PRODUCER AND PURCHASER, BETWEEN MANUFACTURER AND CUSTOMER. A CONTINUOUS FLOW BETWEEN THE TWO.”

* Imtiaz Jewel: “Quality simply means delivering to the customer what they expected. Thus, for example, if a product has the right configuration/features, does what it’s supposed to do, is reliable, is delivered on-time, and is well-supported, then . . . it’s a quality product!
One exp more: Quality means providing customer with innovative products or services characteristics/attributes and defects free which provide fitness for use.”

* Elena Parisio: “For me and the company where I work QUALITY means: Clients return, not products; We work for the expectations of our Clients and Satisfied clients are the capital of our Company”

* John O’Hanlon: “In simple terms: The job is done right first time when no one is looking, consistent delivery of a service/product to the “customers” specification/requirements!”

* Daniel Lang: “Quality is the essence of the culture of an organization. If culture is moving in a positive direction, then product and/or service improves.”

* Tim McMahon: “Quality” means different things to different people. We use the term but the concept and vocabulary of quality is elusive. If you ask someone to define the word “quality”, you may get a variety of answers” … “Quality is important to businesses but can be quite hard to define. The meaning of quality differs depending upon circumstances and perceptions. For example, quality is a different concept when focusing on tangible products versus the perception of a quality service. The meaning of quality is also time-based or situational.”

* Jude Ayeni: “Quality is about setting clearly defined boundaries of expectations and flawless execution of expectations with zero target deviation.”

* Reuben – CLSSBB, CQE: “”Quality” to me means building, servicing, offering, and producing a service, process, or product ethically with the highest possible standards inherently involved. “Quality” means doing it right from the start not because a customer or standard says so, but because it is what we should do as a core value. “Quality” means being able to look at yourself in the mirror with satisfaction and pride knowing that your stamp is symbolically there for everyone to see and that you have done your very best because that is who you are as an individual, as a project team, as an organization…”

Thanks everyone for taking your time and sharing your thoughts! 

I’ve wrote a post about the definition of Quality by different authors and standards. Read here.

Paul’s Borawski said in his blog post about World Quality Month:

“November is a great time to beat the drum, put the spotlight on success, raise your voice, and initiate someone into the ranks of the aware. But let’s do it every month, shall we, until someone tells us the cost of quality has come down by half, and then half again. As consumers, patients, students, and citizens, we deserve good quality.”  Agree!

To finish, I would like to remember that November is also the month for Thanksgiving: “I’m so thankful for my family, my friends, my health, my breath, the earth and nature, and of course I’m so thankful for being part of this amazing community where we are all passionate about QUALITY!”

Cheers!

The 7 Sins of Software Development

Waste elimination is one of the Lean principles and one of the most effective ways to increase quality and reduce cost. While products and services differ between industries, waste or muda – everything that does not add value from the perspective of the customer, or any material/resource beyond what the customer requires and is willing to pay for – can be found in any type of business, such as in the software development.

Mary and Tom Poppendieck – two of the leaders in describing how to implement Lean to software development – have translated the well-known “Seven Wastes of Manufacturing” into “The seven Wastes of Software Development”.

1. Partially done work (in Mfg.: Inventory): refers to any partially done software (Work In Process) that is not checked-in, integrated, tested, or deployed. Until that partially done software is integrated with the rest of the software development and then released into production, you don’t really know if it will eventually work or solve the business problem defined weeks/months ago; maybe at the time of release it is already obsolete resulting in a huge financial problem. In addition, partially done software gets in the way of other developments, so any work that is not finished triggers, for example, huge delays in the development (Waste #6).

2. Extra features (in Mfg.: Over-Production): refers to any feature added to the final product that the customer doesn’t need, want or even ask for. Any extra feature increases an unnecessary complexity, adds a potential failure point, and maybe it will become obsolete before is used. Not forgetting that as any feature, it has to be tracked, compiled, integrated, tested, and lifetime maintained.

3. Relearning (in Mfg.: Extra Processing): the first approach for this waste was Extra-process that focused on extra activities done that do not add value like excessive documentation or customer’s signoffs. After more understanding of this waste, it has been modified with the name of Relearning,referring to repeating a value adding activity spending time relearning things we have already learned. e.g.: undocumented code force to a new developer to “relearn” what was already learn for the previews programmer; a solution of an undocumented problem solved have to be relearn when the problem reappear.

4. Handoffs (in Mfg.: Transportation): refers to knowledge lost every time you hand a deliverable off to any team member (analyst, designer, programmer, tester, etc.). It’s estimated that approximately 50% of tacit knowledge – know-how possessed only by an individual and difficult to communicate to others via words and symbols – remains with the creator of the document and never get handed off to the receiver.

5. Task switching (in Mfg.: Motion): refers to time wasted when the same resource is assigning to multiple software projects. A person who have to switch from project A to project B needs a lot of time preparing himself – fiscally and mentally – and setting the environment to start working on project B. If that time is not considered in the project estimation, it will be difficult to finish both projects on stated dates. Thus, the Lean principle “Delivery as fast as possible” will not be accomplished.

6. Delay (in Mfg.: Waiting): refers to waiting for things to happen. That introduces discontinuity, triggers the appearance of all the other wastes, and keeps the customer from realizing value as quickly as possible. E.g.: delay in get the team conformed, waiting for approvals, delays due to excessive requirements documentation.

7. Defects (in Mfg.: Defects): refers to any error, bug, failure that produces an unexpected result. The formula the Poppendiecks use to quantify the amount of waste caused by a defect is: WASTE = Defect Impact * Time defect goes undetected. They said that a critical defect that is detected in 3 minutes is not a big source of waste as a minor defect discovered weeks later.

CONCLUSION

Out there are tons of tools we can use to eliminate wastes, but first of all we have to learn to see waste, a non-easy activity. Of course, there is no “silver bullet” to solve waste problems, but regardless of the methodology you use in your software company – CMMI, Agile, PMI, or a hybrid of all of them – Lean principle ‘Eliminating waste’ has huge value to get better quality, reduced cost, and faster delivery.

The more you learn about Lean, the more you will realize how much value has it when applying to software development projects. Let’s do a quick test: pick one of the wastes and see if you can identify activities in your job that do not add value and can fit perfectly under that waste umbrella. 

What it would be the best way for you to get rid of those activities? Share your thoughts!

REFERENCES
– Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit by Mary and Tom Poppendieck – 2003

– Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash by Mary and Tom Poppendieck – 2006

NOTE

Originally, I wrote this article for Christian Paulsen ’s Lean Leadership blog.

Image provided by: digitalart – FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Lean Software Development Principles

Lean Software Development (LSD) is a term originated from a popular book by the same name, written by Mary and Tom Poppendieck. In such book, they presented the first translation of Lean principles to software development, plus 22 thinking tools to help translate those principles into agilepractices. Having its roots in the well-known Toyota Production System, LSD focuses on helping software development companies to optimize their process, solving problems that old methodologies like waterfall have, and delivering software with better quality, reduced cost, and faster delivery.

Let’s do a review of the 7 LSD principles:

1. Eliminate Waste: take out all activities that do not add value from the perspective of the customer; in other words eliminate any material/resource beyond what the customer requires and is willing to pay for. The 7 Sins of LSDare:  Partially done work, Extra features, Relearning, Handoffs, Task switching, Delay and Defects.

2. Build Quality In: Mistake-proof your code from the beginning to prevent appearance of defects late at the end of the process.  One tool used to do that is test-driven-development where developers write unit and acceptance tests before they write the associated code. Coding and testing the system as often as possible working with short iterations, helps to reduce the appearance of defects late in the process. You can consider your development process defective if you assume that verification process is the only time when you could find defects, queue them (partially done work, waste#1) and then perform almost endless test-and-fix cycles.

3. Create Knowledge (aka Learn constantly or Amplify learning): “Planning is useful. Learning is essential”. Software development is a knowledge-creating process; recording the team’s knowledge is an efficient way to reduce waste of relearning and make the tacit knowledge more explicit and available for everyone. Also, software development is unpredictable so we shouldn’t base our development process on a plan considering it as a fact (can we predict the future?); we should take it as a forecast and work with short cycles, change-tolerant codes, and iterations with refactoring – improving the design as the system develops- so we can generate knowledge, have quickly feedback, and prevent of making early-irreversible decisions. In that way, you will have a development process that encourages systematic learning throughout the development cycle, so we can respond quickly and correctly to events as they occurred, delivering more predictable outcomes.

4. Defer Commitment (aka Decide as late as possible): the more information you have, the better decisions you make. Developing a robust, change-tolerant design and schedule irreversible decisions for the last moment until uncertainty is reduced and before it is too late, is the best option to not being locked in a critical design decision made in the incorrect time. A software system doesn’t need complete flexibility, but it does need to maintain options at the points where change is likely to occur.

5. Deliver Fast: it refers to companies can deliver faster than customers can change their minds. To achieve that you should focus on 2 main practices:

– develop your product driving down cycle time (short iterations), with small batches of requirements and fewer things-in-process, so at the end of each iteration, you can have a rapidly feedback from your customers and decide how to continue;

– have a fast-moving self-directed development team with excellent reflexes and a disciplined, stop-the-line culture.

You can’t sustain high speed, unless you build quality in.

6. Respect People (aka Engage Everyone or Empower the team): Respect means that instead of telling people what to do and how to do it, teams are given general plans and reasonable goals, and are trusted to self-organize to meet the goals (semi-autonomous teams). Engaged, motivated, thinking people with proper training, coaching and assistance, are the basis of competitive advantage in today’s economy.

7. Improve the System (aka See/Optimize the whole): it refers to improve and control your entire value stream – from customer request to deployed software – instead of just optimize part of it (sub-optimization). One commonly practice used to optimize your system is the use of metrics, but the same concept applies: when a measurement system has too many metrics the real goal of the effort gets lost. The solution is to “Measure UP” – find a higher-level measurement that will drive the right results for the lower level metrics and establish a basis for making trade-offs.

CONCLUSION

These principles are universal guiding ideas, the application of them into a software development company requires analysis, interpretation, and an exhaustive work to translate them into appropriate practices that can be apply to a particular environment.

The more you learn about Lean, the more you will realize how much value it has when applying to software development projects. And always remember these: rapid delivery, high quality, and low cost are fully compatible; learn from experiences and never stop getting better!

REFERENCES
– Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit by Mary and Tom Poppendieck – 2003

– Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash by Mary and Tom Poppendieck – 2006

NOTE

Originally, I wrote this article for Tim McMahon’s A Lean Journey blog.

Image provided by: Stuart Miles – FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What is Quality? (part 2/2)

CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE

Now days, the customers are who define what is quality for them based on their needs and preferences. So quality is the perception that the customer has of the product or service based upon that person’s evaluation of his/her entire experience. That perception will influence on the customer willingness to pay and use the same product or service one more time and tell everybody about it (Worth of Mouth). 
Quality product is not the same as expensive product; because low priced products can be considered as having high quality if the customers determine them as such.

Therefore, it is an imperative for every company to identify such needs early in the product/service development cycle; it will place a firm ahead of its competitors in the market. The common mistake made by some companies is to put features in products/services what they suppose are the best ones for the customer; when actually they are not what the customer expect.
Just to mention, the VOC (Voice of the Customer) and the Kano model play important roles during the identification of such needs (I’ll talk about customer satisfaction, VOC and Kano Model in another posts)

Focused on customer satisfaction, Peter Drucker in his book “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” (1985) defined quality as follow:

Quality Definition
Peter Drucker	“Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality.”

CUSTOMERS vs. SUPPLIERS

It’s clear that Customers and Suppliers sometimes differ in their definition of what is quality.
To most customers, quality means those features of the product which respond to their needs, including freedom from failures, plus good customer service if failures do occur. Here is when the best quality definition is “fitness for use.”

In contrast, many suppliers had for years defined quality as conformance to specification at the time of final product test. This definition fails to consider numerous factors which influence quality as defined by customers: packaging, storage, transports, installation, reliability, maintainability, customer service, and so on.
Next table shows some of the differences in viewpoint as applied to long-life goods.

OTHER DEFINITIONS
Before finish, I would like to share 2 other experts’ thoughts about quality that are interesting to analyze quality in a bit different ways:

Quality Definition
Robert M. Pirsig	“Quality is a characteristic of thought and statement that is recognized by a non thinking process. Because definitions are a product of rigid, formal thinking, quality cannot be defined. But even though quality cannot be defined, you know what quality is!” “Quality is like modern art. We may not be able to define great modern art; but we frequently (almost always) recognize it when we see it.”
David A. Garvin	“There are 5 approaches to defining quality that cover the meaning of quality to managers, operators and customers: transcendent, product-based, user-based, manufacturing-based, and value based approach.  Also, there are 8 critical dimensions of quality that can serve as a framework for strategic analysis: performance,   features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability, aesthetics, and perceived quality.”

See the following Post to read more about Dr. Garvin quality approaches and dimensions: 

CONCLUSION

Quality is, by nature, cross-disciplinary; encompass from engineering through philosophy fields; it is a complex and multifaceted concept.
Is any definition “more correct” than the others?
Is one quality expert “right” and the others “wrong”?
Is it the most fundamental definition of quality to meet the consumer’s expectations; or is it the fulfillment of requirements? Or both? 

Well, the result is an endless debate.

So, how do you define quality?

REFERENCES
Check the references here.
Read Part 1/2 here.

Product Quality by Dr. GARVIN (1984)

Dr. David A Garvin, Ph.D professor of Business Administration Harvard Business School wrote an interesting article about “What does product quality really mean?” where: 

• He identified 5 major approaches of defining quality arising from scholars in 4 disciplines: philosophy, economics, marketing, and operations management. 
• He built an 8-dimensional framework to elaborate on those definitions. 
• Using that framework, he addresses the empirical relationships between quality and some important variables.

5 APPROACHES
The following mind map, explain the 5 approaches of defining quality:

8 DIMENSIONS

Dr. Garvin identified 8 dimensions as a framework for thinking about the basic elements of product quality. Each dimension is self-contained and distinct; a product can be ranked high on one dimension while being low on another.

Together, the 8 dimensions of quality cover a broad range of concepts. Several of the dimensions involves measurable product attributes, others reflect individual preferences. Some are objective and timeless, while others shift with changing fashions. Some are inherent characteristics of goods, while others are ascribed characteristics.

The following graph shows the 8 dimensions; they are put in order from basic/essential to additional but not les important characteristics:

1. Performance

It refers to product’s primary operating characteristics; in other words it refers to the efficiency with a product achieves its intended purpose. i.e.: acceleration in an automobile.

2. Features

They are the “bells and whistles” of products, the extras that supplement the Performance characteristics. i.e.: free drinks in a plane flight.

3. Reliability

It reflects the probability of a product’s failing within a specified period of time; in other words it reflects the propensity of a product to perform consistently over its useful designed life.

Common measures of reliability in durable goods: MTFF (mean time to first failure) and MTBF (mean time between failures).   (*)

4. Conformance

It refers to the degree to which a product’s design and operating characteristics match preestablished standards.

It involves:

* Internal elements (within the factory): conformance is measured commonly by the incidence of defects (proportion of all units that fail to meet specifications and so required rework or repair).

 * External elements (in the filed): conformance is measured commonly by the quantity of repairs under warranty.

5. Durability

It refers to the measure of product life, defined in 2 dimensions:

   * Technically: durability is the amount of use one gets from a product before it physically deteriorates, and the repair is impossible (i.e. after so many hours of use, the filament of a light bulb burns up and the bulb must be replaced).

   * Economically: durability is the amount of use one gets from a product before it breaks down, and the repair is possible.

The product’s life is determined by repair costs, personal valuations of time and inconveniences, losses due to downtime and other economic variables.    (*)

6. Serviceability

It refers to the speed, courtesy, and competence of the repair service. Objective and subjective views play a role in defining serviceability.

7. Aesthetics

How a product looks, feels, sounds, tastes, or smells (appearance and impression): quality is view as the combination of these attributes that best match the consumer preferences.

8. Perceived Quality

The manner and feel the consumers’ experiment using the product.

(*) Durability and Reliability are related: a product that fails frequently (low Durability), is likely to be scrapped earlier than one that is more Reliable.

    
The diversity of these concepts helps to explain the differences among the 5 traditional approaches to quality, previously explained. Each of the approaches focuses implicitly on a different dimension of quality:

• The Product-based Approach focuses on performance, features, and durability
• The User-based Approach focuses on aesthetics and perceived quality
• The Manufacturing-based Approach focuses on conformance and reliability: improvements in both measures are normally viewed as translating directly into quality gains (objective measures of quality). They are less likely to reflect individual preferences.

What is Quality? (part 1/2)

Yes, there are a lot of definitions of quality; some are more related to objective facts while others to more subjective feelings. The truth is that dictionary definitions (dictionary.com) are usually not enough in helping quality professionals to understand the concept. 
In addition, every quality expert and every single person defines quality in a bit different way depends on the situation they are experimenting, the environment and the criteria/point of view they apply.

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
After analyzing the most well-known quality definitions, it’s clear that there are 2 main meanings of the word quality. Based on Joseph Juran’s definition mixed with the other ones, I came up with the following definition:

“Quality is:
1. A characteristic of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy and exceed* stated or implied customer needs, and thereby provide customer satisfaction.
2. Freedom from deficiencies.”

The next table shows a summary of the most well-known quality definitions in the business environment. 

As you will see, everyone expresses the same meaning using synonymous. In order to not be confused, here is the definition again, with the synonymous you can find in the table:

“Quality is
1. A characteristic / feature / property of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy / meet / fulfill / be conformance to and exceed* stated or implied customer / consumer / user needs / wants / requirements / expectations, and thereby provide customer / consumer / user satisfaction.
2. Freedom from/free of deficiencies”

GURUS / EXPERTS
Walter A. Shewhart	“There are two common aspects of quality. – One of these has to do with the consideration of the quality of a thing as an objective reality independent of the existence of man (objective side: focus on the properties of the product, independent of what the customer wants). – The other side has to do with what we think, feel or sense as a result of the objective reality (subjective side: what the customer wants).”
Philip B. Crosby	“Conformance to requirements. Measurements are taken continually to determine conformance to those requirements. The nonconformance detected is the absence of quality”
W. Edwards Deming	“The consumer is the most important part of the production line. Quality should be aimed at the needs of the consumer, present and future.” “The difficulty in defining quality is to translate future needs of the user into measurable characteristics, so that a product can be designed and turned out to give satisfaction at a price that the user will pay”
A.V. Feigenbaum	“Quality is the total composite product and service characteristics of marketing, engineering, manufacturing and maintenance through which the product and service in use will meet the expectations of the customer”
Kaoru Ishikawa	“We engage in quality control in order to manufacture products with the quality which can satisfy the requirements of consumers. The mere fact of meeting national standards or specifications is not the answer. It is simply insufficient”
Genichi Taguchi	“Quality is the loss (Taguchi loss function) a product causes to society after being shipped…other than any losses caused by its intrinsic function”
Joseph M. Juran	“Two meanings dominate the use of the word quality: 1. “Quality” means those features of products which meet customer needs and thereby provide customer satisfaction. 2. Quality means freedom from deficiencies.” —————————————————————————— 3.“Fitness for use”
STANDARDS  – ORGANIZATIONS
ISO 8402:1996 (Quality Management and Quality Assurance Vocabulary standard)	“Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or services that bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs”
ISO 9000:2000 (Set of International Quality standards and Guidelines for Quality Management Systems)	“Quality is the degree to which a set of inherent (existing) characteristics fulfils requirements.”
ASQ (American Society for Quality)	“A subjective term for which each person or sector has its own definition. In technical usage, quality can have two meanings: 1. The characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs; 2. A product or service free of deficiencies.”

There have been efforts to find a short phrase that would clearly define the word “quality”, but it is unlikely that any short phrase can provide the depth of meaning needed by managers who are faced with choosing a course of action.

What is important to highlight is that quality in the business environment can not have an interpretation as the superiority of something, as could be on the customer perspective.

(*) the reason why I added the word “exceed” into the quality definition is because if we only say “meeting customer expectations results in a satisfied customer”, then there is not competitive advantage in that; e.i. every restaurant will satisfy customers needs, but only those that exceed customers expectations (deliver larger than expected portions or lower than expected prices, etc) are the ones the customers are going to go, and therefore have a competitive advantage over the restaurants that only satisfiy customers.

– As a business: you want to meet and exceed customers expectations to keep your business alive in the competitive world.
– As a customer: you want to be satisfied and delighted

Continue Part 2/2 here.