A few years ago, I completed my Six
Sigma Black Belt process improvement project, and contrary to the generic
perception, Quality is a lot of fun. Needless to say, like all high-quality
stuff, even Six Sigma was born in Japan. Six Sigma's definition is the
reduction of defects to no more than 3.4 per million opportunities(lines of
code for software). Of course, we do not want to meet such stringent quality requirements
but we can strive to be as close as possible.
Japanese products are well-known throughout
the world for their high quality, precision, and dependability. Quality in
products and services. From medieval katana crafting to modern automobile
manufacture, the Japanese excel in quality and subconsciously seek quality in
everything more than other cultures.
We experience it first-hand every day. For
some of us who have been working on the Japanese project for a while now would assent
to the fact that Quality and Process takes precedence for our customer.
Sometimes even more than timelines to be met. Initially, it was a huge
challenge, however, most of us have accepted high quality and being on time as
a way of life now :-)
I would like to
urge each one of you to keep Quality as a key focus in everything you do. Be it
Functional Requirement (FR) writing for the customer, or Design Item (DI) with the
key audience as our development team, to the actual Code which we write, let’s
keep quality as your prime focus.
Do NOT release a piece of design or a set of
code to Functional testing if you are not comfortable. In the process, if it
means that you need a day or a week to perfect your deliverable, I and the
project management team will stand behind your decision. Come to us and we will
amicably find a solution that helps have a better quality standard
I urge you to keep quality as your prime
focus, as not only is it a professionally enriching experience; it’s a lot of
fun too!
