Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
Aristotle
What that means to me is, if you want to routinely produce quality products or services, you need to make it a habit; day in, day out.
No matter the industry, anyone can get lucky and hit the proverbial jackpot. But if you want to maintain that success and/or repeat favorable outcomes, you need repeatable actions (habits) with a focus on self-improvement.
Inc.com published an article titled 5 Ways to Improve Quality.
In summary:
1 – Make a commitment to maintain your level of quality no matter the circumstances. During times of challenges it is easy to make concessions and lessen the quality in an effort to meet other objectives.
2 – Track mistakes and define your quality thresholds. Whether you perform statistical testing, or solicit customer feedback surveys, analyzing both positive and negative outputs helps identify whether you’re meeting your quality goals.
3 – Invest in training for employees at all levels. New hires and seasoned employees need to understand and exhibit best practices for maintaining quality products and services. If you’re a one-person team, perform a self-assessment and invest in your professional development.
4 – Organize quality circles to provide an objective, impartial review of your quality goals. Quality circles are a group of employees responsible for measuring and testing your outputs. One-person team? Create a system, and a checklist, to help you cross the t’s and dot the i’s. Make time to perform a quality check of your products (or services).
5 – Have the right attitude about the entire process. The goal isn’t to “catch” deficiencies for the sake of catching someone else doing something wrong. The goal is to identified root causes and potential corrective actions to prevent future deficiencies. Adopt a root cause analysis tool to help identify the real root of the problems identified.
How do you test quality within your organization?
Comment below.