Quality First

A piece that I wrote up around 3 years back. Thought this is still relevant, hence posting it here...

Couple of years back, I was going for a walk one afternoon along with a client from the UK, on a road that had got fresh tarmac and the footpaths were laid afresh. He looked at some of the spots on the footpath where the blocks were not properly fit in place, and said “Why would anyone leave these pieces unfinished, when they pretty well know that they have to come back and fix it later?” Well, why would anyone do that? The immediate explanation that came to my mind was “That’s the way we are!”

Not much has changed in the two years since. We see such things almost everywhere around us. We are just used to it. I have often seen this reflect on the way we work as well. We do some real good work, but fall short on packaging it to showcase its true value.

It‟s all about the way we think – “Let me first make it work, I will come back and do the cleaning up later!”. Why do we do this? I have seen that we generally value time and cost over quality. All we need, I think, is a slight shift in our point of view - Quality First. With a bit of discipline, time and cost aspects will automatically be taken care of!

Aristotle very aptly said “Quality is not an act, it is a habit.” We will have to cultivate and nurture that habit. This, I believe, will push us to be more innovative, we can be proud of our work, and above all, we will start enjoying what we do!