Re: What is quality?

[Ad absurdum per aspera <jtchew -at- CSA3 -dot- LBL -dot- GOV>]

"Quality is conformance to standards."  (I think that here I quote
Carolyn Rude quoting somebody else.  Too many brain cells under the
bridge to know for sure.)  "Standards" may be loosely defined as
"an explicit definition of what goals you want to achieve and how
to achieve them," in my opinion.

>The standards I use (when I have control) are based very closely on the
>ones used to determine the level of award given in the International
>Tech Pubs Competition [of the STC].

Hmm...  At the very least I'd suggest a "do as they say, not necessarily
as they do" approach to these standards!  Some judges are better than
others, and all tend to be the proverbial blind men describing the
elephant unless they take pains to put forth a better performance.

Note also that the guidelines for judges, though useful, tend to be
(of necessity) a bit more general than you might need.  I been both a
judge (regular and lead) and a entrant (winning big prizes and not)
many times, and can testify that it is often a good system but also
can turn into a beauty pageant.

When I get back to the salt mines, I'll post the points of quality
put forth by the late W. Edwards Deming.  Though perhaps more directly
applicable to a manufacturing environment, they are thought-provoking
and useful at least by analogy to our work.

Cheers,
Joe
"I am (I think)."
--Descartes, slightly modified by Ralph Dressel