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It's worse than that. Any effort that is named "quality" but that does
not benefit the end user reduces the potential for quality. Standards
are a management tool, but are not necessarily related to quality.
Indeed, they can actually prevent quality. "Meets the standard" can mean
"is useless" as easily as it can mean "has high quality".
After the Great Realization of how the Japanese were successfully
capturing market share by the use of Dr. Deming's quality principles,
there was a rush into "quality" programs, many of which were merely
"flavor of the month" activities. Deming was once asked, "Which American
companies that have adopted your methods are using them to best result?"
(or something like that). His reply was, "None of them."
Ishikawa (the professor who invented the fishbone diagram) contended
that American companies were doomed to fail in quality because of the
focus on the "next quarter's results" that was caused by American
accounting standards. (Yes, *standards*.) The Japanese view was to
accomplish continuous, measured improvement over the long term.
I swore I wouldn't address this topic any further, and here I am three
paragraphs into damnation. One last word: Shelfware.
quills -at- airmail -dot- net wrote:
> Standardization of the document is part of quality only so far as it
> agrees with your standarization requirements. If you have a style guide,
> you should follow it. That could be part of your quality metrics.
> However, it doesn't mean that the document is worthwhile for your
> end-users. It just says that you are following a standard look and feel,
> using specific formatting, etc.
>
> If you want, you can define your entire quality effort in that way.
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