While Teaching a Project Management workshop in the UK in the late 1980s, we posed the question, “What is Project Quality?” One participant responded, “Quality is meeting or exceeding the customer’s project needs.” We recorded that insight on the whiteboard, spelling Qualitty with two t’s. Then we spoke of the need to be close to the Customers, to spend time to understand needs, and so on.
After a while, one embarrassed participant pointed out that we had misspelled Quality. To which we responded, Au Contraire, we have merely exceeded the Customer’s needs. This was an insightful moment for all of us…
{ 2008 04 30 }