Quality is Free

Tom Breur

13 September 2015

Philip Crosby wrote his excellent book “Quality is Free” in 1979 (a bestseller). In 1995 he wrote a sequel “Quality is Still Free” but I guess people were already convinced, so nobody needed it (the sequel didn’t sell so well).

Delivering “quality” is obvious. Isn’t it? I’ve never heard anybody say: “I intend to deliver crap!” Which can easily fool us into assuming quality (because nobody aims for the converse). But what are you actually doing, giving up (like beginning work on another feature…) to ensure quality, is a more relevant question to ask.

The basic premise of Crosby’s book is that if you do your job right the first time around (“deliver quality”), this saves so much effort, hassle, and non value-added (re)work downstream, that careful testing is worth its weight in gold. You earn that (seemingly additional) effort back with interest.

There are lots of false notions about testing. Testing does not ensure quality, for one thing (Weinberg, 2011). “Testing is an expense” being another one of them. That is the misconception that Crosby contends. Careful testing is simply prudent risk management to ensure that your software delivery (a proposed improvement) actually makes things better – not worse.

Every delivery implies a change. Obviously this is intended as a change to the better. Be verifying your solution works as intended you honor other people’s time and effort. Reliable deliveries make work flow smoother and quicker. Everybody wins.

What kind of a winner are you?