On the Cost of Quality: The Holy Trinity
By \ May 18, 2006
Keeping clients happy can be a difficult task. One of the keys seems to be setting their expectations properly. But even with the best intentions, we can stumble on that task. In discussions with clients I’ve heard it said that a client has three options, of which they may choose only two: good, cheap, and quick. The implication is that a client can save on time and price if they are willing to give up quality. Or they can get quality for a low price if they aren’t in a hurry, or get quality quickly if they’ll pay through the nose.
On the surface, it’s a solid enough argument. The three items seem to play off each other directly, and it’s reasonable to expect that they are at least somewhat proportional.
But hidden somewhere behind this sound and somewhat clever argument is a dagger that cuts the heart out of any plan that relies on a client accepting these terms. The dagger is this: a reasonable client cannot — and will not — accept a product of lower quality. It is simply not acceptable to the vast majority of clients to look at what they’ve paid for, notice it’s a piece of crap, and say “Great! Just what I wanted!” It really doesn’t matter if that’s what they signed up for: a client will not walk away happy with that crap in hand.
Lower quality can mean a number of things. For graphic design, lower quality often means an unattractive interface, or inconsistencies in how design elements are applied, or a mess on a screen that makes no sense to the user. For development, lower quality usually means more bugs. For copywriting, lower quality can mean anything from typos to confusing copy.
Which of these is something you want to deliver to your clients? Which of these, when clearly a part of a deliverable, will satisfy your clients? Occasionally these things will slip through in a deliverable, but when they’re found, they’re corrected, not accepted. An application may ship with known bugs, but they’re not something anyone signs up for.
Selling low quality to a client just makes no sense. And it’s not something we honestly pursue. The underhanded implication present in every discussion that puts good, cheap, and quick on the table is that good is understood, and the client really only gets to choose between cheap and quick — and they can’t have both.
The alternative to good, cheap, and quick is a much more palatable trinity: cheap, quick, and full featured. We take quality off the table, and we replace it with scope. A client can legitimately choose to scale back on scope without feeling like they got anything less than they asked for. Scope can be traded for price, or for speed. Perhaps most importantly, scope can be documented, which means expectations can be set properly, and everyone can go home happy.