Quality vs Quantity: Which One Should You Compromise?

The issue of quality vs. quantity is old as the hills. 

You can do a job better but longer or do it faster, but with inferior quality. 

Quality wins in the long run. We must awe customers. One might say – let’s always choose quality then, correct? Not so fast. 

Quality vs. Quantity in Business

The competition between these two metrics is not that simple.

Projects include many parameters – cost, time, and scope.

Striving for perfection for all of them is not always the best choice.

As it may happen, while you are reaching out for premium quality, the competitors are already reaping the cash benefits. 

Alternatively, quality is frequently a matter of opinion. Opinions are personal, passionate, and instinctive. They are hard to pin in numbers.

Quality does matter, especially in the digital business competitiveness. But at some point, you need to call it a halt and wrap up a project.

And many managers lose this battle because they either don’t know when to stop and compromise quality all too often. There is a way to bring these two opposing attributes to peace, which includes three principles:

• Comprehensive quality assurance (QA)
• Quantification
• Acceptance 

How can you use them to solve this age-old dilemma of quality vs. quantity? Let’s see. 

1. Comprehensive Quality Assurance

In project management, where quality assurance is vital, constant monitoring and improvement of a product is a must. Comprehensive QA is a way to ensure quality is a principle across the board.

Across the board means you imprint quality in all business aspects, starting from your leadership style to hiring practices and project completion. It is not enough to aim only at product or service quality.

By focusing on quality as a company culture value, you set a business model that serves as a base for instilling quality in your projects, products, and services. 

Agile project management has QA embedded in its model.

Agile questions current development based on feedback and implements changes to improve quality as the project rolls out.  

2. Quantification

Empirical scientists swear by quantifiers. Quantifiers are numerical representations of quality. Satisfaction, for example, is an emotional variable that we still measure when it comes to employee or customer satisfaction. 

Instead of basing your project success on observations, experiences, and assumptions, quantification is an effective method for putting quality and quantity under a common denominator. 

Expressing quality through a word, a view, or a sentiment counts. However, when you quantify it, the battle between quality and quantity can be tracked, measured, and enhanced through a clear lens. 

Opinions and personalization of what is and is no good can be obstacles to setting up project goals. By setting numbers to quality and quantity requirements, you clarify your priorities.

But you also need to bring everyone else on the same page, including employees and clients.

3. Acceptance

To prevent confusion and align expectations with goals for everyone, you need acceptance on a team level. 

Acceptance means that project participants have understood:

• Definition. What stands behind quality and quantity? 
• Prioritization. How important are they for your business goals? 
• Tracking. How to track and measure quantity and quality variables?

Defining, prioritizing, and tracking quantity and quality clear out misunderstandings about their business value. 

It also helps with setting a framework you can use to scale your business.

Since you know the value of each, you can move faster or slower. You can push harder with certain project elements depending on how they feature in the overall pool of resources.

Are you missing clarity in goal-setting? Have you been failing with resource prioritization? Made too many compromises? Click below to get immediate help below and start scaling!