Bugs and the Quality-Deprived Society

Even before the economic collapse, quality was very much an endangered species in corporate America and our culture at large. Poisoned food — both here and from abroad; dangerous and defective Chinese toys; made-up news and fake journalists (remember Jeff Gannon?); hideously broken software (Vista, anyone?); and now, of course, Toyota and its fatal accelerators.

I have worked in the field of software testing, and I know from experience — both observed and personal — that Quality Assurance, as it is called, is to the corporate as art & music are to public school budgets. When there are cuts to be made, QA is among the first to suffer. And when all is well and no cuts are necessary, still, QA can be trimmed. Product is never as important as profit; people never as meaningful as pretense.

Let me submit that if half the money currently put into image — advertising, marketing, P.R. — were redirected to QA, we would see such a renaissance of quality as would make liability attorneys tremble. But advertising is our entertainment, as big and important a part of yesterday evening’s super-event as the antics of the concussion-addled millionaires on the field. Image, as a famous sports star of another era once whispered to us, is everything.

I can only speak from my own experience: the best-tested, most rigorously challenged software emerges into a live release with bugs. The goal of QA is always: “zero bugs in production;” and always a few slip through anyway. But with the right processes, adequate resources, and competent leaders, critical bugs — “showstoppers,” as they are called in software testing — almost never infect a live product.

Here’s some plain common sense for you: preventing showstoppers — or, in Toyota’s case, life-stoppers — must become the central and highest priority of any organization that sells product to the public. Such a commitment would serve both the corporation’s profit and the public good. But the commitment must have substance, real meaning and intent. If you watched the football game and heard a company boasting in an ad of its product’s safety, I would make a note of not purchasing said product. Anyone who will spend tens or hundreds of millions on such pomposity has probably not paid for the necessary resources to give that image any substance.

Was there ever a time when product and people meant more than tomorrow’s stock price? Did corporations ever believe in quality? I don’t know; I can only say that it is time they started now. Profit can be made with a 30-second video bite; quality cannot.