What is Quality and how do I get some?

So I guess I should start with explaining the definition of Quality!

It's not as easy to define as one might think. Even the presence of quality is a difficult concept to put your finger on. Quality relates to the ability of a product or characteristic to meet an expected standard, good or bad. High quality is expected, but is only conspicuous in its absence, to folks whom have previous experience with the good.

In order to manage quality, my banner pretty much sums up the whole process. Organise, Analyse, Improve, Repeat. It's a simple map that only goes from left to right. You can't start in the middle. You can't go backwards, and none of the steps can survive on their own.

Organise:
Have all of your relevant data at hand. This includes both internal and external information relating to your business and products. From design to application, every piece of information could come in handy, so have it where you can get it, quickly and easily.

Analyse:
Companies are usually run at break neck speed, so piecemeal ideas are often implemented in-situ, just to get by at the time. Have a look at everything you do and see if it is still relevant to your current business. Compare how much revenue is being generated or lost by what you do every day and don't forget to put a dollar value on hours saved by specific tools or external services.

Improve:
Now you have a general idea of what to do next. If this is the first time around, you can find a surprising amount of savings in your internal business, by culling a large number of small things.

Repeat!
If it is your second time around, you should find yourself with a bit more cash flow (and time!) to improve your actual external business. Organise your new set of data (that's basically the olde data with all the unnecessary flotsam trimmed off). Analyse what your biggest successes AND failures have been. Improve them with the freshly available time and capital.

Congratulations. You have just created a culture of Quality Management!