Quality is not a checklist. It is a system.
"It has everything we asked for, but it's still not good enough." Michael Purnyn, BA & PM at Strikersoft, has been thinking about quality for over twenty years - from manual testing to project management to a master's degree in quality management systems. And in his experience, it rarely starts as a quality problem – it stars as a conversation that never happened.
Why projects fail despite aligned requirements.
Most clients come with design sketches and a description of what they want. But they rarely say what actually matters to them right now. One client might need performance improvements above everything else - and never mention that the UI should not change. The team builds exactly what was shown. And still, something feels wrong.
Speed, reliability, security - these are mentioned briefly, if at all. And when they are missing, it becomes a conflict that is very hard to resolve mid-project. By then the cost is not just time. As Michael says, it is trust - with the client, with the board, and with the people who use the product every day.
Most teams treat quality as a final check. Build first, test at the end. This is QC - quality control. It catches problems after the fact.
The problem is not how teams work. It is that nobody defined what quality actually means before the work started - and that gap only grows as the project moves forward.
“"It has everything we asked for, but it's still not good enough."”
Quality Management is different
The need for a structured approach led us to develop Oker – an internal quality assessment system we use on every project and continue to build on.
Quality Management means building quality into every stage - from the first planning conversation to development to the moment the product is retired. Not a checklist. A continuous cycle.
At Strikersoft we work with three layers of quality on every project. Internal quality - for the team that builds and maintains it. External quality - for the client who pays for it. Quality in use - for the people who work with it every day without ever speaking to a developer.
Miss one and the product fails someone.
How we manage it in practice
Oker helps the team track what matters throughout the entire project lifecycle - so nothing gets lost between planning and delivery.
Quality is not something you define once at the beginning. It is something you manage every single day - and it is cared for by everyone.
Quality does not have to be a conflict. If you want to talk about how we approach it - we are here.
