I’ve been leaning towards the idea recently that it does not matter if you have hired rockstar testers and developers, or you are using the latest / greatest / fadish development methodology, or any other fad of the quarter. The thing that drives a product’s Quality is Culture. Specifically Company culture.

If the culture a product was born and raised in is one that

  • Cares – about the product, their fellow co-workers, the company
  • Trusts – each other and management
  • Communicates – freely and without fear of repercussion
  • is Awesome

then you have a chance of a high-quality product. Notice that nothing here has to do with the actual creation and testing of code; they are all things that need to be addressed by people in terms of their interactions with one another (and their employer).

This idea really cemented itself with me this afternoon listening to Tony Hseih’s Web 2.0 Conference talk. It is well worth a listen. But for the lazy, here is the point he makes four or five times.

If get culture right, most of the other stuff will happen naturally on its own

I would argue that Quality is most certainly of the ‘other stuff’ he mentions.