(Image Credit: Doug Buckley of http://hyperactive.to)

I stumbled acrossa LinkedIn discussion in the “Continuous Improvement, Six Sigma & Lean” groupyesterday that, though posted 8 months ago, has just started to get revived traffic. The question was simple: What is Quality? The poster, though, specified that you’d have to answer the question in three words. (Turns out this was a problem for many people who posted paragraph-long descriptions.)

Describing quality in three words (or less) provides a pretty good exercise in critical thinking. After all, Juran did it (explaining that quality is “fitness for use”) and so did Crosby, sort of (“quality is free”).

Here are some of the submissions that actually (or almost) honored the three-word requirement:

• Customer Satisfaction, Sustainability & Reliability
• One word: Survival
• Forever Satisfied Customer
• Defined by Customer
• Perceived by Customer
• Exceeding Customer Expectations
• Fitness for Use
• Delivering Customers Expectations
• Accurate Consistent Results
• Perception…