Good enough

Professional morality often confuses quality with maximum quality. But work is good not when everything possible has been put into it, but when it reliably meets the requirements at a justified cost.

Such a definition sounds less solemn than talk of excellence, but it lets you work.

If a bridge has to carry a load with a given safety margin, quality is defined not by the beauty of the calculation but by meeting the requirements. If a temporary sign has to say where the entrance is, it does not have to win a graphic design award.

Requirements, however, include more than the explicitly written parameters. The user expects safety, clarity and reliability even when they forgot to state them in the order.

So before starting work you need to establish:

• the mandatory requirements;
• the desirable characteristics;
• the acceptance criteria;
• the permissible deviations;
• the consequences of exceeding or falling short of the level.

Quality that is too low produces failure. Quality that is too high can burn through the schedule and the money.

The last few per cent of improvement often really do cost disproportionately much. But the exact proportion depends on the task. In medicine, aviation and safety, extra reliability can justify enormous spending. In formatting an internal draft it usually does not.

Perfectionism comes in different kinds.

Sometimes it is professional conscientiousness. Sometimes it is fear of showing the work, losing control or facing judgement. In the latter case endless improvement becomes a way of never finishing.

A useful question:

Which improvement will still change the function, the risk or the perception of the result?

If the answer is “none, but I am still anxious”, the task has moved out of the technical domain into another one.

A floor can be washed with a toothbrush. The result will be slightly cleaner. The building management system, meanwhile, will probably derive no noticeable benefit.

Requirements are conveniently checked with the question “who will notice the difference and what will they do about it”. A commercial proposal can be laid out for two days while you pick the typeface; the buyer opens the second page with the price and the lead time and decides on those. That same buyer will instantly notice if the lead time was calculated without customs — and that is precisely a requirement nobody wrote into the brief. It makes sense to improve the part the decision is made on.

The corollary is unpleasant: perfectionism usually picks not the most important part of the job but the calmest one. Fine-tuning a typeface is more pleasant than re-checking a delivery date, because a typeface cannot say no.