Who Defines Quality?
Once we agree that the world contains things and ideals, quality is defined by the degree to which a thing matches its ideal. For example, let's say you're me ("God forbid," you think!), and you're writing a software design specification. How do you know what to include? Does it require an overview or an introduction? How about definitions? What about a history of the software? I mean, seriously, when it comes down to it, who defines the quality?

You do.

You can spend the rest of your life having people tell you what good documentation looks like, but until you form your ideals – ideals that are dynamic, robust, and offer value – you're just a follower. You are a human that is being (which is passive) rather than a human that is continually becoming conceptually aware of his environment (which is active). In essence, you are a trained monkey. Remember, ideal formation is conceptual, and concept-formation is the only thing that separates humans from animals. Ayn Rand said, "The higher animals are able to perceive entities, motions, attributes, and certain numbers of entities. But what an animal cannot perform is the process of abstraction – of mentally separating attributes, motions or numbers from entities. It has been said that an animal can perceive two oranges or two potatoes, but cannot grasp the concept 'two.'" (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology). This means that concept formation is your human right! You, being superior to the higher animals, have the ability to define quality. How? By actively defining and re-defining your ideals!

Quality in Action
Think of your ideals interacting with the world like particle physics:

• All thought is made of ideals
• All ideals are in constant motion
• There are forces between the ideals

Because your ideals are affected by what you think and experience, they are in constant motion. Every time one of your ideals meets some other ideal, you have the opportunity for transfer. In physics, a particle collision results in the transfer of energy. In concept-formation, the collision of ideals may results in the transfer of value – good value like energy, or bad value like friction.

Let's say our favorite LIMS administrator, Sue, is developing a new LIMS template for dissolution testing. Sue has a complete concept in her head about how her laboratory works and begins building her templates accordingly. Suppose Sue's boss looks over her shoulder and says, "You know, Sue, if you use this other solution to execute inter-task calculations, then you can store the intermediate values in addition to the final values." At this point, Sue has two options, she can 1) Blow up at her boss, call him an idiot for meddling in her work (but do it anyhow because "he said so"), or 2) try to find the value in her boss' suggestion and update her mental ideal to include the additional value. Well, we all know what venerable Sue is going to do! She is going to find the value in her boss' suggestion, update her mental ideal of quality dissolution testing, spend exactly three minutes feeling frustrated because she hadn't thought of his method herself, then start working on the new and improved LIMS template! And guess what? The next time she builds a template like this one, you can bet that Sue will look for quality improvements like this one before beginning her work!

Experiencing Quality
Now we know how quality is defined and who defines it. How can it be experienced? Who is to say that my design specification is better than someone else's design specification? I've put together some ideas on what it means to experience quality. These thoughts are not scientific, but they are rational and cogent to the best of my ability. You will notice that my explanation of experiencing quality is subjective, which is why I started this rant by saying that only I am the standard of quality. To support this assertion, a friend of mine recently noted that he liked the McDonalds Big Mac. My ideal fast food matches his, although we both concede that our ideals may not please Wolfgang Puck!

So, if we believe that quality comes from the ideal, the "pattern" of the "thing", then even though we cannot measure the "pattern" we must be able to measure the "thing". In java programming, a class contains no real-world value. It contains the potential for real-world value, but has none of its own. When a class is instantiated (made real) then the resulting object takes on qualities, like the value 24 for example. If we transfer quality into the real world, then it must take on real-world attributes, such as time. This is convenient, since the thing we desire the most as LIMS consultants is to experience quality, which can only be accumulated and examined with time.

My quality model uses specific terminology to express how values exist in time. Since we know that intelligence is expressed in concept (thought), language, and writing, these terms provide an intelligent framework upon which a discussion of quality can exist.

Emergence is the leading up to the full event, but just prior to experiencing the full value it offers. For example, let's take a simple case by saying that someone hands you an apple, which you decide to eat voluntarily. The minute you lay your eyes on the apple you are holding, the event begins. If a worm pokes his head out of a hole in the side of your apple, then I'm guessing you will not wish to experience its value, "worminess". If the apple has bruises, you may think to yourself, "I wonder if this apple is any good?", since it clearly has some small value of "rottenness". If the apple looks appetizing, you begin to salivate and the value of the event may increase until you raise the apple to your mouth for the first bite. Since emergence has duration, it has the potential to add or remove value, which affects the overall quality of the experience.

Immersion is when the full event begins. In our example, it begins when the first taste of "appleness" reaches your brain and you make a decision about the nature of the value the apple will bring to you. The duration and the value of this event compared to similar apple-eating events imply overall quality. For example, if you take a bite and you taste "worminess" rather than "appleness", then you will probably spit out the apple since the similarity of this event compared to your ideal apple eating experience is very poor or negative. If you take a bite of the apple and it has that sweet, bruised taste, you may consider for a moment whether you wish to prolong the event, fearing that you will discover "worminess" in the next bite. If you take a bite and the taste of the apple comes close to your conception of the ideal apple taste and texture, then the apple-eating event will likely have an extended duration that allows the event to contribute additional positive or negative value.

Abatement starts when the event begins loosing value. For example, you start getting full, but the "appleness" value is so high that you just have to take one or two more bites. This portion of the event continues to bring value, but does so in lessening amounts. Since abatement has duration, it still has the potential to add or remove value, which continues to affect the overall quality of the experience.

Scaling Quality and Overall Value
Since no experience is the same as another, no two experiences can have the same quality or overall value. However, it is possible to categorize certain scalability aspects into my quality model rationally. I should note that because ideals change over time, and because the nature of experience tells us that certain experiences are dynamic (for example, someone introduces us to a different type of apple that we value more), these concepts of scalability are still subjective. Even so, I think they add diversity to a coherent discussion of quality.

Ubiquity describes the pervasiveness of an object's value, in other words, how common it is. Now, I do not believe that ubiquity changes quality, but I do believe that it changes overall value. A simple example is found in the invention of the wheel. One day someone conceived and created the ideal wheel. Even if that one person never shared his wheel, the overall quality of the wheel was defined. However, sharing the ideal wheel with others raised the overall value that a wheel-thing could bring. A more complex example of ubiquity increasing overall value was the discovery of the Helga Pictures, by the painter Andrew Wyeth. In 1986, Wyeth was experiencing some success as an artist, painting simple scenes that many would recognize. But, Andrew Wyeth had a stunning secret: he had been painting nudes without telling anyone, even his wife! Practically overnight, the perceived value of Andrew Wyeth's work skyrocketed. Why? Not because his Helga pictures gained innate quality by showing them to the world, but because the overall value of an "Andrew Wyeth-thing" increased. In other words, the overall value of his artistry increased through ubiquity. Remember the Quality in Action example given above? Ubiquity is one highly charged ideal bouncing around and transferring value to every other ideal it touches.

Periodicity describes the number of times the quality of an experience is repeatable. Again using particle physics, periodicity describes one highly charged ideal bouncing around and transferring value repeatedly.

Longevity describes the overall duration of a quality experience. For example, being bald has negative value (deterioration of self-image, sunburn, ridicule, etc). To make things worse, it may have a fast emergence, and infinite longevity. In other words, it sucks.

Application
Okay, I'm done. Just so you know that I am not writing a book, let me give one final application of my quality model and I will be finished. This whole series of articles started because I couldn't describe why I thought the software design specification I was writing had quality. Now that I have the concepts and terminology established, let me revisit that example.

The Introduction of my design has a brief statement about the document itself; who it was created by, why it was created, etc. An introduction provides emergence, since a clear understanding of why the document exists is necessary for complete quality immersion later. If my introduction is too long, then I will introduce fatigue, which brings abatement, and eventually a termination of the reading experience, which has negative value if the reader must understand the material.

The Overview, Definition of Terms, References, and Modeling Methodology sections provide additional emergence. These are not the "meat" of the document, but provide increasing value once the body of the document begins. Since this is a technical document, and requires a great deal of foundational knowledge, if the full quality is going to be experienced I have to sufficiently balance the amount of emerging material without introducing fatigue unnecessarily.

The Design Entities, Hardware and Software Configuration, and Custom Modules sections are the meat of the document, and are when quality immersion exists. If I have controlled the emergence of the experience, providing necessary information in a manner that is concise yet complete, then the reader will arrive at the body of the document prepared to receive all the value it contains. The body of my document must sustain immersion without introducing fatigue and abatement. I can do this in several ways: I can remove unnecessary material, include additional material that adds quality to a reader's understanding, and I can re-present material in a format that itself has rapid emergence. For example, charts and visual presentations of various materials have rapid emergence and intense but short immersion. These add spikes of value in what may be a cumbersome technical presentation. If executed successfully, my software design specification has little or no abatement when read by an individual with a vested interest in obtaining the value of the document. In other words, I have created a quality document.

I can provide ubiquity by making sure all team members have a copy and periodicity by referencing it frequently during the following stages of the software lifecycle. Finally, I can have the document placed in our document control mechanism, which is the first step toward guaranteeing longevity.

Conclusion
There you have it! Now, seriously, if you read all the way to the end of this article, and each article before it, you deserve a prize or something! I hope you enjoyed reading these articles on where quality comes from. If you leave this article with no other thought, remember this: Only you can put out forest fires. Uh, wait, here it is: Only you can affect the quality of your environment. It is your responsibility to absorb the positive value that bounces your way, and to do something good with it. When you do, quality will follow.

**End Notes**: I seriously, seriously considered trying to quantify quality using two methods. First, the equation *Q=l/q* could be used to represent overall quality where *Q* is Quality, *l* is an entity's likeness to its ideal, and *q* is a coefficient representing the ideal's quality, which is always 1. This is a conceptual equation, since algebraically it could be reduced to *Q=l*. I believe that providing the full equation might provide context. Second, I considered charting the three stages of *emergence*, *immersion* and *abatement* over four points including *inception*, *experience*, *fatigue* and *termination*. Likeness to the ideal (*l*) would be the y-axis and time (*t*) would be the x-axis where *t* is an integer between 0 and infinity, and *l* is a positive or negative number between 0 and 1. Since the four points of the quality experience would roughly describe a curvy line, the area of the curve over the x-axis would represent positive value, the area of the curve under the x-axis would represent negative value, and the overall quality would be the sum. Finally, ubiquity would extend the chart onto the z-axis, and periodicy would duplicate the charts *n* times. I discarded all these thoughts for three reasons, 1) I believe that quality is too subjective to be quantified, or if it were quantified, little or no value would be added, 2) I didn't want to create all the charts necessary for this article to effectively show the concepts, and 3) I didn't wish to have to complete all the integral calculus required to solve for multiple areas under a curvy line!