Agile Software Development

Many Finnish companies have a tradition of periodically selling the old stuff to its employees on the internal auctions. If you are lucky, you can get a decent computer, printer or fax for a couple of euros. Several years ago the company I was working for (CIM Wireless) has been bought by a bigger one. We were going to move to the new company premises and therefore had a particularly big auction where they were selling pretty much everything older, than a year. At that time I needed a new kettle and got one right from the company kitchen for as little as five or ten euros. I didn't put much thinking in, I just needed a new kettle - it didn't really matter which one.

When quality matters

It happened, however, that such a commodity as an electric kettle could be of so high quality that it makes you notice it. We didn't examine the device or measure its performance, but we couldn't miss such features as boiling water fast or ability to turn off automatically, when was empty. It might sound amazing, but we were actually surprised by the fact that it just worked very well. Plus it looked nice. We even recommended this model to a couple of friends - something you rarely do about kettles.

When I managed to accidentally break it I went to the store looking for the very same model. I was able to find it in the second shop, but I was ready to visit couple of stores more, before considering another model (by the same brand - that was not a question at all).

Pay-off

Investing in the product or brand quality is often like the story above. You sacrifice some immediate benefits, because of investing extra funds or time in building quality in a product, might get no exceptional return for a reasonable amount of time and then "suddenly" figure out that many loyal customers want to purchase an upgrade from your company.

The bottom line: If you company is here for more, than a single release of a single product, care about the long-term users. Otherwise Braun will do it for you.

Your company

What does your company do with your kettles? Do your quality assurance related activities consider issues that are likely to happen in two years after a sale?