In one of my favorite books, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig explores in great detail the value of quality. In one of my least favorite books, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, the authors also explore the esoteric concept of quality. In both books, the writers agree that quality is needed in things, services, and in the completion of projects and living. But what is quality?
Quality is the totality of an entity that bear on said entity's ability to satisfy the stated or implied needs. In others, it's living up to the promises of the product or service. If you were to book a flight from New York to Miami there would be some stated and implied needs in the flight. You'd need to safely travel from New York to Tampa, have a seat, and some level of comfort in the flight. You don't expressly say that you don't want to travel in the cargo hull with sheeps, chickens, and goats – but it's implied that you won't be travelling in the barnyard section of the plane.
Grade is often confused with quality – especially in advertisements. Grade is a ranking of goods and services. Consider the first class and coach, models of cars, and hotel rooms. You can have a quality meal at McDonald's or a quality meal at some swanky downtown restaurant. Quality, remember, is the fulfillment of the stated and implied needs. Just because you have low grade, like McDonald's, doesn't mean that you automatically have low quality. I bet you've dined in a fancy restaurant and had poor quality. In project management we like to say that low grade isn't necessarily a problem, but low quality always is.
In your Lifelong Project you need to consider quality and grade too. In order to have quality in your life, in your goals, and in your ambitions, you first need to define what quality means to your life, goals, and ambitions. You can only do this by first defining in exact terms what you want as your goal. Defining a goal to lose weight isn't setting you up for quality. How can you satisfy the totality of the goal if you haven't specifically defined what your goal is? Just as project managers cringe when stakeholders want to define their project requirements with subjective terms like good, fast, or better so should you in your Lifelong Project goals.
In order to achieve quality in anything you must first define the conditions that will equate to quality. To define the conditions of quality you must speak and write in absolute details, specific objectives, and clear goals.
