Understanding Quality Work
Figuring out what "quality" means for something you're making seems like it should be easy. But it's often surprisingly tricky, and getting it wrong is expensive. You either waste time polishing something that's already fine, or you ship something critical that isn't good enough. Knowing what quality actually means tells you where to focus and how to get better.
There seem to be two main ways to get a handle on quality. You need both. Think of them as asking two different questions. First, what's the absolute best this thing could be, based on what it's supposed to do? Second, how good are the ones other people have made?
Let's call the first question understanding the utility. How well the thing you made does the job the person is trying to do? Utility isn't just about function; it's about the value someone gets compared to the cost they pay. Cost isn't just money. It's also time, effort, thinking power, even social standing. A really high-quality thing delivers a lot of value for the cost incurred by the user.
Sometimes this value is crystal clear. If you make bolts, their value is holding things together reliably. Easy to measure. But sometimes value is fuzzy. Think about expensive clothes. Part of the value might be social status, which is hard to pin down. Did that shirt actually deliver the status the buyer hoped for? Who knows.
And jobs can have layers. You need a coat to keep you warm – that's measurable utility. But you probably also want it to look good. An ugly coat, even a warm one, might not have enough utility because it fails at the second job. Often, the deeper, less obvious jobs create more value, assuming you understand what they really are.
The second question is about looking around. What have other people done? This is comparative benchmarking. It works for everything – art, software, cooking, writing. You look at what others are doing in the same space.
Why? To get context. What does "excellent" or "average" even look like right now? What's actually possible with the tools and knowledge people have today? And crucially, how are others achieving good results? What tricks or techniques are they using?
Comparison grounds you in reality. It stops the theoretical "best" from becoming some impossible dream. But you have to be smart about it. Don't just aim to be average, because the average might be terrible. And don't just copy the leader. Look at the whole range, learn from the best examples, figure out *why* they're good, and use those insights to get closer to the ideal utility you defined with the first question. Compare to learn and calibrate, not just to imitate.
Sometimes, though, there's not much to compare. If you're doing something really new, like cutting-edge research, or something very personal, like raising your kids, or maybe specialized consulting, finding direct comparisons is hard.
Thinking about these two factors – how clear the utility is, and how much comparative data you have – gives you a map of different situations.
What if you have low comparative data and unclear utility? You're exploring. Think researchers in a brand new field, or someone taking up a really obscure hobby. You don't have many examples to look at, and it's hard to even measure if you're succeeding. You're driven by a belief that what you're doing matters. You probably aren't making money, unless you stumble onto something big where the utility suddenly becomes clear and valuable, like OpenAI did with LLMs. High risk, potentially high reward.
What about high comparative data and unclear utility? Think fashion, or high-end smartphones. Lots of competitors, endless features to compare, but what people *really* value is fuzzy and changes all the time. This space is full of people claiming they've figured it out. Some make money, many fail. Success often comes from having a sharp insight into what a specific group truly wants, maybe because you want it yourself, or you know that group really well.
Then there's low comparative data and clear utility. This is where you find specialists: niche consultants, custom software shops, maybe creators focused on a specific topic. There aren't many direct competitors doing exactly what you do, but the value you provide is well-understood. You need deep expertise here. You can make a good living, but the market is often smaller, and you have to be genuinely good.
Finally, high comparative data and clear utility. Think of roles like salespeople on large teams or call center agents. There are many people doing similar work, and performance is usually easy to measure. You're often part of a larger system. To really succeed here, you usually need to be exceptional, maybe even different enough that you start to look like you belong in the previous category.
Looking at it this way, a couple of things stand out. It seems like the interesting places are often where the two factors are mismatched – lots of comparison but fuzzy utility, or clear utility but few comparisons. When both are low, you're exploring. When both are high, you're often in a highly competitive, standardized game.
Understanding where your work fits helps you figure out how to operate. Are you exploring, competing on insight, leveraging deep expertise, or striving for exceptional performance in a defined role? Knowing the answer is the first step to getting quality right.