When passion comes up against a deadline,  you have to decide: what are you creating and what’s the cost of forcing it to completion?

An apology… M6 Creator isn’t launching just yet.

Details aren’t relevant, so I’ll simply say that M6 needs just a bit more love and testing before we’re ready to release it publicly. I want to apologize for the postponed launch and let you know that if you’ve signed up for the launch list prior to today, you’ll get something special for your patience. The demand and volume of emails/sign-ups I’ve gotten has been humbling & inspiring. When we’re about to release to thousands, you better believe it’s going to be done right. Rushing a product launch is like rushing a space shuttle launch – yes, it’s a bit frustrating to delay, but you’d rather be known for bulletproof performance than exploding. Lao Tzu says something that is invaluable for anyone that’s working on something that always feels just about finished…

Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe. - Lao Tzu

Backing up to look at the situation, it started a long thought process on the concept of quality and where it comes from…

Passion & caring is the authentic quality assurance

I’ve always hated the word quality. It feels generic, hinting of assembly lines and middle-management performance reviews. Quality assurance is usually thought to be about keeping bugs out of software or fast-food burgers.

Quality itself is unexciting. When present, it allows you to forget the product itself and simply benefit from its utility. Quality jeans don’t have holes in the crotch; a quality axe doesn’t let its head fly off. More often, we only notice quality in its absence – when an baggage handler destroys your checked luggage; when a form is so poorly designed you can’t fill it out; when your steak is well, well beyond well-done. An absence of quality points to an absence of caring. It’s from someone lacking the time or passion to genuinely consider their work’s impact, or not taking time to design attentively.

A passionate programmer wants his creation to work, so he’ll hunt down bugs like a madman. A loving mother wants her baby to be healthy, so she’ll spend that extra minute comparing food ingredients. A drone programmer may hack together whatever he needs to “earn” his paycheck. A bad nanny may opt for the Happy Meal to stop a kid from crying. Passion and genuinely caring makes all the difference.

To explain why, you have to understand why

Setting a product launch date created accountability and expectation. Resetting that expectation calls for well-reasoned justification, out of fairness to everyone supporting the project. In breaking down the reason behind pushing the M6 launch, I wanted to analyze the underlying passion that won’t let me release anything less than top-notch. After considering a rushed release, I absolutely refused. Poor quality and not caring is what created most of the product website sites you see today, and M6 is built to annihilate that. So bear with me and stay tuned for an update – you’ll be glad you did.

To close, I’ll let men far wiser than myself talk about delay and quality.

At times it is folly to hasten – at other times, to delay. The wise do everything in its proper time.  - Ovid

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have. - Leonardo da Vinci

Delay is preferable to error. - Thomas Jefferson

Quality isn’t something that can be argued into an article or promised into it. It must be put there. If it isn’t put there, the finest sales talk in the world won’t act as a substitute. - C. G. Campbell

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives. – William A. Foster

To get the thoughts going…

• Have you ever experienced poor quality and realized it was the result of someone’s lack of care or passion? (Try to think of somewhere other than the DMV.)
• Have you ever noticed the distinctly different feeling of doing something to just get it done vs. doing something passionately?
• What are you working on that deserves your highest quality effort, even if it takes a bit more time? Have you ever rushed something to completion and realized it wasn’t worth doing?

(Photo credit: Andy Warhol)