Paul Hammond's Blog

There is a chain of coffee shops in Shanghai (maybe all of China?) called SPR Coffee.  I really like the slogan that they use on their paper cups - "No Full Stops In Quality".  It reminds me that, no matter how high your quality is now, or how good your processes and practices are that help achieve and ensure good quality, there is always something more you can do.

As if to underscore this, the last time I was in Shanghai I purchased an Americano coffee from the SPR in our office building.  It was super-hot.  The cardboard sleeve that was supposed to protect me got super-hot too, the glue holding it together melted and the sleeve fell off.  So, even SPR Coffee still has some work to do to improve in the quality space! 

So, what is your team doing to increase the quality of your product?  What practices are you changing to push the quality in to your product, or even to design the quality in up-front?  What issues are your retrospectives revealing that will lead you to make changes that will support new quality initiatives?

On February 24th of 2008, I started a project on Flickr called the 365 Days project.  Well, 366 days later (2008 was a leap year), I completed the challenge I had set myself.  I had taken 366 photos somehow featuring myself and uploaded them for all to see.  And most likely laugh at.

Some random statistics about my year of self-portraiture:

• 18 involved musical instruments of some kind.
• 22 were taken in Shanghai (23 if you include day 366).
• 22 were taken in the USA (including 10 in Seattle, 8 in Boston).
• 17 were taken in other countries.
• 10 featured one or both of my kids, 3 included our puppy Ruby.
• 2 were pictures of my butt.
• 16 had something to do with the Boston Red Sox.
• 44 were in black and white, or had some selective colouring.
• 5 featured Apple products or themes.
• 2 were taken in the snow.
• 1 day featured a photo that I didn't think I'd taken, but found in my recycle bin 3 days later to prevent the "fail" (day 239).
• 1 had me wearing a wig.
• Day 127 (Red Sox Tickets) got the most views, followed by Day 207 (Out Back) and then Day 232 (Shanghai World Financial Centre).

You can see the whole set of pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/phammond/sets/72157603977922609/

I had great fun doing it, although some days were a real chore.  The ideas well ran fairly dry early on in the project.  There are a number of pictures I am really happy with, and quite a few that were just terrible!  Along the way I met some cool Flickr users.  My Photoshop skills certainly improved during the year too.

Try it, it's fun!