What does it mean to be perfect or to obtain perfection?   Some may say that to be perfect is to not have any flaws.  Others may say not to make any mistakes.   Still others may say that there is no such thing in the world as perfection.

Can one truly reach perfection? It depends on the definition.   In an organization, people expect perfection - customers, vendors, managers, and those good-ol-fashion perfectionists out there.  It's demanded from us.  But can we deliver on those demands? 

In the agile software development world, there's a motto called "Do the simplest thing that could possible work."  For them, that is their definition until they receive feedback through frequest delivery that more is needed.  For those that are in Quality Assurance, usually the definition of perfection are to catch critical bugs that we impact the general operation of the solution or possibly corrupt the underlying data.  For other bugs, they determine if the workaround is acceptable.  For cosmetic issues such as mispellings and inconsistences of terminology, those things can be fixed when time is available.  For project managers, their idea of perfection is to remove any bottlenecks keeping the team from delivering something of value to end customers.  Therefore, there are many compromises between the development team, the end customer and other stakeholders of what the "acceptance criteria" is for the project.

Bottom line is that in business, in our departments, on our teams, with our products and services -- we must all define and agree on what perfection is.   Once we define that, we need to make sure that the processes and end deliverables reflect that.  How?  By measuring our quality and constantly tracking and balancing our "perfection" against that which is achievable.  Eventually, the definition of perfection will take a life of its own, one that is aligned to the expectations of customers, vendors, managers, and perhaps even those perfectionists out there.

What is my personal definition of perfection?  Well, it's simple actually.   Perfection to me is to provide the very best value that is possible given the abilities and constraints that are put upon the team.  What are the measures?  Maximizing our abilities while minimizing our constraints. This would be measuring things such as skills, time, money, risk, customer acceptance, stability, technical challenges, etc. 

Hopefully, that's good enough!