For about the last six months, Hibou has been encouraging our employees to participate in extracurricular activities. When our Friday is wrapping up, we break off into groups and engage with one another on a level unrelated to our business. We have had some employees demonstrate musical prowess, while others went and held a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. From the beginning, I have been a member of our book club. We all make submissions on what to read, vote on what to read next, determine how much of the book to complete before our meeting, and then bring our thoughts on what we have read to the group to spark discussion about how the writing affected us or inspired us to think about a certain topic. Typical book club premise, right? Dont worry, I am getting to the point.
Our current book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, has introduced a lot of thought around philosophy, values, and most importantly to this writing, a concept of quality. I have considered from time to time but never really focused on what quality means. I have always known what quality meant without putting a definition to it, but when I stopped to try and define it, I just kept coming back to "I know it when I see it."
There are plenty of catchy quotes out there about quality: "Quality is a choice, choose to make it better." "Quality is never an accident but rather the result of intelligent effort." "Quality is not an act, it is a habit." I personally enjoy a good quote as the next person, and those three are some that I appreciated when putting my thoughts together for this post.
Quality can be subjective, meaning different people can have differing opinions on what quality means to them. We at Hibou try to give quality a more objective definition:does this work reflect our best effort while accomplishing the request of the client or customer?
There is a pyramid that is often thrown around that I think goes hand in hand with determining something's quality.
With the three corners being the amount of time a thing takes, cost to do that thing, and quality of the thing done. With those three things in mind, it is also often said that in most cases, you can only get two of those things at the expense of the third: you can get it fast, and you can get it cheap, but it’s not going to be high quality. You can get it high quality, and you can get it fast, but it’s not going to be cheap. You can get it cheap, and you can get it high quality, but it’s not going to be fast. You get the idea.
We aim to provide all three of those ideas in our work, and I like to think that the praise we receive, from clients, other partners, and even Odoo employees, for our work goes hand in hand with the quality of work we produce, and we’re going to look at those qualities (not to be confused with quality) that we strive for at Hibou, which makes our work different from some Odoo partners.
Is it fast?
We focus primarily on Odoo and it’s use for our customers, which allows us to really KNOW the software. We call ourselves experts for a variety of reasons: our nearly complete US staff being functionally certified in Odoo, a combined experience of Odoo totaling nearly two decades. These give us an advantage in providing solutions to our customers as quickly as possible. Another thing we strive for at Hibou is transparent communication, whether by email, Odoo messages, or jumping on a call. This too contributes to turning in work on time. If we run into a question while working, or an issue with a desired solution, or even an edge case for use that could otherwise slow down our progress, we reach out to our clients as quickly as possible so that we can either resolve the issue or adapt our plan so we can continue to move forward. So while the question ‘is it fast’ is subjective, we think that yes, we complete our work quickly and as efficiently as possible.
Is it cost efficient?
While I’ve touched on the cost of working with Hibou in the past by way of our Success Packs, I’ve never discussed in an article what our hourly costs are (if you’re curious, give me a call and let’s chat!). So this question too, is once again subjective. Compared to some partners, our implementations are extremely low cost. And with our experience and expertise, we are able to find solutions and resolutions faster than some other partners may be able to. With less time equaling less money, yes, we think it’s “cheap.”
Is it quality work?
As I mentioned before, quality can be subjective. With our experience in Odoo for many different industries, we are able to take a clients issue, provide an efficient solution to resolve their problem, identify potential issues that may conflict with our solution and provide solutions to those as well, and we do it all while being communicative and respectful of the time a client has given us for these resolutions. So yes, we think our work meets a standard of quality above some others who claim to offer the same level of service as we do.
So in all, maybe our pyramid of quality is less of a pyramid at all, and more of a Venn diagram where we sit comfortably in the center. Want to find out for yourself? Go take one of our courses, or try one of our modules, maybe go and read our documentation. And if you think you could benefit from Hibou’s help in Odoo, contact us!