Cost and time describe actual metrics. Quality does not. We can’t even define what we mean by “quality,” much less measure it. What we call “quality” turns out

Cost and time describe actual metrics. Quality does not. We can’t even define what we mean by “quality,” much less measure it. What we call “quality” turns out more subjective than we like to think. It makes more business sense to focus on cost and time, to get something in front of users that offers some marginal value. Users may or may not have other options. A “low quality” product can still serve to prove a market’s viability, to make measuring costs and time more accurate in the future, to establish a foothold in the market. Look at the success of Wal-Mart and think about what that says about how consumers value price and convenience (i.e. their time) over quality. Better quality products, however defined, do not always win. Software developers too often value what they think of as “quality” over every other consideration, which doesn’t make sense in business terms, where a late or never-delivered product that cost a lot of money has no return on investment.