Quality as a system
Tests, continuous integration, guardrails, standards and the paved road working as a system that makes the right thing the easy thing. The manager invests in the system instead of inspecting change by change. Coverage is no measure of quality; tests that catch what matters are.
Evidence grade: practice A widely adopted practitioner model with clear provenance.
Use it when
Any quality problem; the manager who is tempted to review every change.
Where it stops working
A system is only as good as its enforcement at the seams. A definition of done that nobody enforces where work crosses teams is just a document.
Where the standard uses it
- TJ-3Code review and quality standardsIncluding standards for AI-generated code.
Used alongside it
- Aligned autonomy practice
- Code review as knowledge transfer research
- Contract at the boundary practice
- Review for AI-generated code practice
- Security of AI-generated code research
Cite this model
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Quality as a system. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, TEC.quality-as-a-system). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/techniques/quality-as-a-system