The Value of Quality in Work: Lessons from the St. Tammany Parish Assessor's Office

How Prioritizing High Standards Led to Successful Parcel Capture Project and a Cohesive Public Parcel Map

Quality over quantity, always.

Dr. Julie Gurner @drgurner

Anytime you are "rushing" in the day, you are diluting your effectiveness - not covering more ground. A Reminder: Take the time, and do it right.

This is something that the Geographic Information System Department at the St. Tammany Parish Assessor’s Office preached from day one. Since being established as an official department in 2013, metrics were always less important than doing high quality work.

The high standards we set as a team were hard for some people on our team to handle. They were hard for some prospective contractors, too.

But in the end, those standards led us to where we are today: 95 percent complete with the parcel capture project, less reworks than expected, an exhaustive and detailed guidance manual, a robust quality control team, and a cohesive, beneficial public product in the STPAO Public Parcel Map.

A screenshot of the St. Tammany Parish Assessor’s Office’s interactive parcel map, a public resource for viewing parcel boundaries, high quality aerial imagery, and assessment data.

The advice from Dr. Gurner reminds me of that adage:

"Buy cheap, buy twice."

Applying this to work, it means that if you perform with low quality now for your business, you guarantee that you will redo that same work again later. This is the best case scenario, too, that you actually get a chance to redeem yourself later.

The worst case scenario?

You get replaced by someone who prioritizes quality the first time around.