One of the worst things that can ever happen to a quality function or test team is a credibility gap. When perceptions of quality take a hit — whether internal or external — you are on a bad path. Here I don’t want to talk about how you get out of that situation. What I want to do is talk about how you can avoid getting into it in the first place. But I want to talk about it at the level that it really matters. This means talking about morals and values. But this is tricky because such discussions are fraught with peril and subjectivity. Yet we need to tackle these head on.