Which is important? Quality OR Quantity?

Hello! I am back with another not-so-sweet-preachy-words-filled-blog. Can't help it. Will change the mode of this blog in near future with some other kind of blogs. Till then here is one more for you and me.

In this blog, I would be sharing what I feel regarding the quality and quantity of work we do and its implications on subsequent appraisal(s). The work in this case can be tasks performed at office OR in personal life. I will try and limit the scope to the tasks performed at workplace....Though I don't see many reasons why it cannot be applied to personal tasks as well. Enough! Let's begin.

Somehow we love appreciation. We love being awarded/rewarded for the tasks that we do. One similar exercise is the appraisal- not a new word for corporate employees.
Dictionary says something like -The process of determining the value and thus the disposition of records based upon their current administrative, legal, and fiscal use; their evidential and informational (historical) value; their arrangement and condition; their intrinsic value; and their relationship to other records. (SAA)

The corporate has chosen this as the baseline for the annual/half yearly appraisals. It goes like
an appraisal is a formal meeting between your superior, in which your performance evaluation is done with comments,opinions and feedback of both.


The pre-requisite of this activity is:
1) Number of tasks performed during the cycle - the term Quantity in the title of this blog.

2) Rating of the above mentioned tasks - the term Quality in the title of this blog.

The best rated employees are the ones who strike the correct balance between the above two. This is because it is very difficult (although possible - depends on type of tasks and your experience and efficiency) to have both the quantity as well as quality of work. So far so good...But for ourselves, we are the best. Isn't it??

Repeated appraisal practice makes us experts in:
1) Adding a long list of tasks accomplished to our achievements
2) Rating most of these to the best(or a grade lower) grades possible.

But do we ponder for a second that we tasks we add, have we done them with good quality? I work in software industry and I have seen quite a few people who would take enough responsibilities(READ: tasks) in the name of initiatives, which are definitely worth for exceeding the employer's expectation- so expected to get better grades. But I have found a lot of such people, who would unnecessarily burden themselves with these tasks -and ultimately messing up the assigned work PLUS not following up with additional responsibilities. This sometimes goes against us during appraisals.
However, we are adamant on high grades for additional tasks for the sole reason that we did them apart from our regular work. What I feel is this:
No one would appreciate the additional tasks IF the assigned tasks are not performed well enough.
It's straightforward. I would pose an example from IT industry...What's important for a project delivery? I would say the time and quality of the delivery. The client need not know what did you do extra and to what extent, that took toll on the quality of the delivery. One cannot shield his failure in assigned job by success in extra tasks, unless phenomenal for the employer- which is not so easy.

It can be summarised as follows: First one should learn to perform the assigned tasks with GREAT quality and then think of some extra activities. This would raise even the ordinary/average extra task's grades and will be seen in positive light. But the reverse will not work in most of the cases - I feel so.

The above description might contain a lot of loopholes. So I would be waiting for comments from all my worthy readers.
And one more thing that I didn't touch throughout the blog about appraisals...can be found here. Great Reuse (That's for me)!!