What about the other side of the continuum?  Driving to perfection. . .  Your garage floor does not need to be sanitary for open heart surgery, a vehicle’s cup holder only needs so much engineering, furnace filters don’t need to look appealing.  Over execution, over engineering, and vastly exceeding expectations are all clear examples of waste; waste of your time and a waste of resources.  Finding these examples are quite rare in comparison to ‘good enough’; a couple things that come to mind are my mother’s cleaning practices and Mercedes engineering from the 80’s and early 90’s.  If time and resources are unlimited then carry on . . . execute towards perfection even when it’s not necessary.

Fit for purpose is my approach.  The difference between ‘good enough’ and ‘fit for purpose’ is the fact you made a conscious decision around the quality of the work product.  You have thought what the work product will be used for, how it will be judged by the customers, what success looks like and so on.  Your effort is based on a sensible thought process, not your interest in the task at hand.

Some may be reading this maybe thinking Lean Sigma, reducing waste and defects, absolutely!  But once again ‘Fit for Purpose’ most things in life do not need a project to understand how to approach a task.  Ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ and ‘Who is it for?’ and you’ll likely come up with the appropriate rigor to create a quality work product.