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Working with the Worlds of the Workplace
Systems engineers encounter many different worlds within the workplace: product design, management, sales, testing, manufacturing, service and human resources. If we understand the structure and values of each of these worlds, we can work more effectively with the people that inhabit them. This post was inspired by ideas presented in the book The Dawn of…
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Schedules are Models
Schedules are models. We can use them to model various ways we might organize a project. We can then make a schedule that best meets our needs BEFORE we start executing the project. Two categories of models In this post I find it useful to make a distinction between two categories of models: scientific models…
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Doing and Not Doing
There is a natural cycle to all productive work: Preparation, Doing and Not Doing. A task is iterated through these three states until it comes to completion. All three states are essential for success, but we often skimp on Preparation and neglect Not Doing entirely. Preparation Preparation includes learning, training, research, investigation, observing others, periods…
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Parkinson’s Law for Schedules
Parkinson’s Law states that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” To plan the development of a product, we create a schedule. This schedule is a model of how we hope to proceed with the project. We use it to determine what we need to do, the best order in…
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Daily Status Meetings
In my organization, these were called Execution Control Meetings. Organizations that claim to be using an Agile process will usually call them stand-up meetings or scrums. They are intended to provide a formal way for a small team to communicate with each other about the status of their project. In theory… The purpose of a…
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Leading a Design Meeting
TYPES OF DESIGN MEETINGS Working Design Meeting You meet with a group of peers to figure out solutions to design problems. You brainstorm ideas, then discuss back and forth to evaluate and modify them. A really good working design meeting is so intellectually stimulating and so much fun that you often spend way more than…
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Product Development Lessons from a Model Car Kit
When I was a child, I loved to buy model car kits and put them together. Perhaps this hobby helped prepare me for a career in systems engineering! Putting together model cars: A thought experiment Imagine that your manager gives you two identical model car kits of a 1964 1/2 Mustang Convertible (pictured below) and…
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Why is my project late?
Anyone who has ever worked on a product development project has asked this question. And has come up with many, many causes! A systems engineer might collect and categorize all these causes in a fishbone diagram. I created the following diagram based on my experience developing medical devices: Once we have made a fishbone diagram,…
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What is a Trade Study?
Trade studies help us make wise decisions A trade study is a procedure that provides a framework for making wise decisions. To make any sort of wise decision you must: Consider the point of view of everyone affected by the decision. Understand what they need and what they want. Determine what is most important to them. In…