In our last blog post, we referred to the APQP  (Advanced Product Quality Planning) activity of DFMEA.  The post was about the attempt to perform late in a project.  The point to the DFMEA in that instance was lost; at best, if we found a serious problem, would be to abort the launch.  The post […]

Asking for more… Recently, I overheard a project manager discussing the use of a quality tool for their project. The project is well underway. Can you guess the tool under discussion?  It was the DFMEA or Design Failure Mode Effects Analysis.  There are a couple of things wrong with starting the discussion at this point, […]

Review of Rate of Accomplishment From our earlier blog post, we discussed task dependencies and how understanding these connections improve our probability of project success as it pertains to schedule. Additional information on dependencies can be found in our book Project Management of Complex and Embedded Systems. Monitoring  Rate of Accomplishment means Measuring So what […]

We see some company responses to economic downturn are to eliminate staff as if that were the only way to become a viable company once again. We wonder if these companies have some cost improvement methodology behind them that would give their management other options than summarily removal of personnel.

By Shawn P. Quigley Leadership Behavioral Equation (as if it were that easy) We have previously discussed there is no single model that can capture leadership and management in all instances.  However, we can extract some major principles that are required for success.  With that in mind, let us dive into Kurt Lewin’s behavior equation. […]

By Shawn P. Quigley Introduction: In this blog, we will be discussing Situational, Transformational, and Transactional styles relating to leadership style and group dynamics. We will start with defining each leadership style and then look at that style for guiding a group to success. Upon completion of assessing each style of leadership, we will attempt […]

What is concurrent engineering? Concurrent engineering is when activities are paralleled that could be sequenced. Concurrent engineering can help us deliver the product earlier since we have compressed the schedule by overlapping the various development activities.  There are certain risks associated with this way of working. To be successful and not incur massive rework, it […]

Project Schedule I have been thinking on project scheduling since invitation to speak at a Wake Forest MBA class.  Schedule management is much more than Microsoft Project, though an appropriate tool can help the project manager and the team to visualize how the project activities map to success, however, we must have performed sufficient diligence. […]