“Scaffolding” is a term often used in education, but in our experience, rarely followed to a significant extent. Scaffolding allows us to grow a student in capability by starting easily and providing progressively more intricate and involved exercises. This approach actualizes Lev Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development. When training clients, we must […]
Consider a rather large project that like so many projects had some difficulties. The project team had a major component (subsystem) delivered from a supplier. The supplier has one set of processes and the customer organization another. This supplier delivers multiple versions of this major subsystem. The customer integrates this subsystem into the larger system […]
Failure to train employees is a failure to invest in our own companies. In one case, we saw an incredible decline in unplanned production line downtime when we started teaching the technicians how to do their jobs—what a concept! If we are afraid our investment will move on to the next company after we have […]
Teams must grow; teams cannot be simply appointed and anointed. We may have a designated group that evolves into a team, but this emergent phenomenon takes time. It takes time to discover the strengths and weakness if each member of the group, understanding that ultimately transforms into trust, the backbone value/concept for any successful team. […]
Creating a separate software test group has pluses and minuses. At a minimum, we may have more to manage. Some of the minuses are a product of human nature. When we know our work will be inspected, we will often assume the inspector will catch issues and we pay less attention to the issue ourselves. […]
The Pareto chart (not to be directly confused with the Pareto probability distribution function) is a simple approach to revealing significance in data. Before we plot our chart, we need to complete some initial work: Gather the data in a natural format (count, floating point [decimal], dollars, etc.) Sort the data from high to low […]
We have been on a bit a tear (or rant) about FMEAs. We suggest the FMEA documentation is part of the core of a design process. The ultimate approach we have seen is that of Michael Anleitner (The Power of Deduction: Failure Modes and Effects Analysis for Design, Quality Press, 2010), which uses functional analysis […]
There is only one way to describe this scenario and that is via a story. Consider the organization that is coming to the end of the project. The product is a complicated subassembly that goes into a larger system and has numerous interactions and incarnations of the design. They are late in the delivery of […]
We submit that a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) review is a form of design review. After all, one of the purposes of a design review is to try and remove defects before they appear in the product and that is the entire rationale for the FMEA in the first place. Yet, most of […]
Brainstorming as neologism began with Alex Osborn of the advertising agency BBDO in 1942. His primary concern was creative thinking. In general, classical brainstorming generally follows this pattern: Gather a group of people Decide on a duration and quantity of ideas desired Solicit ideas from group members No editing, snide comments, or insults Collect ideas […]