I have been speaking at many PMI chapter events in North Carolina this year. I enjoy doing these events, meeting new people, discussing different and new things, and sometimes, being introduced to cool old things. One such event was the PMI Asheville Chapter where I met some really interesting people including Eric W. Mythical Man […]
Missing Requirements Sometimes the best way to convey the challenges in product development, is to show some of the reasons things can go wrong. To that end I am going to regale you with a tale of requirements gone astray. Wearing Many Hats I worked at a small company a long time ago. I am […]
Today we discuss interchangeability of parts. This may sound trivial, but you probably would not even consider replacing your food processor blade with your lawnmower blade. It would be obvious that these are not interchangeable. However, there are times when a part needs to be replaced or design is reworked altering the composition, that is […]
You are in college now, and you see people that are likely smart as far as youth will provide. Everybody can have strong “opinions” and perhaps their track record in high school has been one of success after success or being the person known to be knowledgeable – as far as high school topics go. […]
Schedule pressures can keep project managers up at night. Frequently the project schedule is not entirely driven by logistics from within the projects but by external pressures such as market or executive pressure. There are metrics that can be used to help predict, sometimes these are not created, gathered, maintained or have the appropriate follow […]
Many of you who have read our blog know we are fans of the show Aircraft Disaster on the Smithsonian Channel. We do not like the show for the disaster part, but the root-cause analysis aspects. These things are intriguing for engineers. Root cause analysis is an important skill for design engineers, process engineers, and […]
Not all television is not mind numbing. I enjoy The History Channel and many other similar channels as these are not exactly learning opportunities but close. However, my son turned us on to a show called House on Netflix[1] and it is very interesting. House (also called House, M.D.) is an American television medical drama that […]
There are a number of challenges when developing products or systems using multiple suppliers. My experience mirrors that of those of the Defense & Aerospace Group on LinkedIn that many systems are developed with more than one supplier, each with a sub-assembly or sub-system constituent of the entire system assigned to a multiplicity of […]
From what I have learned over my life thus far, is that we need not think of things as either-or, at least not all of the time. Heavy metal guitar player’s use pick slides to make interesting screeching sounds, but bass players can also use this contrivance – to make a different yet similar if […]
This may or may not be a true story, but I promise it happens every year. We start with the customer organization and a supplier that the customer refers to as a partner supplier. This “partner” supplier collaborates with the customer to develop custom components for a larger system the customer sells to their customers. […]