A craft requires continual practice to hone skill sets until they become second nature. Once that happens as an organization that develops and manufactures products, watch out. Much can be achieved. The rewards are many.
Methods Development
A method is a way of doing something.
For a learning organization, it continually seeks to improve. It prunes that which does not bear fruit and cultivates that which does.
Sometimes, it takes outside eyes to hold up the mirror. When the outside observations are coupled with the internal knowledge and experience of the organization, insights are uncovered that lead to new levels of capability.
We have worked with many kinds of methodologies and understand their strengths and weaknesses. When we come into an organization to help improve, we don’t immediately assume everything currently in place is broken. We recognize different organizations produce for different market sectors and vastly different customers. There is no one size that fits all. Even within the same organization, it may make good sense to approach things differently… that is, to have different methodologies.
We seek to use the best tool for the job and one that is a natural fit for the personality of the organization.
Education &Training
Being lifelong learners is not only important for our society and the world, but it’s also fun. Even in the workplace, we should always be learning.
For those of us with experience, we should still maintain the attitude of the student, for we never know from where the next insight will come.
For those of us with experience and know-how, we should teach so that:
- We don’t, as a society, forget how to do things
- We don’t repeat the errors of the past
- We help foster a bright future for all
We Work with Schools
We have developed and taught classes of high school and college students various things about product development.
Topics can be broad or more narrow. Whenever possible, we try to bring in real world anecdotes. Because our teaching style is very engaging and hands-on whenever possible, very often the students can relate more strongly because they have also just experienced some aspect of the point.
We can tailor our guest-teaching to fit the curriculum. Some example topics include:
- Voice of the customer and gathering requirements
- The importance of alternative generation
- Group decision making, consensus and alternative selection
- The power of hand sketching in the age of digital everything
- Managing boundary and interface requirements across multiple teams
- Understanding manufacturing processes before starting design
- What makes good documentation
- The importance of document and design revision control
- Variation is everywhere and how to account for it in design
- The forgotten skill of true listening and dialogue
- Receiving critical feedback as a gift; staying humble
- Lean principles and identification of waste
- And many more…
You may note that some of these don’t sound very technical. Yes. Engineers must have a solid command of math, science, physics, etc. Because our teaching fits alongside other coursework, those competencies are covered elsewhere. We try to fill in with the art of application where interpersonal skills are often more important to the success of a product development effort than the technical prowess. Success in product development is a team effort.
Often, there is an assumption that young people today are natural team players because of all the “social” interaction they get online. What we more often observe is that what they have learned is more in line with sound bites, gossip and discouraging others rather than encouragement and building others up. Engaging in productive dialogue has to be re-taught.
Before an older reader feels too good about themselves, we observe the same characteristics across the board.
It is our aim to imbue our teaching with an optimistic excitement quality in interactions can be re-discovered and flourish.
A Word About the Mode
We can travel, if budgets can support it, but we also work virtually, which is very efficient and quite effective. In this day and age of distant collaboration, teaching by using remote communication technologies adds another rich layer to the experience. Students quickly appreciate why it is important to choose descriptive language and be adept at creating visuals that effectively communicate their ideas to their teammates.