Quality during Design

Why do product teams stay misaligned? Jenny Wanger explains the structural problems: efficiency-focused handoff workflows, unclear strategy, and people left cleaning up decisions they didn't help make. She shares tested practices for influencing upstream decisions without formal authority: clarifying strategy through curiosity, bringing the right people in early (pre-mortems work), and public...

The episode features Chad Schneider, CEO and founder of Root3 Labs , discussing prototyping as a discipline focused on answering specific questions to reduce technical, schedule, and market risk.  He explains that prototypes need not resemble the final product, citing examples like using a cardboard mockup to verify hand access for connectors and 3D-printed sizing models to understand surgical con...

Engineering rework often comes from unasked questions or using the wrong tool at the wrong fidelity.  Dianna outlines three common prototyping traps:  the “ta-da” trap, where teams build polished prototypes to impress stakeholders before the concept is stable, anchoring the team to an early solution the “I’m smarter than cardboard” trap, where engineers skip low-fidelity physical models in favor o...

Most of the social conversation around AI is aimed at business owners and programmers, but if you’re an engineer or quality professional, you might be wondering how to actually use these tools to help with your own work processes or information pools . While many people are waiting for their company to provide an AI strategy, there is a way to start building your own private "AI intern"...

Late-breaking insights in product development aren’t caused by negligence but by a lack of structure that pulls existing team knowledge into concept discussions early, when changes are cheaper.  Dianna describes an experiment running three product briefs (solar post-installation support, a portable oxygen concentrator, and a field lettuce harvester module) through traditional versus structured con...

The episode features Cassie Leonard—former aerospace technical leader, executive coach, and author of STEM Moms and Beyond the Pipeline —explaining why the traditional linear “pipeline” model of engineering careers is constricting and mislabels non-linear moves as failure.  Drawing on expectancy-value theory, she presents an ROI-style equation for decisions: attainment, intrinsic, and utility valu...

Your team keeps solving the exact same problems project after project. What if the issue isn't careless execution, but a reactive system designed to hide failures rather than learn from them?  In this episode: • Discover how protective, reactive systems create "quiet" organizations where vital failure data gets buried instead of shared. • Learn the three essential shifts high-perfor...

Your team keeps building the wrong thing, despite great effort. What if the problem isn’t execution. It’s the fog you’re navigating in? We speak with Shannon Cummings , a seasoned product and marketing strategist who’s spent his career bridging the gap between Marketing, Product, and Engineering. He’s launched life-changing medical devices, cut development time in half, and done it all by bringing...

Have you ever walked into a meeting (design review, planning session, phase gate) only to realize the decision was already made? That the discussion was just theater, not dialogue? You weren’t there to shape the outcome. You were there to witness it.  If that’s happened to you, you’re not alone. In this episode, Dianna explores why this happens, why it feels so frustrating, and most importantly ho...

In this episode of 'Quality during Design', we delve into how engineers can avoid mistakes and oversights by managing stress and enhancing performance.  Host Dianna Deeney interviews Karli Auble, an engineering leader at a global firm in the defense industry. She has unique expertise in systems engineering and positive psychology, with a master's degree in both disciplines. Karli sh...

Your team keeps brainstorming into a void, producing “meh” ideas that never stick. What if the problem isn’t a lack of creativity but the absence of the right constraints ? In this episode: • The Goldilocks principle of team creativity – why no guardrails and too‑many guardrails both kill innovation. • Frameworks unlock, don’t limit, creativity – using the drummers‑without‑drums analogy to show ho...

Early concept development often fails because teams lack clarity and alignment, leading to wasted time and resources. Discover the structured approach needed to cut through the "design fog" and ensure your team is building the right product from the start. In this episode: • The Concept Space Model defines the fundamental questions teams must align on before diving into technical details...

Your team spent six weeks on a feature that got rejected in the demo. Your engineers built a prototype that totally missed the mark. This misalignment is the design fog , and it’s where most product failures are born in the uncomfortable space of the fuzzy front end. In this episode: • Learn why jumping to prototypes introduces fixedness , robbing your team of the chance to define true user requir...

Ever face a late-stage design decision where your gut says “maybe,” finance says “no,” and the schedule says “hurry”?  We unpack a simple way to make those calls with more clarity: using expected value to connect confidence, upside, and downside into one sober view of net benefit. No jargon, no spreadsheets required—just a clear framework that helps you see when a $50,000 test buys real certainty,...

When pursuing aggressive benchmarks, engineers must employ portfolio thinking , running multiple design projects simultaneously. But choosing winners requires a decisive way to eliminate projects that are not feasible to continue innovating, often referred to as a "project killer".  In this episode, we analyze Tesla's battery development as a case study. We delve into their use of f...

We turn late-stage design surprises into a strategic plan by assigning explicit confidence levels, stacking evidence, and using the three-dial model of time, cost, and confidence boost. We show how to work backward from a system test to cheaper steps that drive faster, clearer decisions. • applying the three dials of time, cost, confidence • sequencing with the work-backwards strategy • avoiding o...

Late-stage design just hit a snag—now comes the moment that separates guesswork from great engineering. We walk through a clear, repeatable method to investigate unexpected failures and make high-impact decisions with confidence. Instead of hunting for a perfect test, we set a confidence target and stack multiple forms of imperfect evidence until we close the gap. If you’re navigating late-stage p...

We break down why risk analyses often become checkbox theater and replace them with a simple, practical impact vs likelihood matrix that guides action. From quick wins to high-stakes unknowns, we show how to calibrate effort, buy the right learning, and move with confidence. Join the Substack for monthly guides, templates, and QA where I help you apply these to your specific projects.  Send us a m...

If you reach for the nearest “risk” template, it might cause more problems. There are two very different jobs we ask risk tools to do. In this episode, we talk about how to pick the one that actually moves your project forward. identification tools for unknown unknowns (like FMEA and preliminary hazard analysis) that systematically surface risks to users, systems, and environments decision tools f...

Big changes, clearer focus, and more ways to learn together. We’re tightening our cadence to two episodes a month and building monthly themes that travel across the podcast, blog, and a new Substack home—so you can go beyond ideas and into practice with tools, Q&A, and live community sessions. Here’s what’s new and why it matters. The podcast keeps its familiar format, but now each month has a...

How do you balance customer wants with project constraints? If your customer-facing teammates are saying our customers want this, that and the other thing, which ones do we prioritize over others? Not all features are equal in the eyes of our customers. And not all features are value-added, either. In this episode, we delve into how to prioritize customer wants using the powerful Kano Model, a too...

Every product designer knows that critical moment when you must shift from understanding customer needs to actually engineering solutions. It's where the magic happens—and where many projects stumble. After a week of concept development with your team (customer evaluations, benefit analysis, symptom ID, and process mapping), you've gathered valuable insights. But how do you transform thi...

This episode explores the critical importance of evaluating the customer's use process during concept development.  Rather than focusing solely on what your product does, understanding how users will interact with it creates opportunities to design more intuitive, enjoyable experiences. By mapping out the steps users take from beginning to end using process flowcharts, development teams gain...

What happens when cutting-edge AI meets manufacturing quality control? The results are nothing short of revolutionary. Keven Wang, co-founder and CEO of UnitX, takes us through the world of AI-powered visual inspection, where it is transforming how factories detect defects and improve product quality. Drawing from his experience with over 160 manufacturers worldwide, Keven reveals how these system...

Ever stood in that devastating moment when customers finally interact with your nearly-finished product only to hear them say, "I don't like that" or "This doesn't work for me"? After months of development and what you thought was adequate customer engagement, these late-stage revelations can send you spiraling back to the drawing board, costing time, money, and team...