Quality during Design

 This is the wrap-up, final episode of our series - the 7th episode in our series about generating ideas with a team toward action.  Since the start of 2023, we focused on a few quality tools and methods to both generate ideas and then choose which idea to pursue. We've talked about: Changing our scope to a closed world, to failures or questions, or design heuristics Brainstorming within a pr...

We're in our 6th episode into our series about generating ideas with our team toward action. The first two episodes were all about idea generation. The 3rd through 5th episodes was about using Quality Tools to help us group, explore, prioritize, and decide on an idea. This episode is exploring a Design Sprint, a method to develop a design concept with a team in 5 working days. We build upon w...

We're in our 5th episode of our series about generating ideas with our team toward action. The first two episodes were all about idea generation. The 3rd was about grouping and exploring ideas. The 4th was about screening ideas. Now, we'll look at ways to compare ideas. We’re still considering that we're just after brainstorming, at the point where we have many ideas and no next ste...

We're in our 4th episode into our series about generating ideas with our team toward action. The first two episodes were all about idea generation. The 3rd was about grouping and exploring ideas. We’re still considering that we're just after brainstorming, at the point where we have many ideas and no next steps.  Let's instead screen our ideas so we can move toward action. We explor...

We're on our 3rd episode in our series about generating ideas with our team toward action. The previous two episodes were all about idea generation.  We’re now at the point where we have many ideas and no next steps.  Let's group and explore our ideas so we can move toward action. We explore these Quality Tools and how to use them after a brainstorming or other idea-generating team activ...

This episode is part of our interview series, “A Chat with Cross Functional Experts". Our focus is speaking with people that are typically part of a cross-functional team for new product development. We discuss their viewpoints and perspectives regarding new products, the values they bring to new product development, and how they're involved and work with product design engineering teamm...

Sometimes we need to gather with our team and come up with some ideas. Whether we’re looking for new product ideas, trying to discover possible solutions, or need to improve a service, gathering a team to come up with ideas is common. What are some of the ways we approach this activity? We talk about systematic and structured methods and new approaches to brainstorming. Doing the same, old thing d...

As engineers, we need to write reports all the time. Are ours getting returned by reviewers frequently? Or are we not getting any feedback and are not sure when our report is 'done'? We explore the spirits of technical writing past, present, and future. We explore how and why they help us to write for ALL of our audiences. Visit the podcast blog for excerpts. Other Quality during Design...

What are the gifts others bring to new product development? It takes intentional actions and acknowledgement to understand how to bring design inputs into our designs from other people. We consider project teams like a neighborhood and how this frame of mind can help our designs. Visit the podcast blog .  Other Quality during Design podcast episodes you might like: The DFE Part of DFX (Design For...

During product development, we're consistently looking for ways to learn more about the product in order to make design decisions. Some of that comes from test. What do we do when our test results are...surprising? We talk about some next steps I typically take when tasked with surprises: revisiting the purpose, understanding failure modes at test vs. what we expected (requirements and FMEA),...

We have a reliability target for our system. But we're not meeting it. To avoid this scenario, what is something we can do in early development?   When we're figuring out our concept, we can better learn about our options. We can work with Reliability Engineers to understand what we know, the risk in what we don't know, and to prioritize reliability of the modules to be able to meet...

New product development projects are really exciting at the start. Even though we know very little about what the final product is going to look like, we can still use a quick graphical tool to help us direct our engineering attention. We talk about ways to use a very simple System Architecture Diagram to help us investigate what is new, different, or has been a problem in the past. We also discus...

We can find Quality at the back-end of product creation, where it's used for compliance.  We want to pick up some of it and move it to the front-end, where design decisions are happening. It's there that we can yield it like a tool to work with our cross-functional team, to help us with doing the engineering work that's important for great designs. We explore why Quality can help us...

Where do we sometimes need to look for inspiration?  Books! We talk about 11 books in 5 different topics that are useful for different perspectives on engineering and design topics. And I tell you what I'm most looking forward to reading next. What book recommendations do you have for me? Find a link to the book list on the podcast blog .  Send us a message Work with Dianna I help product dev...

What is engineering in the color economy? We explore facets of sustainable economic models: Green, Blue, Yellow, and Orange. Where do you fit in now? Where would you like to be? And how can you make design choices within each (or all!) of these color economies? There's more on the blog for this podcast . Want to download the 12 things checklist? Visit this link . Send us a message Work with D...

What makes a great design? It depends. We talk about the spectrum of designs (from great to spam), the various customers engineers need to design for, and how engineers can work with their team toward defining what a great design should be. You're invited to download a checklist: 12 things you should have before a design concept makes it to the engineering drawing board. Download Here Send us...

We worked on a project with our team and met our goal! Except, management isn't happy - they expected something else. Seeing if we have alignment on goals is easy if we gather the team and stakeholders for 10 minutes and use a continuum. There are certain categories that goals will fall within. A continuum is a way we can list those categories, get alignment, and gain an understanding of how...

Relationships matter! And they can be difficult to understand. We're taking relationships between variables. Does one variable affect another? Or do they just correlate? Understanding which matters to the values of our decisions. We talk about the saying "Correlation does not imply causation", how to find a confounding variable, and ways to check that we've got the triggering c...

Meetings to ADD productivity to our day? Yes! We need our time to be productive, individually. We also need input from our team. We can use meetings to add productivity to our day, if done right. We break it down: hours in a day, limits of humans, and the minimum requirements of a good meeting. Visit the podcast blog for extra information about Lean Coffee(tm).  Other Quality during Design podcast...

We have test results but realize that testing didn't go as planned. What can we do to help prevent this scenario? We talk about ways to partner with test engineers and test technicians and the importance of still maintaining their independence. The podcast blog and others are available on www.qualityduringdesign.com. Other Quality during Design podcast episodes you might like:  Design Input &...

I've mentioned in previous episodes that it's best to do FMEA early in the design concept phases of development. Well, if we do FMEA early, then what can with do with it? We explore how to study any risk analyses (system risks, FMEA, hazard analysis) to help design-out problems, set-up design inputs, and help us figure out test methods. We also talk a bit about why a team is a necessary...

We can develop a severity rating scale based on us: our company, our customer, our product... And we can relate the categories that we use to the quality dimensions that matter to us. We talk about the 7 principal quality dimensions of goods and services, the 5 principal dimensions of quality in customer service, and how we might customize our severity scale based on these dimensions. The podcast...

A force field analysis is a tool in the quality toolbox. Its typical use case is to help a team analyze a change by understanding the forces involved. We can also use it to help us solve a problem. We can use a force field analysis to understand nuances or to get a handle on a change that involves many different people or departments. We envision a force field analysis as a football field during a...

There is a lot of use information about a new product concept that we can develop, even if we don't have an engineering prototype. We want this information especially before we start prototyping! We talk about what type of information we can gather and a stepwise approach to get it with our cross-functional team. Do you want to explore a little more? How to Self-Advocate for More Customer Fac...

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is not a substitute for product test. It can be used as a supplement to design and test. There are lots of ways to use it during design: to evaluate differences in prototype options, as test inputs, and even to help with root cause analysis. We talk about FEA and when to work with Quality Engineers and Reliability Engineers for next steps. Visit the podcast blog for l...