All in Lessons Learned
Good design jobs are fun and smart designers never stay more than 3 years on a program to avoid getting stuck in sustainment, which is fixing minor drawing and manufacturing issues down in the factory. That is of course, unless you are in law school, in which case, low stress sustainment is the way to go.
When designing a ski for the Olympics, you should know the precise conditions in which that ski will be used and design for those use cases. If not, a sub-optimal ski design will keep you off the podium.
The Olympics are an amazing event everyone should enjoy. But the Olympics are also incredibly hard to design for and offer a couple of lessons we can all transfer to our other projects.
I have made a lot of mistakes over my time in product development. These range from small things like missing a dimension on a drawing, to sending the wrong paint code to a factory so a batch of new bikes were about to be painted like confetti. My biggest mistake was made early on in the development of my first product.
To be clear, there are many factors that lead to project success; attitude, knowledge, process, opportunity, resources, and more. This article gives one simple process technique that anyone can do. I chose this one because it has been a significant part of my process for the last 20 years and has been the foundation of my best work.
I sat trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt. Then he unveiled his invention. I already suspected what it was and now there was no doubt. I was looking at a perpetual motion machine.
If you find yourself in Las Vegas, whether you plan to gamble or not, don’t miss out on the opportunity to observe some design choices made by casinos that influence behavior. However, don’t forget those same behaviors can be manipulated outside of casinos too…
An engineering student shares his thoughts and experiences about mental health.
It’s easy to get caught up in the mire of minutiae and forget to keep the end in mind. Here are some design principles that can help teams avoid common problems.
I was surprised at how valuable the DIY experience was as an engineer. Hopefully these lessons can save you the reader the trouble of learning them the hard way, but I encourage you to try some DIY and learn your own design lessons.
In this article I look at WD-40 as a model of innovation. Why? Its popularity has stood the test of time, and its story is simple enough for us to extract out what WD-40 did right during its long history. Of course every product is different, but the principles observed from WD-40 are at least worth considering in any innovation setting.
Progressing toward goals is difficult for all of us. That’s part of what makes goals a meaningful part of growth. If you find yourself struggling to reach your goals, as I do, consider the simple time-tested start-stop-continue method described in this article.
It can be extremely difficult to know how much time to spend on a particular design task. Do it too quickly and you might waste time and money. Do it too slowly and stakeholders will conclude that progress has stopped. This article gives eight things to practice as you learn to strike a good balance between spending too much versus too little time reaching development milestones.
I have worked at the BYU Electric Shop with the Fire Alarm Crew for about a year and a half. The Fire Alarm Crew is required to test and maintain fire alarm equipment throughout all of BYU campus. Entering the job, I felt like I had no knowledge about Fire Alarms, but I’ve learned a lot since then, and not just about Fire Alarms.
Ever think about design while brushing your teeth? There is a lesson or two, during the minute or two, we use a tool in our mouth daily.
Mississippi is redesigning its flag. What do you think is important for this redesign effort? Read about five points or requirements that might be heavily weighted during the process.
Designing during a pandemic with time pressures can be a little different than traditional design. Read 8 lessons Andrew Armstrong learned while designing a ventilator for COVID-19 patients.
Generating creative solutions to a problem is great—but only if you’re solving the right problems.
Most of us who want to become designers at some point pursue a major that we feel will get us to our objective. We say to ourselves “Self, I will attend school and become a great designer.” So, you begin an undergraduate program and start looking for the secret sauce…
Although not everyone designs experiments near absolute zero, performing them can teach us there is no substitute for testing your design in the intended environment.
