Quality during Design

Ever felt overwhelmed with the mountain of data during the design process? Wondered how best to prioritize tasks to meet user needs? I'm Dianna Deeney, and this episode of the Quality During Design Podcast promises to guide you through the chaos. We delve deep into the concept of an urgent/important matrix, a simple two-way matrix that can help you align your design priorities based on the user.

We get practical, applying this matrix to a real-world scenario - designing a bicycle stand. As we navigate through preliminary user data, we'll explore how tasks can be categorized based on urgency and importance. From assembling the stand to recycling the packaging materials, high-level tasks are prioritized. Tune in and uncover how you can leverage this straightforward tool to streamline your design process and create products that truly resonate with user requirements.

This is a Quality during Design Redux episode originally titled "Design for User Tasks using an Urgent/Important Matrix". Visit the podcast blog for examples and other links.

Send us a message

Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful. 

Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours. 

Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)

Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn. 

Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.

Dianna Deeney interviews Scott Abel about why members of the technical documentation team should be brought into product design process earlier rather than later. And to encourage product design teams to incorporate the insights available from technical documentation professionals into their design decisions.

This episode is Part 2 of our interview. Part 1 (published earlier) was a discussion involving information development management. This Part 2 focuses on technical communication in design.

This interview is part of our series, “A Chat with Cross Functional Experts". Our focus is speaking with people that are typically part of a cross-functional team within engineering projects. 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 teammates.

About Scott
Scott Abel serves as Content Strategy Evangelist at Heretto. He also runs a consultancy called The Content Wrangler, which helps companies improve how they author, maintain, manage, and deliver technical product information to those who need it, when, where, and how they prefer it. He writes regularly for content industry publications, produces a series of content strategy-focused books for XML Press, and is a dynamic presenter often featured at content industry events worldwide.

Scott and Dianna talk about:

• Today's approaches of information developers and how they work in project teams.
• Today's challenges with content and why it's not just an instruction manual. We talk about limits to the ability to scale, deliverability, personalization, and relationships with customer service call centers.
• Regulations, standards, and awards within the information developer's world.
• How to approach, engage, and incorporate technical communication people and information developers into an engineering project.

Visit the podcast blog for extra information and links! www.qualityduringdesign.com

Send us a message

Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful. 

Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours. 

Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)

Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn. 

Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.

Dianna Deeney interviews Scott Abel about information development management, a discipline concerned with best practices for managing and coordinating all activities related to the development, production, and distribution of information. He shares ideas, strategies, and best practices for unifying all product information - technical documentation, product specifications, customer support, training, and on-boarding - in a single online knowledge center.

This is Part 1 of 2 episodes with Scott. In Part 1 (this episode) we talk about information development management. In Part 2 (next episode), we talk about technical communication as part of product design success.

This interview is part of our series, “A Chat with Cross Functional Experts". Our focus is speaking with people that are typically part of a cross-functional team within engineering projects. 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 teammates.

About Scott
Scott Abel serves as Content Strategy Evangelist at Heretto. He also runs a consultancy called The Content Wrangler, which helps companies improve how they author, maintain, manage, and deliver technical product information to those who need it, when, where, and how they prefer it. He writes regularly for content industry publications, produces a series of content strategy-focused books for XML Press, and is a dynamic presenter often featured at content industry events worldwide.

In Part 1, Scott and Dianna talk about:

• Why technical documentation is more important than it's generally treated: it relates to the success of existing customers, the loyalty of customers to a brand, attracts new customers, and provides confidence to perspective customers.
• How technical documentation affects regulated products, and why "future fear of noncompliance" is a trap that leads to a loss of information management advancements and their benefits.
• What object-oriented technical communication management is and COPE (create once, publish everywhere).

Visit the podcast blog for links and extra information! www.qualityduringdesign.com

Send us a message

Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful. 

Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours. 

Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)

Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn. 

Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.

Ready to hone your technical writing skills as an engineer? This episode of the Quality During Design podcast is a must-listen! We delve into the critical role of technical communication in engineering, and why written communication skills are non-negotiable for engineers. Join me, Dianna Deeney, as we consider different perspectives to make your technical writing the best it can be.

Our chat takes us on a journey through the past, present, and future of technical writing, as we root ourselves in the realities of presenting findings, interpreting data, and making actionable decisions. In the spirit of past, present, and future, we discuss techniques to ensure that your writing is effective and reaches your audience - be it your project team, auditors, or a future engineer referencing your work. Grab your pen and paper or open your word document as we together make strides in improving our technical communication skills.

This Quality during Design Redux episode was originally "The Spirits of Technical Writing Past, Present, and Future". Visit the podcast blog, here.

Send us a message

Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful. 

Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours. 

Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)

Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn. 

Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.

Who wouldn't want a treasure trove of product knowledge right at their fingertips? We explore FMEA (Failure Mode Effects Analysis) and unlock its potential for complaint investigation. Harness the power of FMEA - not just a tool, but a wellspring of team knowledge about your product.

But we're not finished there - we're turning FMEA data into actionable knowledge. We delve into the use of FMEA for field failure investigation and innovation. We'll dissect the various components of FMEA, showing you how they can be used to evaluate data and investigate causes.

Come with us as we turn information into knowledge, and then innovate with FMEA.

This is a Quality during Design Redux episode, originally "How to use FMEA for Complaint Investigation".  Visit the podcast blog, here.

Send us a message

Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful. 

Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours. 

Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)

Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn. 

Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.

Are you ready to elevate your understanding of reliability during design to the next level? This episode is an absolute must-listen! I'm your host, Dianna Deeney, and I'll help you dissect the world of reliability life testing in design. We'll explore how the integration of critical reliability data into the decision-making process can revolutionize your design approach.

Ever felt confused by accelerated stress testing? You're not alone. This episode will give you an in-depth understanding of this subset of reliability life testing methods and when to use it in your design process. We'll also discuss the importance of reliability prediction methods and how to effectively test your own products. You'll learn why accelerated stress testing is crucial, how to interpret the results, and most importantly, how to apply them to influence your design decisions. So, let's get started and ensure our designs are as reliable as they are innovative.

This is a Quality during Design Redux episode, originally "Results-Driven Decisions, Faster: Accelerated Stress Testing as a Reliability Life Test".  Visit the podcast blog, here.

Send us a message

Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful. 

Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours. 

Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)

Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn. 

Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.

When you design a product, you consider the field reliability. Use environment usually comes to mind first. Do you also consider the stresses it undergoes from its creation to the end user's hands? 

We talk about designing for reliability, accounting for not just the product's use but also its journey from production to the consumer. As a part of our in-depth discussion, we'll look into the role of various environments - field and production - in affecting a product's reliability.

By the end of this episode, you'll see field reliability as including the various stresses acting on a product from its inception. So, buckle up as we embark on this journey to rethink reliability during design.

Visit the podcast blog for links to other podcast episodes to take these ideas further.

Send us a message

Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful. 

Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours. 

Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)

Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn. 

Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.

We're continuing to explore topics about reliability engineering during design.

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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 the reliability of our whole system.

We talk about using reliability allocation to help us choose reliability goals for modules of our product design.

There is much more on the podcast blog: graphics, lists, and extra links.  Be sure to visit it at the website!

Send us a message

Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful. 

Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours. 

Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)

Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn. 

Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.

Dianna Deeney interviews Adam Bahret about reliability engineering during design: how product design engineers and product development leadership can incorporate reliability engineering.

This interview is part of our series, “A Chat with Cross Functional Experts". Our focus is speaking with people that are typically part of a cross-functional team within engineering projects. 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 teammates.

About Adam

Adam Bahret is the founder of Apex Ridge Consulting and a leading reliability expert who writes, speaks and coaches executive teams on reliability as a competitive edge. His reliability-culture change program has delivered millions in savings for clients while mitigating risk and forming a foundation for reliability-fueled growth and brand dominance. His clients range across multiple industry segments, including medical devices, robotics, semiconductor, aerospace, consumer, and automotive.

Adam works with technical teams to improve the design while mentoring leadership teams in adopting the processes, language, and behaviors to build a reliability culture. He also introduces key reliability metrics such as “time-to-reliability” that guide organizational thinking and build a robust reliability culture that’s the hallmark of dominant top-performing technology companies.

Adam has deep technical expertise and over 25 years of experience in product development and reliability engineering. He has an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University, is an ASQ nationally certified reliability engineer, and an international speaker on technology, leadership, and product development. More information on Adam and Apex Ridge can be found at www.apexridge.com.

Adam and Dianna talk about:

• What "time to reliability" is, and how it can be used to measure the completeness of a project instead of other metrics, like date of prototype release.
• How naming problems helps others identify with it and provides an avenue to solve and measure results.
• The trap of not incentivizing reliability leadership metrics.
• The mindset shift needed by product design engineers to design for reliability.
• How Reliability Engineers can be an advisor, not opposition.
• Things teams can do to avoid being traumatized by FMEA.

Visit the podcast blog for additional information and links, including a list of Adam's books.

Send us a message

Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful. 

Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours. 

Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)

Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn. 

Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.

Part of Quality during Design is using reliability engineering as part of the design process.

We're warming up to the topic this week with a QDD Redux episode - pulling an episode from our archive from last year that's a good overview of some things we'll be getting more into.

Next week, I'm interviewing a Reliability Engineer as part of the series A Chat with Cross-Functional Experts.  You won't want to miss it!

So, let's stretch and warm-up to Reliability during Design!
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We're uncovering risks during our new product development, about our design. How do we manage risks? What options do we have?

There are at least 5 options we can take to manage risks. We talk about each, and how quality and reliability methods and techniques may help us with the next steps to be able to make decisions with our team.

Visit the podcast blog for links to episodes that explore concepts a little deeper.

Send us a message

Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful. 

Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours. 

Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)

Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn. 

Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.