For several years I have been visiting elder friends in homes for the aged, it was my way of giving back to society for the good life I had, this of course was up until the Corvid 19 Pandemic arrived almost 18 months ago, and my visits had to be put on hold.
Due to the Pandemic, two of the people I visited, passed away, one 87 and the other 91, I was very sad, that I could not say good bye. Continue reading
What if you knew all the possible outcomes for your product’s reliability performance due to component variations, for example? What if you knew the future with enough certainty to make a difference?
Building on brainstorming, what-if analysis involved using models or prototypes that allow you to change something and see how it alters the output or performance. What if we change this support bracket from iron to aluminum? What if we swap out this 100 ohm resistor for a 200 ohm one? Continue reading
Employers don’t hire people – or assign them a project or task – in the hopes they will fail. And employees don’t take on a job, project, or task in the hopes they will fail. On the contraire, the expectations all around are that the outcome will be successful.
Certainly, sometimes the outcomes are not successful. But these unsuccessful outcomes are generally more tolerated – even expected – in companies that are in their early stages or have a company culture that is more entrepreneurial and not so risk adverse. And when an unsuccessful outcome in such companies occurs, it’s usually a disappointment (and you certainly don’t want to make being unsuccessful a habit), but it’s not usually a negative mark on the employee. Continue reading
Nicholas W. Eyrich, Robert E. Quinn, and David P. Fessell published in the Harvard Business Review an article titled “How One Person Can Change the Conscience of an Organization”, dated December 27, 2019. In the article, they discuss how corporate transformations, while assumed to occur from the top-down, actually it is the middle managers and first-line supervisor that can make significant change happen. Continue reading
The demand for project managers today is high and will continue to grow well into the future. It is a well-paying, satisfying profession to pursue. The question is, how to get a project manager job. The short answer is: some education; lot of relevant experience; and an opportunity. Three stories are presented herein to illustrate some of the different approaches that have worked to get a project manager job. Continue reading