Best Practices for Hardware Engineers

It reeks of management asking their staff to document their work processes in hopes of handing said documentation to a production facility in someplace like Saipan and hoping to get the same result.

The great thing about that is; when they discover their mistake and hire that staff back as consultants, the salary has more commas in it.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately it kills all its students.

[snip]

And even more comes from breaking the rules ;-)

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

It wasn't Sony, it was a couple of sailors on a Japanese submarine. I know, I saw it in the movie "1941". They were off the California coast, trying to stuff a captured vacuum tube radio through their submarine hatch and one of them said to the other, "We've got to find a way to make these things smaller".

;-)

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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I have a very firm grasp on reality. I can reach out and strangle it any
time!

Depends on whether the hardware engineer is the dog; is the tail; or is just something somewhere on that tail.

RL

...

Absolutely not! They're hiring you because you know how to make things work, and they don't (that's why you had so much trouble getting good specs). _YOU_ write the manual first, so you can show them how the thing will work when you're finished. Then if they don't like what you've given them, you write another version -- that you know you can make work -- so they can verify it's what they need and buy off on it. This process of give-and-take makes good specs out of mush.

Then nobody has excuses, and almost all customers will be happy.

John Perry

Conservation of misery, also. Like when the only possible solution to a problem introduces another problem, just as nasty.

Jeroen Belleman

That is relly funny:) But brick wall problems are the hardest to solve.

That's when the flash of insight hits when you are taking a shower or doing something completely unrelated.

Then you slowly start to grin from ear to ear. What a marvellous feeling!

Regards,

Mike Monett

No it isn't.

... ... ...

Ok, you were right.

Really!

Have had that one a few times.

9) When completely stuck, go home, get a night's rest, and take a long shower.

Once upon a time, I think they were the reason for a company to exist.

Recently, the world has been remodeled. But maybe we already have all the stuff we really need. Engineers are only needed to make it smaller.

I think some ppl believed this in the 1920s / 1930s too.

Graham

0) There are two kinds of employees: Earners and Overhead - and Overhead loose. 1) Find Out what *really, truly matters* to the business, then become good at that. 2) Find Out how things *really* gets done - this will *not* be the way of the official process! 3) *Pretend* to live by the official process; management spend vast amounts of ressources on it, so it must be good or mangement are fools. Remember the Japanes proverb: "The nail that stick out gets hammered"!

Straying from the above - letting QA and similar agents of the deciever lure you away from the true path - will mark you up as "Overhead" !!

The fact that you use the adjective "complex" to describe the task means you are not fit for the job. The entire purpose of engineering is to

*make* things, and fundamental to *making* anything is devising a developmental architecture *simple* enough to facilitate a successful implementation. This will be more or less of a challenge as a function of the capabilities of the employees. No amount of simplification will be sufficient in your work environment, the norm is total and consistent abject failure, and introducing "process" to the equation is just that much more overhead, an impediment, and yet another contributor to the inevitable failure of the entire project- take failure to mean unworkable, years late, ridiculously expensive, and technologically obsolete.

... and the 1820s / 1830s and 1720s / 1730s ... etc

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge

John,

Hello, thanks for responding to my list. You are right, an 8-item list is too small. Could you add some items from your experiences that enabled you to produce a successful product. What are some rules that you've broken to achieve success?

Thanks, and keep the comments coming. joe

Fred,

Thanks for responding to my post. So far it looks like it has angered many and was not my intention. My intention was to "learn" from others concerning their successes. Let's say a new engineer showed at your work. I'm sure you are a very knowledgeable and successful engineer. What advice would you pass on to him/her concerning success? How do you measure success? If its not a list of items or habits, then what is your response? Not to be mean, but do you practice what you preach and go around your workplace and tell others, "your not fit for the job"? Or, you pass on some words of wisdom? Anyways, thanks for your suggestions, it is a good topic, Best Practices, and I'm finding a lot of important views on engineering.

Thanks Fred, joe

HEHEH! Hey , John- write more!- You know how most of us just like to sit around and mental midget over amorphous, unstructured, undefined, philosophical crap- I believe these sessions are called "meetings"- better you than me:-)

"Best practices" are for things that have already been designed and debugged, such as maintenance tasks. The job of an engineer is to *invent*, to create things that do *not* already exist.

It have not noticed any really angry responses. Just people telling you that your list is not of much use, if not outright foolish...

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