Send us a text We explore the history, philosophy, and methodology of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS). We dissect the acronyms DMAIC and DMADV, revealing how these methodologies are blueprints for achieving excellence. From statistics to Motorola's legendary quality standards and other history of six sigma, you'll begin to see how DFSS may relate with your organization's current design development processes. Quality during Design is not DFSS. It can be part of DFSS or any other product development p...
May 02, 2024•16 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Send us a text Unveil the hidden flaws of FMEA and risk matrices that could be skewing your analysis and decision-making. In the realm of risk assessment and management, traditional tools like Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and risk matrices have been widely accepted as the norm. However, beneath the surface of these established methods lie hidden flaws that can significantly impact the effectiveness of risk analysis and decision-making processes. The latest podcast episode takes a dee...
Apr 18, 2024•18 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Send us a text Dianna Deeney interviews Fred Schenkelberg about getting information for product design, focusing on reliability engineering in new products. This episode is part 2 of 2. 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...
Apr 04, 2024•24 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Send us a text Dianna Deeney interviews Fred Schenkelberg about getting information for product design, focusing on reliability engineering in new products. This episode is part 1 of 2. 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...
Mar 21, 2024•35 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Send us a text Navigating the common roadblocks of team consensus on severity ratings during FMEA or hazard analysis can be challenging. But with the right strategies, your team can capture uncertainty and avoid the pitfall of too many conservative estimates that skew prioritization. Learn how a probability mass function can revolutionize your risk assessment, ensuring a smoother, more accurate process for all stakeholders involved. Your voice matters to us, and it's your feedback that fuels the...
Mar 08, 2024•11 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Send us a text Ever find yourself at the tail end of a project, swamped with unfinished tasks, and wondering where things went awry? Are there important recommended actions that the team was excited about that just didn't get done? These are the conundrums we tackle in this episode of Quality During Design, with a special nod to Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Be Useful" for his proactive approach to work. We dissect the all-too-familiar scenario of projects saddled with incomplete actions, despite our...
Feb 22, 2024•13 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Send us a text Quality during Design isn't just an add-on; it's a fundamental aspect that drives innovation, efficiency, and customer satisfaction! Welcome back from our brief hiatus! One of the highlights of this episode is the introduction of an upcoming FMEA course on Udemy, with The Manufacturing Academy . FMEA, or Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, is a systematic method for evaluating our offerings to identify where and how they might fail and to assess the relative impact of different fa...
Feb 07, 2024•7 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Send us a text Blink and you'll miss it, Quality During Design is taking a short, well-deserved break. We’ve journeyed together through a whopping 136 episodes over the last two years and eight months, and now it's time for us to recharge, refocus, and return with a bang in a few weeks. While we are not releasing new episodes during this period, we're excited to stay connected with you through our weekly email newsletters, loaded with the same quality content, professional wisdom, and valuable t...
Nov 01, 2023•3 min•Ep. 115
Send us a text Dianna Deeney interviews Jeffrey Lewis about new product development: how timing the right activities can lead to product 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 prod...
Oct 25, 2023•40 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Send us a text What if you could shift your approach in product design to focus on what really matters, and thereby create products that truly resonate with your customers? We've been discovering the importance of considering a variety of inputs early in the design process. Now, we navigate the challenge of prioritizing these inputs to make the crucial trade-off decisions that can make or break your product. We journey through the world of early concept development, discussing how setting priori...
Oct 18, 2023•8 min•Ep. 114
Send us a text Gain insights into working effectively with cross-functional teams, collecting invaluable design inputs without succumbing to the overwhelming flow of information. We'll discuss the magic behind the 'concept space', an efficient approach to dissect potential customer experiences, streamlining concept development at the start. What about after that high-level concept development, when we begin our engineering design? Early engineering diagrams can prove instrumental in evaluating m...
Oct 11, 2023•15 min•Ep. 113
Send us a text As a product designer, you need design inputs. Many of us have communication problems with our cross-functional teams about product ideas which then morph into product development problems later. In this episode, we unravel the importance of communication and self-advocacy in the realm of product design. In our chat, we share how to take the lead in working meetings with cross-functional teams to get design inputs. Learn the art of preparation, involvement, maintaining an open min...
Oct 04, 2023•15 min•Ep. 112
Send us a text Dianna Deeney interviews Kevin Bailey , from Design 1st , about supply chain management during design: how product design engineers and product development leadership can be affected by and affect the supply chain for their products. 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 ...
Sep 27, 2023•48 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Send us a text Ever wished you could ace the art of product design using quality frameworks? Your wish is just about to come true! We unravel the ADEPT framework, your magic wand for creating products that are not just satisfactory, but loved by users. We'll also be discussing how to lead a team effectively, conduct hands-on meetings, and choose the right participants. These handy tips will enable you to develop top-notch products using cross-functional collaboration. We're also unveiling how qu...
Sep 20, 2023•19 min•Ep. 111
Send us a text Ready to sharpen your toolset with the wisdom of ancient warriors? Today's episode includes knowledge to guide your journey into the world of quality tools and reliability frameworks. Drawing inspiration from the seven weapons of warrior monk Benkei, we introduce the first seven quality tools collected by industry quality professional, Ishikawa. Discover how these types of tools, more typically used for monitoring and continuous improvement, can also be leveraged for early concept...
Sep 13, 2023•12 min•Ep. 110
Send us a text Are you prepared to untap the potential of cross-functional collaboration in product design? On this episode of Quality during Design, we pull back the curtains on the dynamics of cross-functional teams in product design. Dianna Deeney, your host and seasoned quality professional, shares her insights on navigating the complex world of cross-functional teams, addressing common misconceptions, and maximizing brainstorming through structure. We’re about to take a deep dive into the p...
Sep 06, 2023•14 min•Ep. 109
Send us a text Ever wonder why many product designs fail or why projects don't always come out as planned? The answer might lie in how we approach the 'problem space' versus the 'solution space'. We're celebrating two and a half years of Quality During Design podcast by revisiting the fundamental principles that guide our product design processes, and exploring how we can apply these principles to avoid common pitfalls. We talk about the importance of staying longer in the problem space, using q...
Aug 30, 2023•16 min•Ep. 108
Send us a text Ever wondered how the world of product development can be viewed through the lens of a physicist? How the future of AI will impact our existence? What a champion poker player has to say about quitting, and what we can learn about product development from an architect? This week, we dive headfirst into those questions with four fascinating reads: 'Loonshots' by Safi Bahcall, 'AI 2041' by Kai Fu Lee and Chen Quifan, 'Quit' by Annie Duke, and 'How Big Things Get Done' by Bent Flyvbje...
Aug 23, 2023•14 min•Ep. 107
Send us a text 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 ...
Aug 16, 2023•13 min•Ep. 106
Send us a text 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 communicat...
Aug 09, 2023•35 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Send us a text 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 episode...
Aug 02, 2023•35 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Send us a text 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 r...
Jul 26, 2023•14 min•Ep. 104
Send us a text 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 ...
Jul 19, 2023•9 min•Ep. 103
Send us a text 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 unde...
Jul 12, 2023•17 min•Ep. 102
Send us a text 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. ...
Jul 05, 2023•8 min•Ep. 101
Send us a text We're continuing to explore topics about reliability engineering during design. ==== 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 ...
Jun 28, 2023•11 min•Ep. 100
Send us a text 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 ...
Jun 21, 2023•46 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Send us a text 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! =========...
Jun 14, 2023•12 min•Ep. 99
Send us a text We do projects all the time. Some projects are about developing new things, and others are about improving what we have – continuous improvement. In the quality realm, there's what they call the instant glory model . This same kind of thing can happen in product design, too. We talk about what quality folks call an instant glory, and what to do about it in product design engineering. Visit the podcast blog for extra links. DISCOVER YOUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT FOCUS: UNLOCK YOUR IMPAC...
Jun 07, 2023•9 min•Ep. 98
Send us a text Virtual meetings are here to stay. What does this mean when product design engineers are trying to get design inputs from the cross-functional team? It means we need to adapt and to show that we're consistent and that we can be trusted to facilitate the meeting within time and with goals achieved. Visit the podcast blog . DISCOVER YOUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT FOCUS: UNLOCK YOUR IMPACT Take this quick quiz to cut through the 'design fog' and discover where your greatest potential lies ...
May 31, 2023•9 min•Ep. 97
