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From: Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: smart people doing stupid things
Date: Fri, 17 May 2024 16:54:52 -0700
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On 5/17/2024 2:11 PM, Martin Rid wrote:
> Only $348,  surprisingly  it does not reference other standards.
>   At least I dont see any.   I got a big 4" binder of paper work
>   that should be sufficient to prove we followed the
>   standard.
> The problem is getting the old guys to get on board , none of them
>   are interested.

No one likes having to do "boring" things.  How many hardware folks
can point to their DOCUMENTED designs and test validations -- and
the steps they've taken to ensure *all* product meets those goals?
How many software folks can show their test scaffolding and established
REGRESSION testing procedures (to ensure old bugs never creep BACK
into their codebase)?  How many EMPLOYERS demand these things AND
PAY FOR THEM?

[Ask an arbitrary firm to produce the documents that were used to
build a particular SERIAL NUMBER of a product and listen to the
excuses...]

The "problem" is people not knowing (or, uneasy about COMMITTING to)
what they really want.  They'd rather change their minds when they
SEE something and can, effectively, say, "No, THAT'S not what we want
(even though THAT is exactly what we asked you to design/build)."

[I've avoided these folks like the plague and attribute that as
the single-most important business decision, on my part, to
producing quality products!  If YOU don't know what you want,
then hire me to DISCOVER your needs and expose them to you
before you skip merrily along that path to unknown destination]

So, they come up with new approaches that let them postpone their
decision making -- in the hope that they will magically be able
to coerce whatever they HAVE to be whatever they WANT it to be.
["Ugh!  We've already got half a million dollars invested; surely
we can salvage (MOST????) of that?"]

Imagine starting off making an airplane.  Then, halfway through
the design deciding it needs VTOL capability.  Can you *honestly*
say that you know ALL of the previous design decisions AND UNWRITTEN
ASSUMPTIONS that you must now back-out of the design in order to
have a design that is compatible with that new requirement?

Or, designing a pace-maker.  Then, with some amount of effort invested,
discovering that folks have decided that HACKING pacemakers might be
an interesting activity!  ("OhMiGosh!  What happens if one of our
customers DIES because of a security flaw in our design?  Quick!
Let's see what sort of Band-Aid we can apply to MINIMIZE -- but not
truly eliminate -- that risk, without having to scrap our current
approach!")

For a successful design effort, you need those /skilled in the art/
(whichever arts will be required in the design AND MANUFACTURE process)
to have a PROMINENT voice in the specification.  If *truly* "skilled
in the art", they will know where the demons lie in any arbitrary
specification line-item and, if the line-item is non-negotiable,
can raise alarms early enough that there isn't a "surprise" when
the implementors stumble on them, much later in the design process
(when Manglement will be anxious to hand-wave the design off in a
different direction just to meet schedule/budget/deliveries).

An organization's structure (org chart) tells you a lot about
what their priorities are.  E.g., does "Safety" have a same seat
at the table as "Manufacturing", "Marketing", "Legal", etc.?
Are there any interests who can override other interests?
(Do you really think those WON'T be overridden, in practice?)