We’ve all tried to fix things that are beyond our capabilities… Some of us more than others…
Ray Keefe, an electronics engineer based in Melbourne sent me the flowchart below. I thought it was funny enough to share with you. Ray and I are both engineers so we can laugh at this and ourselves.
David Conroy, of The Lone Drainer And Pronto – Sydney’s premier plumber doesn’t find it as funny since he and his team often have to repair what you’ve fixed!
Regardless, have a quick look and don’t laugh too hard!
For more engineering humour like this, <- click here!
Hi Marc,
thanks for publishing that. The “No Win” scenario is often something we face early in a project.
For anyone reading this who doesn’t know what I do, I run Successful Endeavours. We do Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development for Australian Mnufacturers. Because we don’t work for nothing, that is we charge a fair price for the services we offer, we are expected to deliver outstanding value. While we can’t violate the laws of physics, we do have to work within some interesting constraints. Things like:
– low cost to manufacture
– robust and reliable
– does exactly what the client expects even though they can’t always explain it to us
– short time to market
Fortunately we have developed some methods for achieving this and this is one reason we have picked up 3 national awards in the past 3 years.
I’m really keen to stay out of the boxes that end up as “You Resign” or “Your Fired”. These things can apply to companies and not just employees.
And in our business, “Hide It” doesn’t work. Unlike IT Software Systems and Web Software, we deliver Electronics Hardware with Embedded Software running on it. And you can measure it and you can tell if it is working or not. So “Hide It” is not an option.
As a result, we deliver stuff that works. And that is the only real way to navigate the chart above. YOu have to end up in the “Fix It” box, and make sure it is really fixed.
Thanks,
Ray Keefe
Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd
Casey Business of the Year 2010
Industrial Electronics Future Award Winner 2011
Award Winning Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development