Human factors engineering (HFE) is a broad and multidisciplinary field that designs and evaluates the human interfaces of a system.
Don’t stop reading — that definition masks a lot of complexity. Let’s break it down:
INCOSE defines system as “an arrangement of parts or elements that together exhibit behaviour or meaning that the individual constituents do not. Systems can be either physical or conceptual, or a combination of both.”
Read MoreThe term user experience was coined in 1993 by Don Norman while working at Apple. He intended it to encompass a person’s entire experience related to a product, from any feelings they had prior to using it, to first seeing it in the store, getting it home, turning it on and learning how to use it, telling someone else about it, etc.
I highly recommend this short video where Mr. Norman explains this history and also complains about the frequent misuse of the word:
The US Department of Defense is overhauling it’s acquisition policy from a stale, process-driven approach to a new, outcome-driven approach. The new concept is called the Adaptive Acquisition Framework (AAF). Its goal is to remove bureaucracy and give government program managers more flexibility to adapt to the needs of their particular acquisition.
Read MoreThe problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience… i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business…
General James Mattis
The most successful people in any profession learn from the experiences of others. You can learn from their successes, sure. But don’t focus on doing things exactly they way they did, you’ll stifle your own innovation. Instead, understand their successes, extract relevant lessons, and forge your own path.
More importantly, learn from others’ failures and mistakes.
That’s why I publish a Reading / Listening List. As of the publishing of this article, 5 of the 6 recommendations are about poor engineering and design1. I find these stories fascinating, enlightening, and valuable. By avoiding the pitfalls of the past, we improve the likelihood of success in our own projects.
It’s okay to make mistakes, but strive to at least make original mistakes.
TL;DR: An Integrated Product Team (IPT) is a cross-functional group. If everyone on the team has the same background, that’s a functional or discipline team. There’s a difference.
Read MoreFor years I’ve been advocating for the effective inclusion of human systems integration (HSI) in the systems engineering (SE) process. I had to address a persistent misunderstanding of what HSI is and how it relates to human factors; while that can be frustrating, I recognized that it wasn’t going to change overnight. Instead, I worked diligently to share my message with anyone who would listen.
Recently, my diligence paid off. I was contacted by a group putting together a proposal for a defense contract. The government’s request outlined their expectations for HSI as part of the systems engineering effort in a way that the proposal team hadn’t seen before. Someone on the team had heard me speak before, knew I had the right expertise they needed, and reached out to request my support.
Read MoreI had the privilege to attend the Society of Women Engineers conference WE19 in Anaheim, CA last week. I left inspired and optimistic.
Speakers and panelists relayed their experiences over the previous decades. These women had been denied entrance into engineering schools, marginalized in the workplace, and forced to become ‘one of the guys’ to be accepted among their peers.
We’ve come a long way. It’s never been a better time to enter the workforce as a woman/person of color/LGBTQ/etc. Diversity in the workforce and leadership of engineering companies is on the rise, barriers are falling, and the value of diversity is being recognized. And yet, we still have so far to go.
We recognize that diversity is good for business 2 and companies are actively recruiting more diverse talent. Our organizational cultures are still adapting to this diversity. In many ways, we still expect all employees to conform to the existing culture, rather than proactively shape the inclusive culture we desire.
Read MoreFailures and errors happen frequently. A part breaks, an instruction is misunderstood, a rodent chews through a power cord. The issue gets noticed, we respond to correct it, we clean up any impacts, and we’re back in business.
Occasionally, a catastrophic loss occurs. A plane crashes, a patient dies during an operation, an attacker installs ransomware on the network. We often look for a single cause or freak occurrence to explain the incident. Rarely, if ever, are these accurate.
Read More“A Message to Garcia” is a brief essay on the value of initiative and hard work written by Elbert Hubbard in 1898. It is often assigned in leadership courses, particularly in the military. Less often assigned but providing essential context is Col. Andrew Rowan’s first-person account of the mission, “How I Carried the Message to Garcia”.
There are also a number of opinion pieces archived in newspapers and posted on the internet both heralding and decrying the essay. There are a number of interpretations and potential lessons to be extracted from this story. It’s important that developing leaders find the valuable ideas.
Read MoreChapter 10 of the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook covers “Specialty Engineering”. Take a look at the table of contents below. It’s a hodge-podge of roles and skillsets with varying scope.
There doesn’t seem to be rhyme or reason to this list of items. Training Needs Analysis is a perfect example. There’s no doubt that it’s important, but it’s one rather specific task and not a field unto itself. If you’re going to include this activity, why not its siblings Manpower Analysis and Personnel Analysis?
On the other hand, some of the items in this chapter are supposedly “integral” to the engineering process. This is belied by the fact that they’re shunted into this separate chapter at the end of the handbook. In practice, too, they’re often organized into a separate specialty engineering group within a project.
This isn’t very effective.
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