One of my favorite items in my small model collection is a 1:34 scale Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV) with sliding side doors, a roll-up rear hatch, and pull-back propulsion. The iconic vehicle has been plying our city streets for nearly 40 years, reliably delivering critical communiques, bills, checks, advertisements, Dear John letters, junk mail, magazines, catalogs, post cards from afar, chain letters, and Amazon packages.
The Navy installed touch-screen steering systems to save money. Ten sailors paid with their lives. ProPublica Ten sailors died after the crew of the destroyer USS John S. McCain lost control of their vessel, causing a collision with the merchant tanker Alnic MC. There was nothing technically wrong with the vessel or its controls. Though much of the blame was put on the Sailors and Officers aboard, the real fault rests with the design of the Integrated Bridge & Navigation System (IBNS).
You’re doubtless familiar with Bletchley Park, the codebreaking site that provided critical intelligence in World War II. What will be the critical new capability in the next global conflict?
All models are wrong, some models are useful. George E. P. Box “Observe, Orient, Decide, Act” (OODA) is a simple decision-making model developed by US Air Force Colonel John Boyd. The concept is straightforward: Every entity in a competition is executing these four phases, the side that can execute them more quickly and accurately will win. “OODA” is a useful shorthand for discussing human decision-making and is commonly used in military circles. Of course, this simple phrase masks an enormous amount of complexity regarding the amount of information observed, the participant’s ability to orient, the quality of decision-making, and the …
Recently, the head of a college human factors program asked for my perspective on the human factors and user experience skills valued in industry. Here are five critical qualities that emerged from our discussion, in no particular order:
The phrase “military-industrial complex” was coined by President Eisenhower in his farewell address to the nation in 1961. The United States has the most powerful military in the world, a fact that is extremely valuable to our nation and allies. Yet the influence of the military-industrial complex on our nation’s priorities and policymaking cannot be ignored.
Wrapping up the series on Agile SE by describing implementation approaches. Includes discussions of key roles, cross-functional teams, and the critical value of SE on this type of effort.
I recently offered a mock interview to a high school student to help them practice and I realized I had a lot of advice to help students with the process. I searched online to see what advice was already out there and was pretty disappointed, so I decided to compile my own list.
The concept is simple: create a version of your solution that’s just good enough and put it out in the real world to validate assumptions about the product and market. That way, if your assumptions are wrong, you can pivot or shut it down without having spent too many resources on a failed idea. If your assumptions are right, you’ll have some great feedback to propel you along and help populate your product roadmap.
The term is often misapplied. Learn what an MVP is, what it isn’t, and how to leverage them for the success of your concept.
A common misconception is that Agile development processes are faster. I’ve heard this from leaders as a justification for adopting Agile processes and read it in proposals as a supposed differentiator. It’s not true. Nothing about Agile magically enable teams to architect, engineer, design, test, or validate any faster.