Making Appropriate and Timely Decisions. Avoiding the Extremes: The Premature Analysis and Extreme Analysis.

In the decision-making process, the person responsible for them must go through a thin path between two harmful extremes to arrive on time to the most convenient decision. These extremes are Premature Analysis and Extreme Analysis.

Premature Analysis leads to undue, intuitive, rather unsupported conclusions, and Extreme Analysis does not produce conclusions (Paralysis by Analysis).

Often the presence of one or another extreme scenario in the organizations is due to the own organizational structures and cultures. Therefore, it is advisable to know these scenarios to avoid them or to mitigate their negative effects and thus make the most convenient decision.

Organizational characteristics in decision making:

1. Premature Analysis case:

• Level of staff participation: Restricted.
• Type of hierarchy: Concentrated, Vertical. Centralized decision making, dominant leader presence.
• Class of opinions: In general Convergent. Tendency to unanimity or agreement with the group's decision.
• Type of leadership: Authoritarian. Proposals imposed by leaders or groups at different levels of the organization.
• Type of attitude toward decision making: Intuitive. Decision-making based on basic elements is not well supported.

2. Extreme Analysis case (Paralysis by Analysis):

• Level of staff participation: Wide.
• Type of hierarchy: Wide, Horizontal. Risk: Excess of horizontal procedures.
• Class of opinions: In general Divergent. Risk of conflict. Weak communication between stakeholders.
• Type of leadership: Consensual, Passive.
• Type of attitude towards decision making: Analytical. Little guidance toward the goal or conclusion.

Keys to avoid the extreme scenarios:

1. Premature Analysis case:

• Promote the cross-functional process for ideas and opinions. 
• Tolerance of dissent.
• Promote the positive and proactive questions.
• Equity in the treatment of the opinions from different parts of the organization.
• Make decisions based on mature reflection.

2. Extreme Analysis case or Paralysis by Analysis:

• Efficient arbitration to make fast and rational decisions.
• Promote dissent along with decision-making.
• Promote horizontal and vertical communication. Avoid group isolation and excessive paperwork.

Avoiding the Conformity Trap

The conformity trap is a classic thinking trap: "everybody does it in that way", accordingly: "it's the right thing to do."

It is important to be alert with the conformity trap because it feeds the follower approach, not innovative, encouraging to leave things as they are.

How to avoid it?:
1. Discard the influence of others. When analyzing the information, avoids at first the opinions of the others. This is the best way to decide without being subconsciously influenced by generalized opinions.
2. Beware of the search for "social acceptance". Always be alert when someone tries to convince you to argue about the acceptance that an election would have, rather than on its merit.
3. Be firm. Be willing to overcome obstacles and defend their points of view, despite their unpopularity.

How to overcome mental obstacles in problem-solving

There are a number of different mental obstacles that can interfere with our ability to solve a problem quickly and efficiently, such as:

1. Functional Fixedness: This term refers to the tendency to view problems only in their customary manner. Functional fixedness prevents people from fully seeing all of the different options that might be available to find a solution.
2. Misweighting:  Misunderstanding of available information.
3. Irrelevant or Misleading Information: When you are trying to solve a problem, it is important to distinguish between information that is relevant to the issue and irrelevant data that can lead to faulty solutions. When a problem is very complex, the easier it becomes to focus on misleading or irrelevant information.
4. Wrong Assumptions: When dealing with a problem, people often make assumptions about the constraints and obstacles that prevent certain solutions.
5. Mental Set:  People tendency to only use solutions that have worked in the past rather than looking for alternative ideas.

In order to correctly solve a problem, it is important to follow a series of steps which includes developing strategies and organizing knowledge.

Recommended steps:

1. Identifying the Problem: While it may seem like an obvious step, identifying the problem is not always as simple as it sounds. In some cases, people might mistakenly identify the wrong source of a problem, which will make attempts to solve it inefficient or even useless.
2. Defining the Problem: After the problem has been identified, it is important to fully define the problem so that it can be solved.
3. Forming a Strategy: The next step is to develop a strategy to solve the problem. The approach used will vary depending upon the situation and the individual's unique preferences.
4. Organizing Information: Before coming up with a solution, we need to first organize the available information. What do we know about the problem? What do we not know? The more information that is available, the better prepared we will be to come up with an accurate solution.
5. Allocating Resources: Of course, we don't always have unlimited money, time, and other resources to solve a problem. Before you begin to solve a problem, you need to determine how high priority it is. If it is an important problem, it is probably worth allocating more resources to solving it. If, however, it is a fairly unimportant problem, then you do not want to spend too much of your available resources into coming up with a solution.
6. Monitoring Progress: Effective problem-solvers tend to monitor their progress as they work towards a solution. If they are not making good progress toward reaching their goal, they will reevaluate their approach or look for new strategies.
7. Evaluating the Results: After a solution has been reached, it is important to evaluate the results to determine if it is the best possible solution to the problem. This evaluation might be immediate, such as checking the results of a math problem to ensure the answer is correct, or it can be delayed, such as evaluating the success of a therapy program after several months of treatment.

Paralysis by Analysis in Concurrent and Lean Execution

An important alert in the execution of concurrent and lean engineering is to avoid Paralysis by Analysis, since in case of appearing in the key programming activities, adversely affects the project schedule and produces a serious waste of engineering. As an example of this is the damage that Paralysis by Analysis causes in a key activity that must be of high evolution and therefore it does not adequately inform initiated activities of high sensitivity downstream.

Paralysis by Analysis: Failed progress in an activity due to the continuous refining of its results or due to the iterative analysis of each of the details of a developing problem.

“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.” ― John Maynard Keynes

See:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffboss/2015/03/20/how-to-overcome-the-analysis-paralysis-of-decision-making/#7ced720c7cc4

http://www.bsci21.org/9-tips-to-avoid-paralysis-by-analysis/

Integrating Concurrent Engineering & Lean Engineering (CE+LE)

Concurrent Engineering approach aims to prevent potential problems by promoting the incorporation of downstream concerns into the upstream phases of an ongoing process. Lean Engineering approach means eliminating the waste of time and resources caused by the unnecessary generation of knowledge and complex designs not required and also eliminating time spent on non-value-added activities. Mixing both approaches will yield significant improvements in project performance.

Typical issues that produce waste of engineering:

1. Over-production: Implementing analysis, reports and tests not needed.
2. On Hold: Waiting for decisions or waiting for input.
3. Defective Outputs: Rework due to wrong requirements or input. Errors causing the effort to be redone to correct a problem.
4. Unused employee creativity: Not engaging engineers in process improvements for engineering.

Clues to applying Lean Engineering (LE) + Concurrent Engineering (CE):

1. Focusing on Customer needs (LE).
2. Simplicity in design (LE).
3. Design Reuse & Share of features or attributes (LE).
4. Variability Reduction (LE).
5. Deletion of nonvalue-added activities (LE) : 40%-60% of the typical engineer’s or designer’s time is spent on nonvalue-added activities.
6. Focusing on Value activities (LE), which means apply control on:
 • Features and attributes: Satisfy customer needs only.
 • Quality: Lack of defects.
 • Availability on time: Available when it is needed.
 • Cost according to the budget.
7. Enhanced overlapping strategy (CE).
8. Downstream concerns are considered upstream (CE).
9. Implementing Multidisciplinary Concurrent Team (e.g., virtual team) (CE).
10. Implementing early contact with downstream specialists, suppliers and subcontractors (CE).

Overcoming your Own Biases or How to Break Down your Functional Fixedness.

Try out these five steps:
1. Recognize the possibility that Functional Fixedness exists and that you may have some biases on an approach.
2. Check and evaluate each bias.
4. Look for the cause of bias to understand its source and impact on you.
3. Identify a goal, then identify which biases help with this purpose and which biases do not.
5. Monitor your progress and reevaluate your behavior.

Functional Fixedness on Concurrent Management

If we plan the project activities or any other key management issue, being aware of our own internal or inculcated biases (e.g., applying "logical sequences" or saying "we have always done it that way", or assuming: "logical overlaps" and "typical assumptions", among others) and verifying whether they are valid or not, and also verifying if it is valid to apply another approach to these key issues, then we could arrive at surprising conclusions in the planning and management that benefit the project as a whole.
Consequently, it is interesting to reconsider the concept of functional fixation and adjust it to our current situation. Please check out at:
https://hbr.org/2012/05/overcoming-functional-fixednes

Recommended reading from ENTREPRENEUR magazine: 10 WAYS TO SUCCESSFULLY MANAGE VIRTUAL TEAMS

Virtual team management is a key issue for successful concurrent management

URL:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244197?utm_source=Social&utm_medium=Sharebar&utm_campaign=Sumome_share

Recommended article from “Harvard Business Review”: WHY THE PROBLEM WITH LEARNING IS UNLEARNING

Excellent reading for strategies that aim to discover and exploit new business models based on experimentation and learning such as “Discovery Driven Approach”. 

This model may offer another source of competitive differentiation, as some firms develop superior capabilities at experimentation and consequently can build better models more quickly than their slower counterparts. 

URL:

https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-the-problem-with-learning-is-unlearning

MANAGING ASSUMPTIONS DURING PROJECT EXECUTION AND PLANNING.

Adequate project assumptions management is a key issue for the successful implementation of the Concurrent Engineering. Some useful methods for managing assumptions are listed below:

1. Assumption-Based Planning:
   Assumption-Based Planning (ABP) is a tool designed for improving the robustness and adaptability of plan for reducing the number of avoidable surprises in any plan or planning. It is primarily a post planning tool that concentrates on the assumptions in an already-developed plan that are most important to plan´s success and that are most uncertain. ABP decrease the risk that assumptions represent.
2. Critical Assumption Planning:
   Major uncertainties in the business proposition are isolated as critical planning assumptions. Critical assumptions in the plan are then tested. The test sequence is determined by the potential reduction of uncertainty per dollar of test cost. Assessment of the assumption test results marks a milestone. At each milestone the business plan is revised to reflect what has been learned, and the venture is redirected or terminated. This process avoids the wasted effort and expense of pursuing the original plan until commercial failure becomes obvious.
   Keys for Planning:
   Differentiation between primary and derivative assumptions with focus on extracting and understanding the primary assumptions.
   Early construction of a model of the business plan that allows calculation of the impact of primary assumptions such as price or sales productivity factors on derivative assumptions such as revenues and income.
   Assignment of uncertainty ranges to the primary assumption values, not just the most likely values.
   Identification of the critical planning assumptions by determining the impact of their uncertainty ranges on venture net present value.
   Selection of the next venture milestone based on the test program that results in maximum reduction of uncertainty at least cost in least time for the most critical assumption(s).
3. Platform-based planning:
   Future results can be extrapolated from a well-understood and predictable platform of past experience. Predictions could be accurate because they are based on solid knowledge rather than on assumptions
4. Discovery-Driven Planning:
   Discovery-driven planning offers a systematic way to uncover the dangerous implicit assumptions that would otherwise slip unnoticed and thus unchallenged into the plan
   It is based on the implementation of:
   Reverse income statement:
   Modeling the basic economics of the business
   Pro forma operations specs:
   Laying out the operations needed to run the business.
   Key assumptions checklist:
   Ensuring that assumptions are checked
   Milestone planning chart:
   Specifying the assumptions to be tested at each project milestone.

References: 

Towards a Proposed Process to Manage Assumptions during the In-Service Phase of the Product Lifecycle, John Iley and Cees Bil, Transdisciplinary Lifecycle Analysis of Systems R. Curran et al. (Eds.), 2015 The authors and IOS Press.

Critical assumption planning: a practical tool for managing business development risk, Hollister B. Sykes & David Dunham, Journal of Business Venturing Vol 10.

Assumption-Based Planning: A tool for Reducing Avidalbe Surprises, James A. Dewar, Cambridge University Press, RAND 2002.

Discovery Driven Planning,   Rita Mc Grath & Ian MacMillan, Harvard Business Review July-August 1995 Issue

Discovery Driven Growth: A Breakthrough Process to Reduce Risk and Seize Opportunity, Rita Mc Grath & Ian MacMillan, Harvard Business Publishing.

Practical Project Risk Management: The ATOM Methodology, David Hillson & Peter Simon, Management Concepts Inc., Aug 1, 2012

TRANSDISCIPLINARY ENGINEERING

Check out additional information at  http://ebooks.iospress.nl/

BREAKTHROUGHS IN CONCURRENT ENGINEERING 2: “TRANSDISCIPLINARY ENGINEERING”

23rd ISPE Inc. International Conference on Transdisciplinary (formerly: Concurrent) Engineering. held at the Federal University of Technology, Parana, Curitiba, Brazil, October 3–7, 2016.

Theme: “Transdisciplinary Engineering: Crossing Boundaries”.

"Spreading out the term Transdisciplinary Engineering and what it is all about"

Transdisciplinary Engineering (TE) is a logical consequence of the concept of Concurrent Engineering. It more closely emphasizes the need for different disciplines to collaborate across intra- and inter-company borders.

Some papers reviewed and accepted for the 23rd ISPE Inc:

Complex Project Management

This paper describes the use of System Dynamics to help project managers conduct the management process and face uncertainties and complexities.

Managing Risks in Knowledge Exchange: Trade-Offs Interdependencies

Risks need to be managed, not only with technical means, but also with other types of methods, like contracts. In this paper, different types of interdependencies are described which influence the risks that actors may encounter. Moreover, in managing risks, different trade-offs arise, which complicate the choice of a suitable method.

Simplified Informational Design Steps for Micro Small Companies

Micro and Small Companies (MSC's) have an important role in world's economy, despite the challenges they face. One of them is the absence of adequate human resources and formal work procedures as the New Product Development Process (NPDP). This work aims to propose a simplified procedure to address informational design in MSC's.

Identification of the Main Factors That Influence the Innovation Management Performance

To maintain a long term sustainable innovation program is fundamental to the organizations analyze the organizational and process factors that influence the innovation management performance. This analysis enables the enterprises to develop sustainable models and keep the innovation process in a continuous way.

Diagnostic Techniques in Project Management.

Project management practices are critical to improve quality and success of the results. One of the main challenges for project professionals is to identify the characteristics of each project in order to choose a more suitable set of practices and tools that will contribute to greater management performance. In this article, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to identify studies related to diagnose techniques in the project management.

Guidelines for Development of Risk Identification Expert System for Product Design

Risk management in product design consists of a formal and systematic management process which aims to identify, analyze, treat, monitor and control risks related to their activities and tools. This article aims to provide guidelines for the development of an expert system for the risk identification phase in product design.

BREAKTHROUGHS IN CONCURRENT ENGINEERING 1

CE2015 conference (22^nd International Conference on Concurrent Engineering) by the International Society of Productivity Enhancement (ISPE, Inc.), held at the TU Delft (Delft University of Tehcnology), The Netherlands, July 20–23th, 2015. 

Conference title:  “Transdisciplinary Lifecycle Analysis of Systems”: 

                                  Reflecting the variety of processes and methods which influences the modern product creation. 

Contents: 

Part 1: Keynotes:

• Developments and Challenges in Design for Sustainability of Electronics.
• What Is the Next Big Innovation Management Theme?

Part 2: Systems Engineering:

• Heuristic Systems Engineering of a Web Based Service System.
• Stakeholder Management as an Approach to Integrated Management System.
• Quality Problems in Complex Systems Even Considering the Application of Quality Initiatives During Product Development.
• Enhancing Robustness of Design Process in Individual Type of Production.
• Using Ontology-Based Patent Informatics to Describe the Intellectual Property Portfolio of an E-Commerce Order Fulfillment Process
• Kinematic Model of Project Scheduling with Resource Constrained Under Uncertainties
• Cloud-Based Project Supervision to Support Virtual Team for Academic Collaboration.
• The Improved Global Supply Chain Material Management Process Framework for One-Stop Logistic Services
• Using the “Model-Based Systems Engineering” Technique for Multidisciplinary System Development.
• Aircraft Bi-Level Life Cycle Cost Estimation
• Design for Assistive Technology: A Preliminary Study.
• Managing Stakeholder Voices for the Development of a Novel Device for the Elbow Forearm Rehabilitation.
• Mechanisms of Dependence in Engineering Projects as Sociotechnical Systems.
• A Novel Hybrid Multiple Attribute Decision Making Procedure for Aspired Agile Application.

Part 3: Customization & Variability Management

• Implementation and Management of Design Systems for Highly Customized Products – State of Practice and Future Research.
• Glencoe – A Visualization Prototyping Framework.
• Consumer-Oriented Emotional Design Using a Correlation Handling Strategy.
• Model-Based Variant Management with v.control.
• View Specific Visualization of Proofs for the Analysis of Variant Development Structures.
• Measuring and Evaluating Source Code Logs Using Static Code Analyzer.
• Mass Properties Management in Aircraft Development Process: Problems and Opportunities.

Part 4: Production-Oriented Design & Maintenance and Repair.

• Product Development Model Oriented for R&D Projects of the Brazilian Electricity Sector – MOR&D: A Case Study
• Sustainment Management in the Royal Australian Navy.
• Application of Lean Methods into Aircraft Maintenance Processes.
• A Supporting Model for the Dynamic Formation of Supplier Networks.
• Data Flow to Manufacturing Simultaneous with Design Phase.
• An Architecture for Remote Guidance Service.
• Impact of Non-Functional Requirements on the Products Lines Lifecycle.
• Manufacturing Resource Servitization Based on SOOA.
• An Approach to Assess Uncertainties in Cloud Manufacturing.

Part 5: Design Methods & Knowledge-Based Engineering

• Howtomation Suite: A Novel Tool for Flexible Design Automation
• Generic Functional Decomposition of an Integrated Jet Engine Mechanical Sub System Using a Configurable Component Approach.
• A Study on Marine Logistics System for Emergency Disaster Control.
• A Guideline for Adapted System Dynamics Modeling of Rework Cycles in Engineering Design Processes.
• Design Optimization of Electric Propulsion of Flying Exploratory Autonomous Robot
• Towards Cloud Big Data Services for Intelligent Transport Systems.
• Cooling and Capability Analysis Methodology: Towards Development of a Cost Model for Turbine Blades Film Cooling Holes
• A Methodology for Mechatronic Products Design Applied to the Development of a Instrument for Soil Compaction Measurement
• Process Knowledge Model for Facilitating Industrial Components’Manufacturing.

Part 6: Multidisciplinary Product Management

• Evaluation of Support System Architecture for Air Warfare Destroyers.
• Towards a Proposed Process to Manage Assumptions During the In-Service Phase of the Product Lifecycle.
• Four Practical Lessons Learned from Multidisciplinary Projects.

Part 7: Sustainable Product Development

• A Feasibility Study of Remote Inverse Manufacturing.
• Proposal for Intelligent Model Product Definition to Meeting the RoHS Directive.
• Towards a Green and Sustainable Software.
• Sustainable Product Development: Ecodesign Tools Applied to Designers.
• Sustainable Consumption and Ecodesign: A Review.
• Reducing the Energy Consumption of Electric Vehicles.

Part 8: Service-Oriented Design

• Technical-Business Design Methodology for PSS.
• A Service-Oriented Architecture for Ambient-Assisted Living.
• Studies of Air Transport Management Issues for the Airport and Region.
• Service-Oriented Life Cycles for Developing Transdisciplinary Engineering Systems.

Part 9: Product Lifecycle Management

• A Gingival Mucosa Geometric Modelling to Support Dental Prosthesis Design.
• Engineering Collaboration in Mechatronic Product Development.
• Leveraging 3D CAD Data in Product Life Cycle: Exchange – Visualization –Collaboration.
• The Research of Music and Emotion Interaction with a Case Study of Intelligent Music Selection System.
• The Design Process Structural & Logical Representation in the Concurrent Engineering Infocommunication Environment.
• Search Engine Optimization Process: A Concurrent Intelligent Computing Approach.
• Advances in Parameterized CAD Feature Translation.

Part 10: Trends in CE

• CE Challenges – Work to Do.
• Customer Engagement in Product Development: Bring UX Upstream.
• Improving the Ability of Future Engineers by Using Advanced Interactive 3D Techniques in Education.
• Product Avatar as Digital Counterpart of a Physical Individual Product: Literature Review and Implications in an Aircraft.

Theoretical approaches to projects execution

• Over the Wall
• Through the Wall
• Concurrent Engineering + Enhanced overlapping strategy