Today we discuss interchangeability of parts.  This may sound trivial, but you probably would not even consider replacing your food processor blade with your lawnmower blade.  It would be obvious that these are not interchangeable.  However, there are times when a part needs to be replaced or design is reworked altering the composition, that is […]

Flip a coin, heads, or tails. The probability that it will come up heads is 50%; there are only two sides.  Flip that same coin again, the same probability, 50%.  However, if we say that success is two successive heads (or tails) that is different. The probability of two consecutive heads is the product of […]

Taxonomy of Project Failure – Risks Experience suggests there are many ways to project failure due to our project management actions, this does not include the riskiness of the effort in general that comes with the uncertainty associated with projects – these are not operations.  Projects by definition have uncertain components, this is especially true […]

Schedule pressures can keep project managers up at night. Frequently the project schedule is not entirely driven by logistics from within the projects but by external pressures such as market or executive pressure.  There are metrics that can be used to help predict, sometimes these are not created, gathered, maintained or have the appropriate follow […]

Many of you who have read our blog know we are fans of the show Aircraft Disaster on the Smithsonian Channel.  We do not like the show for the disaster part, but the root-cause analysis aspects.  These things are intriguing for engineers.  Root cause analysis is an important skill for design engineers, process engineers, and […]

I was what was referred to later as a latch key kid.  I was not aware of this term until long after I was through high school.   My dad was in the Special Forces during the Vietnam War and stationed all over the United States.  Any army dependent will tell you this is how it works, […]

LO / OD Application by Shawn P. Quigley and Jon M Quigley We will need to start this discussion with a question: “What have you ever done that did not teach you something?” It is by the nature of any activity especially those that require coordination and preplanning either learning or development occurs. Most commonly […]