Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
The bottom line is reliability engineers must balance honesty and transparency with the pressure to meet business and customer expectations. The second E in the FINESSE fishbone diagram stands for Ethics. Three types of ethics are virtue, consequential, and duty-based. The most important aspect is understanding your ethical framework as you make decisions and communicate to others as a trusted advisor. These three tips will help you improve.
Reliability engineers, systems engineers, and other technically trained professionals often support big decisions. Big decisions involve high levels of complexity and uncertainty, Decision makers are driven to seek the advice of an inner circle. Team dynamics overpower individual preferences. The second S in the FINESSE fishbone diagram stands for Synergy. These three tips and a three-minute video will help you improve Synergy.
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Reliability engineers and other technical professionals are challenged when communicating their work to senior management. The FINESSE fishbone diagram provides a system-thinking, cause-and-effect approach for communicating in the face of complexity and uncertainty. The first S in the FINESSE fishbone diagram stands for Structure. These three tips and a three-minute video will help you improve the structure of your presentations and reports.
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We often jump to the wrong conclusions when non-compliance occurs. Non-compliance occurs when the standards and regulations designed to protect public health and the environment are unmet. Obviously, we must reduce immediate risks. However, these measures often address the symptoms and not the root causes. This leads to further delays or doubling down on the wrong things as we move through mitigation that misses the mark. Using statistical process control in environmental root cause analysis is one way to make sure you’re getting it right!
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Reliability engineers are challenged to effectively communicate their technical information to senior managers and the public. The FINESSE fishbone diagram is a proven, systems-based approach for meeting the communications challenge. The first E in the FINESSE fishbone diagram stands for Empathy. These are four tips to help you improve your empathy and empathetic listening.
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The N in the FINESSE fishbone diagram stands for Noise reduction. Cause-and-effect relationships and systems thinking are essential aspects of any communication system. We normally think of noise in four forms – the way people mentally process information, the types of forums where we present, visual and auditory effects, and communication channels. These three tips and a video clip provide focused examples.
Few technical professionals fully leverage the editing tools or consistently apply the techniques to Google, Adobe, Microsoft, or social media applications. From word count to spoken words to readability, this article touches on key approaches to making your reports and presentations more concise.
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Technically trained professionals often get wrapped up in things like visualization, which distracts us from our mission. Our mission is to provide information to decision makers, and technical professionals are trusted advisors. So, most of our graphics, visuals, and videos should be informational. The I in FINESSE stands for Illustrate. Illustrate includes all the visuals, graphics, videos, and other media used in technical reports and presentations. These three tips and a short video provide focused examples.
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The F in the FINESSE fishbone diagram stands for Frame. Effective communication requires systems thinking. That’s the good news for most technical professionals – you do not need to be perfect but only need the cause-and-effect bones of FINESSE to work together. These are three tips to help you develop the frame.
Focusing on your greatest fear is an alternative way to frame a problem. Framing the problem is also the first step in effective communication using the FINESSE approach for problems with high levels of complexity and uncertainty. [Read more…]
Most technical professionals find themselves bogged down by inefficient presentation preparation methods that result in information overload and diluted messaging. We need a better way. Business presentations are critical in conveying strategic visions, securing stakeholder buy-in, and driving decision-making. Improving the presentation development process results in increased productivity, cost savings, more effective communication, and better work-life balance. This article explores innovative strategies to streamline the development of business presentations. [Read more…]
In the upcoming months, look for an article on each of the seven bones of the FINESSE fishbone diagram. I’ll provide three insights and a three-minute video on each bone. You’ll see the cause-and-effect relationships and why communication is a system just like any other type of physical system. The series is a good introduction for those unfamiliar with FINESSE and a refresher for those who are.
A system is a collection of interrelated or interacting parts, each of which can affect the behavior or outcomes of the whole. One defining property of a system is that it provides a function that none of the parts can accomplish by themselves. The corollary is that a system is not the sum of the parts but the product of their interactions.
A communication system is the same as any other system. The good news for technical professionals is that you do not have the best-looking, most eloquent, or smartest person in the room to be an effective communicator. You just need to trust the system.
The United States Conference of Mayors created a PFAS Toolkit. The information and resources included provides insights into several key aspects that local governments and businesses should be aware of in relation to PFAS (forever chemicals). Key parts of the PFAS Toolkit are presented here.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of chemicals developed in the 1940s that have been used in a variety of consumer products like semiconductors, cellphones, textiles, renewable energy, and medical devices. Two chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) are no longer produced today, but they were once used in a wide variety of industries. Today, trace levels of PFOA and PFOS can be measured in water, air, soil, animals, humans, and some consumer products globally. PFOA/PFOS are persistent in the environment, and some studies suggest that long-term exposure at increased doses may lead to negative health impacts. [Read more…]
Reliability is one of the most overworked and misunderstood words in the world of facilities and infrastructure. Reliability is also one of the most powerful and important words. Properly evaluating and communicating reliability resolves risk, safety, quality, compliance, and human performance. Reliability also frames a powerful and effective systems approach instead of leaving gaps by cobbling together individual assets and components. Effectively communicating reliability starts with being able to quickly define it, [Read more…]
Assessing critical infrastructure and facilities is essential for maintaining performance as systems age. Mid-level engineers are frequently tasked with leading a reliability assessment with limited training. The good news is that you don’t need to be a subject matter expert to be successful. But you do need a structured collaboration approach and a mental model to help you through the tough spots. Success rises and falls based on the quality of the facilitation. [Read more…]
A Business Case Evaluation (BCE) is a decision-making tool that assists in making value-based funding decisions. Business cases are developed in the early capital and operating budget planning cycles as a standardized and systematic process to analyze the benefits and costs of various options to solve an identified problem or a cost-saving/revenue-generating idea. A big part of building better business cases is analyzing the system over the long term for monetary and non-monetary aspects. Building better business cases improves reliability and performance by formally documenting “needs” versus “wants.” Business cases serve as a powerful communication tool at all levels of an organization. [Read more…]
Young professionals (under 40) will make up over half of the workforce by the end of next year. That means communication between young professionals and experienced professionals is essential for workplace success. Younger professionals dominating the workforce means that reliability engineering is undergoing formative changes. These are a few general thoughts on the impacts of the changing workforce and five ways it will impact reliability engineering.
Here are a few thoughts on intergenerational communication from my recent interview on The YoPro Know Podcast.
Companies are generally awkward with social media and how to reach the younger generations. On the one hand, companies know to try. On the other hand, the HR people and some of the technical managers are really bad at it.
Companies should do a gap analysis on reaching young professionals. There are inadvertent things companies do that really cause them to stumble inadvertently. Most companies do too much of a cookie-cutter approach to recruiting and retention.
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