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Quality During Design helps engineers build products people love—faster, smarter, and with less stress. Host Dianna Deeney, author of Pierce the Design Fog, shares practical tools and quality thinking from concept to execution. Subscribe on Substack for monthly guides, templates, and Q&A.
186 Episodes
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Ever face a late-stage design decision where your gut says “maybe,” finance says “no,” and the schedule says “hurry”? We unpack a simple way to make those calls with more clarity: using expected value to connect confidence, upside, and downside into one sober view of net benefit. No jargon, no spreadsheets required—just a clear framework that helps you see when a $50,000 test buys real certainty, and when the right move is to ship. Still, numbers don’t get the final say. The goal isn’t...
When pursuing aggressive benchmarks, engineers must employ portfolio thinking, running multiple design projects simultaneously. But choosing winners requires a decisive way to eliminate projects that are not feasible to continue innovating, often referred to as a "project killer". In this episode, we analyze Tesla's battery development as a case study. We delve into their use of five clear-cut constraint categories that define failure conditions upfront: the Economic filter, Performance...
We turn late-stage design surprises into a strategic plan by assigning explicit confidence levels, stacking evidence, and using the three-dial model of time, cost, and confidence boost. We show how to work backward from a system test to cheaper steps that drive faster, clearer decisions. • applying the three dials of time, cost, confidence • sequencing with the work-backwards strategy • avoiding overtesting, undertesting, wrong testing • turning confidence into a team communication tool • pr...
Late-stage design just hit a snag—now comes the moment that separates guesswork from great engineering. We walk through a clear, repeatable method to investigate unexpected failures and make high-impact decisions with confidence. Instead of hunting for a perfect test, we set a confidence target and stack multiple forms of imperfect evidence until we close the gap. If you’re navigating late-stage product development and want a calm, methodical way to move from 40% to 90% confidence, this fram...
We break down why risk analyses often become checkbox theater and replace them with a simple, practical impact vs likelihood matrix that guides action. From quick wins to high-stakes unknowns, we show how to calibrate effort, buy the right learning, and move with confidence. Join the Substack for monthly guides, templates, and QA where I help you apply these to your specific projects. Ready to apply this to your project? → Schedule a free discovery call: Dianna's calendar Want insight...
If you reach for the nearest “risk” template, it might cause more problems. There are two very different jobs we ask risk tools to do. In this episode, we talk about how to pick the one that actually moves your project forward. identification tools for unknown unknowns (like FMEA and preliminary hazard analysis) that systematically surface risks to users, systems, and environmentsdecision tools for known unknowns that clarify impact, likelihood, and uncertainty so teams can choose a path with...
Big changes, clearer focus, and more ways to learn together. We’re tightening our cadence to two episodes a month and building monthly themes that travel across the podcast, blog, and a new Substack home—so you can go beyond ideas and into practice with tools, Q&A, and live community sessions. Here’s what’s new and why it matters. The podcast keeps its familiar format, but now each month has a focused theme that carries into Substack deep dives. Subscribers get comprehensive guides, open...
How do you balance customer wants with project constraints? If your customer-facing teammates are saying our customers want this, that and the other thing, which ones do we prioritize over others? Not all features are equal in the eyes of our customers. And not all features are value-added, either. In this episode, we delve into how to prioritize customer wants using the powerful Kano Model, a tool that maps customer satisfaction against the implementation of product features. You'll learn...
Every product designer knows that critical moment when you must shift from understanding customer needs to actually engineering solutions. It's where the magic happens—and where many projects stumble. After a week of concept development with your team (customer evaluations, benefit analysis, symptom ID, and process mapping), you've gathered valuable insights. But how do you transform this mountain of information into concrete technical requirements? Quality tools transform the concept...
This episode explores the critical importance of evaluating the customer's use process during concept development. Rather than focusing solely on what your product does, understanding how users will interact with it creates opportunities to design more intuitive, enjoyable experiences. By mapping out the steps users take from beginning to end using process flowcharts, development teams gain clarity on inputs, outputs, and the journey between them. Quality engineers have long used flowc...
Ever stood in that devastating moment when customers finally interact with your nearly-finished product only to hear them say, "I don't like that" or "This doesn't work for me"? After months of development and what you thought was adequate customer engagement, these late-stage revelations can send you spiraling back to the drawing board, costing time, money, and team morale. This episode dives deep into why this painful scenario happens even to the most diligent product development teams and...
What truly matters in product design – the features you create or the benefits users experience? In this exploration of a cornerstone concept, we dive into the critical distinction between benefits and features that can make or break your product development efforts. Benefits describe your users' experience – the positive outcomes and emotional connections that result from using your product. Features, meanwhile, are the tangible, measurable components that make your product work. Understand...
That "fuzzy front end" of product development, where ideas should flourish, often becomes a frustrating quagmire of unfocused brainstorming sessions and competing perspectives. The truth is, traditional brainstorming doesn't work nearly as well as we've been led to believe. Drawing from research and decades of experience, this episode reveals why teams facing blank flipcharts produce fewer and lower-quality ideas than those using structured approaches. The solution? Visual models and templat...
Have you ever watched a promising product idea slowly die in the fuzzy space between "great concept" and "actual development"? You're not alone. The journey from product idea to market-ready solution contains a critical yet often overlooked phase: concept development. This is where cross-functional teams must align their diverse perspectives to create a solid foundation for design. But as many product developers discover, this is precisely where communication frequently breaks down. I...
The hidden costs of poor product development can devastate your project timeline, budget, and ultimate market success. Drawing from Dr. Robert Cooper's research, this episode reveals how skipping proper concept development—the critical "fuzzy front end" of product design—leads many teams into a costly "ready-fire-aim" approach. Most development teams dedicate a mere 16% of project time to concept work, despite evidence showing successful products allocate 75% more resources to these early ac...
Ever hit that wall where your creative tank feels bone dry? That moment when you've been grinding away at your projects, head down for so long that when someone asks for innovation, you come up empty? You're not alone. Creative slumps happen when we get too immersed in our specialized domains. As engineers and designers, we develop expertise through consistent application of familiar tools and techniques. But that same specialization creates mental echo chambers where we recycle the same ide...
Ever wondered if you're wasting resources by setting unnecessarily high confidence levels for your reliability requirements? You're not alone. Many engineering teams default to 95% or 99% confidence without considering the downstream impact on testing timelines and resources. This episode tackles a question that's been coming up frequently from listeners: how to choose appropriate confidence levels for reliability requirements and test methods. Rather than making arbitrary decisions, I share...
As a Generation X engineer, I've watched design processes evolve from manual drafting kits and hand-derived equations to sophisticated CAD systems powered by artificial intelligence. What fascinates me most isn't the replacement of skills but their enhancement. The engineering fundamentals I learned decades ago haven't become obsolete. They've become more powerful when paired with AI and machine learning tools. Today's design engineers have unprecedented autonomy. Tasks that once required sp...
Good reliability requirements are going to drive our design decisions relating to the concept, the components, the materials, and other stuff. So, the moment to start defining reliability requirements is early in the design process. But, what makes a well-defined reliability requirement? There are five aspects it should cover: do you know what they are? We'll describe what makes a good reliability requirement and examples of common (but not good) requirements. Visit the podcast blog for l...
We dive deep into the intricate relationship between supplier agreements and product quality, highlighting the essential aspects to consider when partnering with suppliers. Quality in design is not just a checkbox; it requires clear communication and collaboration. • Exploring the challenges of designing custom components • Discussing the different types of supplier agreements • The importance of defining and measuring quality expectations • Navigating multiple vendors in t...
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