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Quality during Design Newsletter

The Quality during Design Newsletter is for product designers, engineers, and anyone else who cares about creating high-quality products. Quality during Design is a philosophy that emphasizes the benefits of cross-functional team involvement in design. It's also a methodology that uses quality tools to refine design concepts early. Whether you're a seasoned designer or just starting out, looking to improve your existing designs or start from scratch, Quality during Design is for you.

Podcast Cover: Guest Meagan Pollock

New Podcasts, Workshop, and More!

We've shifted from weekly newsletters to monthly! This is the first issue of the monthly Quality during Design newsletter since its start in 2021. Look for future newsletters on the first Friday of each month. I value your feedback - let me know what you think. -Dianna Are you viewing your workplace through rose-colored glasses? Consider where you work and the team of people you work with. How is the work culture? Do you think it's fine? How is your communication with your teammates? You may...
a woman podcasting

AI's New Trick: Turning Many Text Sources into a 10-minute Podcast!

I recently recorded a couple of episodes of the Speaking of Reliability podcast with Fred. In one, we talk about AI and the concerns and promise that it holds. Look for it to air in October! Just afterwards, I learned about and tried Google's notebook.lm. You upload files to it, it analyzes the files, then it can generate various summaries from it. One of the summaries available is a two-person, 10-minute "podcast" episode. So, I uploaded content that I've created for Quality During Design...

This week: a panel discussion about buy-in on engineering ideas

On this week's Quality during Design Podcast, listen-in on a panel discussion about central themes in the books Brilliant! (about an engineer who invented the blue LED) and How to Win Friends and Influence People. These stories underscore the significance of not just having brilliant ideas but also being able to communicate them effectively to garner support and drive projects forward. That sounds like something we all need from time to time. Here's what one attendee said: "I didn't realize,...
green circuit board

Early reliability engineering input: a must-have

This weekly newsletter shares resources for product designers (since 2021), brought to you by Dianna Deeney. I speak a lot about communication and teamwork in early development. I also talk about what reliability engineers and quality engineers can do, and when they can do it in a product development process. Spoiler alert - it's usually earlier than you think! I've compilated some of the reliability engineering-based Quality during Design Podcast episodes in the recommendations, below....
The 6P's

New Podcast: Engage and Inform with New Presentation Techniques

This weekly newsletter shares resources for product designers (since 2021), brought to you by Dianna Deeney. Can the way you present technical information drastically impact decision-making? Absolutely. In this week's podcast episode, we explore transformative methods that can elevate your technical presentations to a whole new level. Instead of relying on lifeless bullet points, the assertion evidence model encourages you to make clear recommendations at the top of each slide, coupled with...

What are new ways to engage customers?

This weekly newsletter shares resources for product designers (since 2021), brought to you by Dianna Deeney. I traveled by car, bus, and train to make it to the ASME technical conferences in Washinton, D.C. earlier in the week. Design Justice was a big topic. These design processes are moving the designer away from the center of the design. Design Justice aims to incorporate the user into the design process and design decisions. It's a paid position. It's different from Design for Usability....
Rainy Day Car Window, Image by Mateus Andre on Freepik

Mastering priorities with the Kano Model

This weekly newsletter shares resources for product designers (since 2021), brought to you by Dianna Deeney. 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 week's episode/blog post, we delve into how to prioritize customer wants using...

Confluence of risks changes a record-breaking viaduct into a skywalk

This weekly newsletter shares resources for product designers (since 2021), brought to you by Dianna Deeney. To me, this scenic park is a lesson in risk.The massive Kinzua Viaduct was a testament to engineering. The bridge was built in the 1880s/1900s in northern Pennsylvania from steel forged in southeastern PA. "It was once the world's highest and longest rail viaduct."It was destroyed in 2003 by a tornado. The more complete story is that a massive maintenance project had begun by crews...
a toilet with a seat cover

What if they say, "No"?

This weekly newsletter shares resources for product designers (since 2021), brought to you by Dianna Deeney. Dori Clark is a business professor and author. She talks about being strategic with our time and priorities. One of the points she makes is for us to say "no" to meetings where we don't need to be, doing things we don't need to do. Many people use an urgent/important matrix to prioritize tasks, mapping it out or doing a quick mental assessment. What does that mean for us? We should do...

What color economy do you work in?

This weekly newsletter shares resources for product designers (since 2021), brought to you by Dianna Deeney. I'm preparing for the upcoming RMMR Conference next week. RMMR = Reliability, Maintenance, and Managing Risk. I am presenting, which takes a lot of preparation. In addition, I'm looking forward to meeting new people and catching up with some folks that I enjoyed talking with last time. One of the reasons I like conferences is meeting others who are working on a variety of projects in...

The Quality during Design Newsletter is for product designers, engineers, and anyone else who cares about creating high-quality products. Quality during Design is a philosophy that emphasizes the benefits of cross-functional team involvement in design. It's also a methodology that uses quality tools to refine design concepts early. Whether you're a seasoned designer or just starting out, looking to improve your existing designs or start from scratch, Quality during Design is for you.