Tag: Project Management

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Improve Your Project Management Skills by Applying a Land Navigation Lesson

I want to explore the application of an important lesson from land navigation to our engineering work: always have a backstop. Backstops in Navigation When navigating in the wilderness, it is important to identify backstops for your journey. Fundamentally, a backstop is any kind of kind of boundary condition that keeps us within our target …

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Here’s what a 1963 Leadership Masterpiece Has to Say About Managing Projects

I am a fan of the Jocko Podcast. Over the past few months I have been listening to the episodes on General Bruce C. Clarke's 1963 book, Guidelines for Leaders and Commanders. I highly recommend this series to anyone in a leadership position. This series is also valuable for contractors and consultants, many of whom …

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Embedded Artistry’s Development Build Inventory Templates for SMA and FATP

If you are building an embedded hardware product, it is important that you keep careful track of parts and materials needed for your engineering development builds. This is essential even if you are already using a well-managed BOM. Development builds should be scheduled such that all materials are ready and QA’d to allow for the shortest, …

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Engineering Lessons I’ve Learned from Working at the Japanese Tea Garden

Since September 2017, I’ve been volunteering at the San Francisco Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. I work with the head gardener, seasoned bonsai devotees, and a master gardener to prune trees, mend fences, beat back bamboo, pull weeds, catch koi fish, and clean ponds. These tasks may not seem relevant to engineering teams, …

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Improving Our Estimation Abilities: Other Approaches

After we shared estimation thoughts on Twitter, we received a question in the Embedded.fm slack group: What do you guys do for estimates and how do you improve your estimates? Any resources to help understand estimates more or just helpful things in general? Following our article on why we estimate, we’ve put together a series …

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Improving Our Estimation Abilities: Practical Lessons Learned

After we shared estimation thoughts on Twitter, we received a question in the Embedded.fm slack group: What do you guys do for estimates and how do you improve your estimates? Any resources to help understand estimates more or just helpful things in general? Following our article on why we estimate, we’ve put together a series …

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Improving Our Estimation Abilities: Embedded Artistry’s Approach

After we shared estimation thoughts on Twitter, we received a question in the Embedded.fm slack group: What do you guys do for estimates and how do you improve your estimates? Any resources to help understand estimates more or just helpful things in general? Following our article on why we estimate, we’ve put together a series …

Continue reading "Improving Our Estimation Abilities: Embedded Artistry’s Approach"

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Why We Estimate

We’ve received multiple questions about how to approach estimation after we shared our thoughts on Twitter. As Rozi and I were discussing our ideas around engineering project time estimation, we realized that there tends to be a crucial nuance that’s missing when folks discuss estimation: why you are making an estimate is critical in determining …

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