Yet, it hasn’t always been this way. Earlier in my career, I did what “all the experts” say to do, “Just follow the process.” Most places I worked, followed the SE-V Process. So, I embraced the process. I used the latest product development tools, engineering formulas and problem/solving tactics; like brainstorming, mind-mapping, fish-bone diagrams, etc.. I was particularly big on mind-mapping. I helped teams try to be creativity; wondering, guessing, thinking outside the box (whatever that means). And, I saw a lot of money wasted along the way, with wasted time spent on excessive trial & error;  experimentation and TAFT final product-validation testing which pushed our budget and nerves to the end. But in the end, I saw more project cancelations (failures) than success (being adopted and embraced by customers). Company failures effected me personally, a couple of times, I got laid-off and I had to move out of state to get my next gig. That hurts and its expensive. I felt like changing my career, because engineering was no longer a needed science. It was more like being a member of a traveling rock-n-roll band, always looking for our next gig.   

You may remember, it was the great experimenter-inventor-product developer, Thomas Edison who said, “I haven’t failed 9,999 times. I’ve just found 9,999 ways that it won’t work.” Edison also told his Menlo Park development specialists and engineers (which he called his “sloggers”) to, “experiment on everything”.  “Slog that mud up on the wall, then wait to see what sticks.” And, that became the R&D model for the next hundred years. 

Twice in my career, I saw project failures lead to company failure. When the companies shut down operations, I  had to move, from Signetics  Semiconductor, to John Deere, from Hughes/Baker EIMCO to GE-Healthcare and then to General Dynamics Defense Corporation. Those layoffs and moves are painful. Yet, I remained an engineer because I loved it and I had my few real successes along the way. 

But, then in May of 2010 I had my big epiphany, the biggest discovery of my engineering career. It made me realize,  You can solve development problems, design and system constraints and come up with epiphany-type-solutions, by one of two methods;

1. You can guess, wonder, brainstorm, or experiment on everything. And, the average time to an effective epiphany is 15-80 years, according to Steven Johnson, “How We Got To Now”), or
2. You can simply read over the correct principle(s) upon which the needed improvement is predicated, and the epiphany comes almost immediately. 

So, I created a series of tools, linked Excel worksheets, 50 worksheets in one workbook, so I could immediately provide “correct principle(s)”, to help our product development teams (working groups) at General Dynamics, to quickly look up these ‘improvement principle(s)’, to solve their current challenge; design constraint, critical functional failure modes, reliability, safety, usability (HFE) problems, etc..

And, as I said earlier, over the next 5-6 years I helped 28 different design & development teams with what each team was describing as difficult or “unsolvable problems”.  I would invite each team into a 1-hour session to play what I called “the innovation game”. I applied method #2, above, and the team would almost immediately come up with the epiphany (solution). All 28 teams, with their improved devices and systems passed checkpoint reviews and all 28 systems were then Adopted by our Customer, the US Army.  All 28 systems or devices are now helping in the Battle Field, saving the U.S. Army $233 million per year, over the legacy systems they had been using.

The one significant point here, when it comes to helping other  teams, like yours, is NOT that we saved $233 million. Nor is it that we solved challenges the engineers had been struggling with for month or years, nor is it that we solved each problem in less than an hour. The significant point here is twofold;

A. Across those 28 project teams that I coached, all 28 improved products were adopted by our Customer, because each one brought improved functionality or improved value to the customer! 

and

B. And, we had better than reversed the 80/20 Rule of failures. Rather than 4 failures for every success, we had achieved 28 successes and “0” failures. That is, statistically, at least 96% success rate (with some statistical confidence) and zero failures,

We had moved from the painfully slow and failure prone, 100 year-old, innovation methods of guessing and trial-and-error. Wasting time on brainstorming, mind-mapping and “thinking outside the box” was pretty much out the window. We didn’t waste time coming up with and experimenting on creative options. We had moved to a whole new level of time-saving performance and success, by simply and quickly applying correct principles which  had solved our current problem type, hundreds, if not thousands, of times before.

How would your success ratio and your profits, over the past couple of years have improved, if you had created 28 project successes and 0 failures? Or, even half that many successes between failures? [calculate your savings what your potential earnings would have been]…

Well, our results motivated me, big time. So, I took early retirement, so I could document and share these principles, methods, and procedures with you, with young product & systems development engineers, innovators, and with those who fund such developments and innovation!