Just took part as a non-advocate review of after action review for a pure development engineering project that a friend of mine is delivering this afternoon. My projects have typically impacted operations and the factory, I don’t see development projects very often and it was fun to look at something new and be a neutral in the room reviewing the material I don’t have to deliver.

I noticed a few major differences in approach that may have value for my projects in the future.

Identify the primary requirements, in the example today that was three aspects of the deliverable, these were frozen and were off limits to change unless the revision was essential and had been through a formal process of reviews and approvals. I liked this, managing change is always an issue that takes inordinate amounts of time. While putting certain aspects of the deliverable out of bounds does require additional work during the define and charter phase, over the course of the project it pays dividends over the life of a project.

Integrating the concept of “fit, form, function, interchangeability and safety” into the change management process. I spent many years as a manufacturing engineer in a part number controlled world where revising any of the above requires a part number roll (-1 to -2). For production projects if a change in the deliverable (process, flow or physical part) casuses any changes to fit, form, function, interchangeability or safety then the project charter must be rolled to reflect the new “part number”.

Finally the deliverable was defined in the charter not only by physical properties and functionality, but also in how they would be inspected and measured. This avoids problems where an item passes shipping inspection, but is held for receiving inspection because of drawing interpretation or methodology. For a deliverables that reduces flow time, this would require the flow reduction measurement (touch time, wait time, end-to-end flow time or batch size) methodology to be agreed upon and documented up front.

The biggest takeaway was reinforcement of what I already believe; it all comes down to a watertight charter as the base the project is built on, no matter what the deliverable. Again I see a couple of new ways to really make it more comprehensive with out huge amounts of additional time being added to the charting process.

I enjoy taking part in looking at projects outside my usual realm. I typically get to look at something new or cool, and that makes my inner geek happy, but I also get to see how other organizations do things differently, see better ways of doing something and pick up new ideas to help my own projects.

All good sport needs drama, a certain level of intrigue, someone to root against and personalities.

If you’re English and follow football it’s easy, the Germans provide all of these (unless the game goes to penalties, then England looses, it’s just how it is).

Journalist Nigel Robuck once said racing always used to be better than it is now. Maybe there is an element of that with me, but when it comes to F1 I do find the races more processional and less interesting now (though vastly improved over 4 or 5 years ago) then when I was involved in the 90’s.

Today I find it difficult to find a driver with enough personality to care enough about; they are pretty much all corporate clones that give the same sound bites. Having said that Jenson Button still seems endearingly rough around the edges compared to many of his colleagues, but he is tallest of the pigmies. However if I see him called a “plucky underdog” one more time the “endearing” label is pretty much done.

The moments of high drama seem to be relegated to history; I doubt we’ll ever see anything like Ayrton Senna starting a fight with Eddie Irvine for some perceived slight, or Guy Ligier throwing fire extinguishers through car windows. The teams’ media handlers would never let Nelson Piquet (senior) give an interview where he discusses Ayrton Senna dating men and how Nigel Mansell has an ugly wife and two ugly children.

And the sport is poorer for it.

Today sees the departure of another one of those larger than life personalities – Flav Briatore – leave the sport. Loath him or hate him, his fake tan, designer sunglasses and sweater thrown nonchalantly over his shoulders made the pit lane a more interesting place. In the “finding an edge” stakes having driver stick the car into the wall is a little extreme, but it’s only shades of grey different to the things other drivers, engineers and principals have been doing since the first two cars raced each other.

In the last few of years also we’ve lost a few of the people who turned F1 politics into an art form in Ron Dennis, Eddie Jordan (who was a very quick learner in how to thrive in the “piranha club”) and Jean Todt. Add the impending departure of Max Mosley (the combined F1 press brought him a riding crop as a going away present) and we are only really left with Bernie to continue the political drama that makes F1 so special.

It’s been a while coming, but Renault have finally taken the “naughty boys” title from Mclaren, and they have done it in style.

Team orders are nothing new, they have been around since the beginning and despite claims to the contrary are still there. However I’ve never heard of a driver being told to deliberately crash to help fix a race. And if there is a team principle who is going to do it, it’s Flav.

Today Flav Briatore and Pat Symonds left Renault, and the team released a statement indicating that they will not deny the race fixing accusation. With the FIA handing out race bans for improperly tightened wheel nuts, being suspended the sport does not seem out of the question when they meet Monday.

Clearly Flav and Pat are being thrown under the bus in the hope the FIA will see this as the work of two individuals and not the team. Past history says this may not help, it did not help McLaren when Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan took the fall for the Ferrari technical documents, the team was still suspended from the manufacturers championship and fined an astronomical $100M. However, F1 is not as healthy and with the departure of Honda and BMW the FIA is desperate for stability and may give Renault a stiff talking too and leave it at that.

Mr Piquet is going to struggle to find a team to give him another chance, the sport places a lot of weight on loyalty and supporting the team, whatever happens. Going public with race fixing allegations after being released by Renault after a series of poor results is going to frighten off a lot of teams.

Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn has backed the company’s investment in F1 a number of times. He stated “We are not in Formula One out of habit or tradition. We’re here to show our talent and that we can do it properly.” I wonder how he feels today?

All good sport needs drama, a certain level of intrigue, someone to root against and personalities.

If you’re English and follow football it’s easy, the Germans provide all of these (unless the game goes to penalties, then England looses, it’s just how it is).

Journalist Nigel Robuck once said racing always used to be better than it is now. Maybe there is an element of that with me, but when it comes to F1 I do find the races more processional and less interesting now (though vastly improved over 4 or 5 years ago) then when I was involved in the 90’s.

Today I find it difficult to find a driver with enough personality to care enough about; they are pretty much all corporate clones that give the same sound bites. Having said that Jenson Button still seems endearingly rough around the edges compared to many of his colleagues, but he is tallest of the pigmies. However if I see him called a “plucky underdog” one more time the “endearing” label is pretty much done.

The moments of high drama seem to be relegated to history; I doubt we’ll ever see anything like Ayrton Senna starting a fight with Eddie Irvine for some perceived slight, or Guy Ligier throwing fire extinguishers through car windows. The teams’ media handlers would never let Nelson Piquet (senior) give an interview where he discusses Ayrton Senna dating men and how Nigel Mansell has an ugly wife and two ugly children.

And the sport is poorer for it.

Today sees the departure of another one of those larger than life personalities – Flav Briatore – leave the sport. Loath him or hate him, his fake tan, designer sunglasses and sweater thrown nonchalantly over his shoulders made the pit lane a more interesting place. In the “finding an edge” stakes having driver stick the car into the wall is a little extreme, but it’s only shades of grey different to the things other drivers, engineers and principals have been doing since the first two cars raced each other.

In the last few of years also we’ve lost a few of the people who turned F1 politics into an art form in Ron Dennis, Eddie Jordan (who was a very quick learner in how to thrive in the “piranha club”) and Jean Todt. Add the impending departure of Max Mosley (the combined F1 press brought him a riding crop as a going away present) and we are only really left with Bernie to continue the political drama that makes F1 so special.

One of my core competencies is being willing to look slightly dumb. I like trying new things, inevitable you make mistakes and look stupid, while I don’t revel in it, I do accept it as part of my life.

It’s given me some good stories, a lot of fun and I’ve learned some cool and useful things such as replacing a timing belt on a car, tying a proper bow tie and speaking to a large group.

Being comfortable with myself and willing to look like an idiot at work has allowed me to

• Ask the stupid question that the group assume everyone else knows
• Ask the project manager whose plan I don’t understand why did they do it this way
• Miss those pointless meetings with no agenda or point but the, boss will be there
• How come a particular thing usually happens but we manage it as an exception
• Hold my ground. We started with a schedule with no float and a predecessor event is late, I can’t compress 3 weeks to compensate
• The result may be Y, but it was caused by X. Why don’t we deal with X and not Y?
• Be willing to ask why we are not taking an opportunity cost if it makes sense to me

It’s not much of a superpower I’ll grant you, but since I’ve embraced it, it’s served me very well.

This is a story about Henry, my grandfather. He was born in New Brunswick and grew up in the beautiful St John river valley close to the border with Maine. Aside from a couple of trips to Montreal and occasional trips across the border he never strayed too far from home.

Just a few weeks after the invasion of Poland by Germany Henry took a trip to Woodstock and joined the recently mobilized Carleton and York Regiment, this was before conscription started. A couple of weeks later he was ordered to Sussex New Brunswick for six weeks of basic training, this was followed by a week of leave then and then to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

On December 9^th 1939 he boarded a ship in Halifax, along with the rest of the Carleton and York Regiment, and sailed for Britain.

He disembarked in Greenock on the 20^th of December.

As an interesting aside, my paternal grandparents lived in Greenock, my grandfather worked in the extensive shipyards and my father was 4 years old when Henry landed in his hometown.

They boarded a series of trains in Greenock Central destined for an army transit camp in Aldershot Hampshire, before finally making the short journey to Quebec Barracks in Bordon Camp in Hampshire in early March 1940.

The Carleton and York were part of the newly formed Third Brigade of the First Canadian Infantry Division. Henry is assigned as a mechanic and driver to a field workshop tasked with repairing and recovering the battalions vehicles.

At this time rationing for basic foodstuffs had just been introduced in England and the 200,000 men of the British Expeditionary forces were deployed in France. Any hope for an early end to the fighting was destroyed with the invasion of the Low countries and the German sweep into France during the Spring of 1940 causing Chamberlain to resign and Churchill forms a coalition government.

In early May, while drilling on the parade ground at Quebec Barracks a lone German bomber appears over Bordon with no warning. It’s thought that the aircraft was lost and found a target of opportunity. The aircraft dropped a couple of bombs, killed 8 (10 by some reports) on the ground before departing at tree top height.

A small element took part in the ill-fated Dieppe raid in August 1942, but other than that the Carleton and York drilled and trained in Southern for the next couple of years. While in Bournmouth preparing for a training exercise on Salisbury Plain in March 1942 Henry was hit by a civilian car. He was taken to hospital in with a badly broken leg.

After a few days he was transferred to a military hospital in Aldershot, where he stayed for a couple of months before being sent back to Bordon and his home unit to continue his rehabilitation. The damage to his leg was severe and kept him on limited and light duties for over a year.

In June 1943 the Carleton and York along with the rest of the First Canadian Infantry Division embarked on transports from Plymouth and Falmouth to participate in Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily.

Henry was still recovering from his broken leg and was kept in Bordon until late August or early September. He then deployed to Italy, landing in allied held Bari and joining the Carleton and York near Foggia.

The First Canadian Infantry Division was now part of the British 8^th Army and was tasked with breaking through the multiple defensive lines the Germans had set up running across Italy. The Carleton and York along with the rest of the division were tasked with supporting the crossing the river Sangro by New Zealand troops on November 28^th 1943, and moving towards Ortona on the Adriatic coast.

Fortunately the German 86^th Division that faced the New Zealand and Canadian troops were largely ill equipped replacements that allowed the allied troops to take all their objectives with little trouble. This was not the case along other parts of the offensive, where other parts of the 8^th Army went against battle tested units and did not advance.

With the weather deteriorating the lines stabilized over the winter and the Carleton and York were withdrawn for a few months and were later assigned to support the 8^th Army in the drive to Rome through the bloody battles at Monte Cassino and the Livi Valley through April and May 1944.

The Carleton and York continued north over the following months, through Rimini in September and holding at Lamone in November. At this point Henry and a majority of the First Canadian Infantry Division were withdrawn and sailed from Livorno to Portsmouth, arriving back in Bordon in just before Christmas 1944 to prepare for deployment to Holland to join the drive into the Rhineland in the Spring.

Some elements of the division arrived in Holland, but for the Carleton and York specifically the war moved too fast into Germany and they never joined the rest of the division in North West Europe.

Henry returned to Canada in early 1946, arriving in Fredericton with is new wife, Vera. In December1946 my mother was born and together they moved back to South East England in 1947.

In 1992 I visited New Brunswick, it seemed like I’m related to about half the St John River Valley. I was told quite a number of stories about Henry. A significant number of which of which he would deny (and in some cases has), and I’m fairly sure he would not want them published here.

This is the brief synopsis of six years of his life. How he came to Europe, made a difference, served his country and later returned to make Guildford his home. I had a tremendous grandfather that I loved. He taught me ethics, appreciating cats, not to be afraid of hard work, don’t get too attached to a car, never forget to have fun, let those around you know you love them, how to set the timing on a car, that you can never have too many tools and that my father should have been nominated for sainthood in 2002 (if you want to know more ask, I’m not going to expand on that here).

I’ve used a number of primary and secondary sources for the information, the dates, locations and operations are correct as far as I know. I’d like to thank the Canadian Department of Defence, specifically Paul McDonald in the Office of veteran’s affairs for his invaluable help and contacts that made the details possible, the 8th Hussars Museum in Sussex NB and the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

The Carleton and York have gone through a number of amalgamations and their history, and by extension the history of Henry and those that served with him, are now part of the Royal New Brunswick Regiment.

Incidentally, the Royal New Brunswick Regiment have recently returned from a six month deployment to Afghanistan.

I can just imagine the tech guys doing the double take and flagging this one for posting.

CNN blooper…

I work in aerospace, possibly the most process driven industry around. Most if not all organizations that support the design, build and delivery of products use checklists. Salesmen configuring the aircraft, design engineers preparing a drawing to pilots preparing from the first flight, all use some form of standardized checklist to ensure that things get done in a consistent way and is ready for approval and their downstream customer.

Where the flow of incoming data and tasks is so overwhelming that you have no idea what to do next (called “task saturation”) going to a checklist allows you to focus on priorites and work down a clearly defines list.

At work we have two primary uses of checklists.

• Reminder checklist – complete the tasks, then look at the checklist to ensure the item is complete and ready for the downstream customer.
• Challenge/response – one person reads out the item on the checklist and a second person completes the item and then calls out the correct response.

Content

Chunking – List the items that should be on your checklist. There are a number of ways to group items. Those that share a common factor (location, function) or group by priority.

Flow – examine the chunks and look for a logical progression (moving around your desk, the order in which people need to approve a drawing) to make the list more efficient.

Completion Box – If it’s just one person working down the list then a line that reads “Section complete” and a tickbox is all that’s required. This allows you to move on knowing the previous section or group is finished.

Redundancy – If there are items that consistently cause rejections or are especially critical it’s OK to duplicate them.

Size – Make your checklist as short as possible but as long as needed. The longer the checklist the less likely it will be used and the more likely you will be interrupted while using it.

Design

Font – Use a very clear font, a single font in a mix of upper and lower case is ideal. Italics can be used for emphisis. The idea is the eyes should quickly pick put to what they need to see. Use both upper and lower case letter.

Use black lettering on white paper. Highlighting can be used to define critical items.

Phraseology

Terminology – Use proper terms, as this reduces the chance for error. No vague or ambiguous phrases.
 Status – Use the actual status or condition that is desired after each item. For example

“Engineering sign off . . . . . Complete”

“Master Power . . . . . . . . . On”

“Tourque wrench . . . . . . . . To 70 ft lbs”

Checklists are there to ensure things are done in a consistent, systematic way. When we are under pressure to meet a deadline whether it is releasing a piece of design engineering, a plan to the shop floor or a part for delivery to a customer its possible to miss a step.

When I get a request from the shop for help I can meet their needs knowing that I’ve done everything needed. My output will be complete, correct and that my actions and response were thought through when I had time.

Rock, paper, scissors with the geek addition of lizard and spock.

Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock from ABC\’s \”Big bang theory\”

I’ve noticed when rock, paper, scissors is played among people that know each other it ends in a draw a maybe half the time, here is the perfect extension.

• Scissors cut paper
• Paper covers rock
• Rock crushes lizard
• Lizard poisons Spock
• Spock smashes scissors
• Scissors decapitate lizard
• Lizard eats paper
• Paper disproves Spock
• Spock vaporizes rock
• Rock crushes scissors

This has been popularized on the ABC show Big Bang theory (that I’ve not seen, but I work with guys who love it), but apparently goes back far longer into the annals of geekdom.

Earlier this year NASA held a contest to name a module being added to the International Space Station and included space for a write in vote. Someone on the Colbert Report staff heard of this and Stephen Colbert mobilized the “Colbert Nation” to vote to call the module Colbert.

Scientology (Xenu), Dave Barry (Buddy) and a few environmentalist groups (Amazonis) got onto the vote bandwagon. But not surprisingly Steven Colbert won the popular vote by quite a landslide (over 230,000 votes out of 1.2 million cast).

NASA made it very clear that they reserved the right to call the module what ever they wish and eventually announced on the Colbert Show that the module would be called Tranquility. Obviously they are not immune to public opinion and offered to call the treadmill installed in the module COLBERT, for “Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill”. Stephen of course said yes.

COLBERT is due to be launched this week (after a couple of delays) on STS-128 and will be fully installed next spring when the Tranquility module arrives in orbit.

NASA showed it has a sense of humour, got some attention and maybe attracted a little more support from viewers. In the future I think the space program is going to need all the help and support it can muster, getting good at playing the PR game can only help. The enginerds and space guys are onboard, it’s convincing the public who don’t see a return, beyond some pretty pictures from Hubble, from the billions spent on space that it’s money well spent.