Shipulski On Design

Archive for August, 2026

I had the best teachers.  They taught me to assess the situation as it is before trying to improve it.  Early in my career, my leaders did not understand the importance of spending the time to define the current state.  Hurry up and fix it!  Why are you spending time analyzing the existing product? Why do you want to create a functional analysis of the product we want to obsolete?  Why do you want to understand why customers purchased our legacy products?

By assessing the system/products as they are, I learned how to identify the elements to reuse, to improve, and to reinvent.  This has been a great way to focus the resources on the most important elements and increase the intensity the allocated resources.  When you don’t spend time on the 50% of the system that can be reused, you double the resource intensity over a complete redesign.

So, I ask you – how do you decide what can be reused, what must be improved, and what must be reinvented?

Regardless of the system’s size or scope of the project, assessing the current state is the right first step.  For example, there is great interest in improving the business model.  First question (that no one can answer) – What is our business model?  There are tools to define business models visually to show the partners, competitors, customers, data flow, money flow, product flow.  The tools show who does what to whom and how, who helps whom and how, and what’s missing.  One of the tools I like is Wardley Maps.  While Simon (Wardley) doesn’t talk much about mapping business models, I’ve misused his maps for business model mapping.

A rule for business models:  If you can’t describe your business model visually on one page, you don’t know what your business model is and you can’t improve it.

And assessing the current state is effective at the leaf-level (the lowest level).  Mapping the system functionally (functional decomposition with Axiomatic Design) and defining a problem rigorously (TRIZ), allows the team to place the problem in the context of the whole system AND to define the problem at the smallest level possible (think telescope to microscope).

A rule for problems – There’s nothing worse than solving the wrong problem, so you better be sure you’re solving the right one.

A long time ago, I led a project that took the time to assess the baseline product (existing product) for cost, part count, and part type.  Using DFMA, ee knew where the parts were, and we designed them out and we knew where the cost was and we designed it out.  It took a “long time” to do that work, but we radically improved the profitability of the new product (7X improvement in profit per square foot of the factory).  We also did a full functional decomposition on the baseline product and learn that there was one subsystem that caused trouble with all the electronic systems and created problems for customers.  We hardened the design against that subsystem’s devilish energy.  And we created robustness tests where we tested the baseline product and demonstrated improved robustness on the new product. (We used TRIZ to solve the right problems.)  Those efforts reduced warranty cost per unit by 4X.

Rigorously assessing the current state (products, processes, systems, business models) seems too slow and a big waste of time.  It is my experience, though, that it’s faster and improves the outcomes of the new product development and improvement projects.

But don’t take my word for it.  Give it a try.  And if you need some help, let me know.

Image credit – Calsidyrose

Hearing is not listening.

You can hear and choose not to listen.

But if you don’t hear, you can’t listen.

Listening is an active process.

Listening requires energy.

Listening is a choice.

Talking and listening are partners.

Talking appreciates listening and listening appreciates talking.

Talking before listening gets the conversation going.

Continued talking without listening isn’t a conversation.

Skillful talking is informed by listening.

Measure twice and cut once, and it’s the same for listening and talking.

When you talk, you can only hear yourself. Don’t you already know what you know?

Well-timed talking starts after well-timed listening.

Talk less, and you’ll listen more.

And listening helps you say more while you talk less.

Image credit — David Salafia

When I was younger, I tried to fix everything right away.  See a problem, fix a problem.  Regardless of the urgency, I tried to fix it right now.  And regardless of the importance, I tried to fix it right now.  And because of this, I was always too busy to think things through.  And because I was too busy, I was always too tired to bring my whole self to things.

See it and fix it did not work.

When I was younger, when I thought someone was wrong, I would disagree right away.  At every meeting I would push on perspectives I disagreed with.  In every conversation, I would add nuance to someone’s position to make it righter.  These approaches created distance, drained my energy, and limited my effectiveness.

Disagreement at every turn did not work.

And then I was given a project I could not do myself.  I had to align and energize a diverse team.  My “smartest guy in the room” tactics would not work.  And my “always being right” approach would bring about the opposite of what was needed.  I realized I needed to work differently.  As the team leader, I had to create the conditions for the team members to trust each other and work well together.  And to do that, I realized they had to trust me.  And to do that, my actions had to match my words, and I had to actively reinforce positive behaviors.

Instead of disagreeing with the team, I showed them the way.  Instead of telling them when they were wrong, I helped them do the right work the right way.  If they did not know how to do the right work, I showed them.  And after they did the right work, I praised them in front of their peers.

Helping the team do the right work led to more good work.

Instead of calling out their mistakes, I prevented the team from making them.  I guided them on the approach and watched.  If things went well, I praised them.  I told them what they did well and why I liked it.  I told them loudly so everyone could hear.  If things started to head south, I jumped in and shifted the approach toward fertile design space.  And instead of my old behavior of calling out the wrongness, I told them I liked the new course heading.

Guiding and praising the team led to more good work.

Instead of taking credit to prove how smart I was, I set up presentations that gave the team members opportunities to show their best work to company leaders.  And during those presentations, I told everyone that their work was good.  I gave them credit for doing the good work.  And that led to them wanting to do more good work.

Creating the condition for the team to show their good work led to more good work.

Through the project, I learned that being right did not matter.

I learned that what mattered was creating the conditions for the right work to happen.

I learned that reinforcing positive behavior was much more powerful than calling out the wrongness.

I learned that putting people in a position to succeed creates more success than anything else.

I learned that people recognize and appreciate when you help them grow and improve.

And I learned that when you help people grow and improve, you develop trust-based relationships that last for decades.

From: Caring about what others think about you.

To:     Caring about what you think about you.

From: Seeing what you didn’t accomplish.

To:     Seeing what you accomplished.

From: Feeling for others.

To:     Feeling with others.

From: Doing things others want you to do.

To:     Doing what you think is right.

From: Feeling stuck with how things are.

To:     Seeing things as impermanent and taking comfort in that.

From: Making your world small.

To:     Helping others.

From: Judging others through your lens.

To:     Accepting people as they are.

From: Wanting things to be different.

To:     Appreciating what you have.

From: Pushing through illness.

To:     Resting so your body can heal.

From: Being too busy.

To:     Saying no.

From: Judging yourself negatively.

To:     Loving yourself.

Image credit — Jay Huang (Frame)