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[plym ian]

ok that's stage 1 of step 1

Stage 2 of step 1. Sit round a table with said cuppa and discuss .... What exactly?

Red or brown sauce in bacon sarnie?

[chrisgixer]

IMO, fault finding is THE most positive thing a human can do. Ever. All ideas are born of fault finding. The idea being a result of fault finding. The idea is the solution to a fault.

Next most positive, having found a solution. Ie, the idea.

[chrisgixer]

ok that's stage 1 of step 1

Stage 2 of step 1. Sit round a table with said cuppa and discuss .... What exactly?

Red or brown sauce in bacon sarnie?

You'll go far.

[chrisgixer]

Sort the symptoms from the cause of the problem...

Symptoms identify the problem. Understand the fault. Fully. IMO...

Are we correct though....? We agree at least. Do others?

[chrisgixer]

So I would say.

Step 1.

Look for faults. Actively. Log them. Initiate testing even. Reproduce them separately, in order to be sure. Proritising probably. Starting to get vague now.


This is where things fail IMO.
The current fashion in management, you've probably heard, is "Be positive". Ok good, heres a load of faults we need to fix. Says I. No, says he. I'm being negative. He says.

At this stage, is it ok to punch your boss squarely in the face?

[chrisgixer]

This would be born of frustration I would hasten to add. As the fault finding process might be absent.

[chrisgixer]

1st question: is it marketable? No point taking it any further if not. There may be patents on similar ideas that make that impossible. It may be because there's only one person in the world who wants one. It may be because everyone wants one, and everyone makes one, and you can't develop something different enough to make it stand out. Or that the price has been forced down to where there's no margin except for the multinational who's making them in China for pennies..

That's the first step. Develop your idea with a view to selling it, because, in its' initial form, it is not likely to be something you can sell.
Next you want to turn it into something you can make, and figure out how much you can make it for, research your market and see if it'll stand the price you have to pay. Repeat until something promising drops out (or doesn't).

Next you need to refine the design into something more detailed. Draw up a requirement spec. What is it, what features will it have, what are its' important features and selling points?

Now break it down into the tasks you need to carry out to make it. Specify each so that you can give a bit of paper to someone and tell them to make it. Figure out how long each of these steps is going to take, what it'll cost, what the major challenges are going to be. Do a project plan so you know what the critical path through the project is, and refine this so you can get it to market in a timescale and cost that will work. By this point, you will have had to go back to the beginning a few times and refine it, take it back to the market research stage and see if it'll still work as a product, and so on.

You might want to build a prototype and perhaps use that to test the design, and test the market. You're into the phase that TheBoy described now - except that it doesn't need to be as good as it can be, just good enough.

Not the end of the story yet, but my dinner's ready

The process is in there. Within all that.

But say your a "development consultant" if such a thing exists. What is the model you need to apply to any/every situation you could possibly imagine. From buying a car to a house. From production of a product to improving a countries standard if living...?

[chrisgixer]

Apply it to this thread.

Kevs answer btw is not what I imagined. Why? Did I not explain it well enough. More than likely. Did he apply it to what he knows best. Quite possibly.

Probably got the point accross by now.

Might be ready for Mr Dtm now. If he can be arsed.

[05omegav6]

Indeed

A puddle of coolant implies a leak, but requires further investigation to identify the source and therefore the cause of the problem, and from that tge solution can be found...

As for lumping your boss, can't be anymore tempting than shooting the Tuesday of an Onanist that I just had words with

[chrisgixer]

Indeed

A puddle of coolant implies a leak, but requires further investigation to identify the source and therefore the cause of the problem, and from that tge solution can be found...

As for lumping your boss, can't be anymore tempting than shooting the Tuesday of an Onanist that I just had words with

Ok so, where's the fault. Was it with you? Or him....? Leads to personal development. Eventually IMO. Could I have handled it differently. What ever it is?

I guess before starting on personal development, it helps to practice elsewhere first.

[Kevin Wood]

Fixing a fault isn't development, though.

[05omegav6]

Fixing a fault isn't development, though.

That depends on the cause...

[r1]

Ok, what if the idea/situation/thing already exists, absolute first step?
[/quote]

research
is there a market for it?

[chrisgixer]

Apply it to this thread.

Kevs answer btw is not what I imagined. Why? Did I not explain it well enough. More than likely. Did he apply it to what he knows best. Quite possibly.

Probably got the point accross by now.

Might be ready for Mr Dtm now. If he can be arsed.

For me, and probably others I'd guess, the work environment can be extremely frustrating. The same old problems come up time and time again. Same job done wrong each time it comes through. So what did we do last time? We bodged it. Staff used their ingenuity to fix the fault and get the job through. It's not done correctly, it's not exactly to spec, it cost the company three times as much in time to do, but the customer accepted it and we got paid.

Where's the fault? Well, management don't know. Why? Lack of experience. But ultimately, they failed to implement a fault reporting system. Staff have no way of reporting back a fault. Result? Nobody fixes any faults. More jobs come though and back up the production process. Result less jobs done that day. Result? Less profit. Last 3 or 4 jobs of the day are delivered late because the fault held them up and they don't get done until the next day. Costs are incurred on late fees. The profit from the faulty job is lost, ten fold actually by the time up I add up the knock on effects. Result? Company goes bust. Or at best, is selling fivers for £4 and an accountant might spot it.

This is my world currently. We don't learn as a company. Why? Management see fault finding as a negative. So refuse to accept it stating we must keep looking forward. Ok great, how? No answer. Just keep looking forward.

Ffs. Looking forward is great, but in order to look forward effectively, first the passed needs to be accepted and learned from. Anything else is idiotic.

Now it may be that jobs come through "wrong" for a good reason. But unless you have an effective fault finding process in place, nobody will ever know what that reason is. Good bad or indifferent.

[chrisgixer]

Ok, what if the idea/situation/thing already exists, absolute first step?

research
is there a market for it?
[/quote]

Yes, or put another way, is it really a fault. Or, is it worth fixing the fault.