Survivor: EngineeringSurvivor: Engineering

How to Outwit, Outplay, and Outlast in Your Career

ENGINEERING

About Us

• Shawn Riley – BME 1998, MSME 2001– Enjoyed years of fluids and biomechanics research at UD.– Has since worked in silicon based industries (solar energy,

and semiconductor polishing materials).– Currently, a Product Engineer with Rohm and Haas

Electronic Materials.• Dina Riley – BME 1998, MBA 2003

– After undergraduate studies, went to work for Hewlett-Packard as a Commodity Manager.

– Currently, a Procurement Operating Manager with Agilent Technologies, responsible for 12 direct reports managing the inbound supply chain throughout the US, Germany, Japan, and China.

ENGINEERING

Why Survivor?

• Starting a career can feel much like a trip to a foreign island… To survive, you’ll need:– New tools and skills

– Ability to form alliances

– Leadership qualities

ENGINEERING

You’re on the Island – Now What?• The first objectives any contestant on Survivor

addresses are the basic human needs: start a fire, build a shelter, find potable water

• The transition to a career relies on things that you have already learned, but you need to be open to new experiences and continuously develop new skills, such as:– Zero Based Design / DFx

– Root Cause Analysis

– Six Sigma

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Six Sigma

• What is Six Sigma?– If you said “Process control producing less than 3.4

DPMO”, you are technically correct but may be missing the point.

– Six Sigma is more than statistics – it’s a whole new tool box that builds upon your college-learned skills to help Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control, and Sustain (DMAICS).

• Gage Repeatability & Reproducibility• Control Charts• Data Analysis• Process Maps• Cause & Effect Matrices• Failure Mode and Effects Analysis

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Process Mapping• Identifies Key Process Input and Output

Variables (KPIV / KPOV)

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

Input Process Step Output

Coffee BeansType of Roast Coffee selected and preparedType of Grind

Amount of CoffeeFilter Type Machine loaded

Type of Water

Brew Cycle TimeBrew Temperature The "Perfect Cup"

Select Coffee

Load Machine

Brew Coffee

ENGINEERING

Cause and Effect Matrix (C&E)• Ranks the impact of KPIV’s against the customer critical

KPOV’s.

• Allows prioritization and provides justification.

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

Rating of Importance to

Customer10 6 8

Process Step Process InputCoffee Flavor

Coffee Temperature

Wait time for Brewing Totals

1 Select Coffee Coffee Beans 9 1 0 962 Select Coffee Type of Roast 9 0 0 903 Select Coffee Type of Grind 9 1 3 1205 Load Machine Amount of Coffee 9 3 3 1326 Load Machine Filter Type 3 0 1 387 Load Machine Type of Water 9 0 0 908 Brew Coffee Brew Cycle Time 9 3 9 1809 Brew Coffee Brew Cycle Temp. 9 9 3 168

ENGINEERING

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)

• Further refines C&E findings with Occurrence / Severity / Detection.

• Clear action plans for reducing the risks in any process or transaction.

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

Process Step / Input Potential Failure Mode Potential Failure Effects Potential Causes Current Controls Actions Recommended

What is the process step and Input under

investigation?

In what ways does the Key Input go wrong?

What is the impact on the Key Output Variables

(Customer Requirements)?

What causes the Key Input to go wrong?

What are the existing controls and procedures (inspection and test) that prevent either the cause

or the Failure Mode?

What are the actions for

reducing the occurrence of the

cause, or improving detection?

Brew Cycle Time Too much coffee in filter Water Overflows 7 No measurement for coffee 10Coffee measured with bare hands and packed tightly into filter

7 490 Buy measuring spoons

Brew Cycle Time Cycle Time too long Frustrated customer 10 Calicification in machine 6 Annual decalcification 4 240 Change frequency to monthly

RPN

SEVERITY

OCCURRENCE

DETECTION

ENGINEERING

Six Sigma = The Funneling Effect

• The 6 tools allow you to quickly reduce a pile of hundreds of variables down to the critical few that require more investigation but have a high likelihood of impacting customer key variables.

• Can even be applied to transactional tasks.

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Skills Summary

• Six Sigma is one of many tools that you may learn during your career, but like other tools, it can serve to make reaching a solution clearer or quicker.

• When you hear of something new – go look into it, ask questions, find people who know about it.

• Training is often seen as a reward and a sign that the organization is willing to invest in you. Take advantage of it, have realistic expectations, and apply your learnings.

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Forming Your Alliances• One of the key successes to any Survivor

contestant is knowing how to “read” people and interact with them

• The workplace is no different and successfully networking with the right people will help catapult your success

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Working within an Alliance

• Communication is key in order to work effectively with other people

• Most business communication can be done via e-mail or IM, but sometimes it is critical to have all of the stakeholders in a room face-to-face with one another

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Making Meetings Effective(Even with Difficult People)

• Chances are, you will be attending a number of meetings throughout your career – but don’t forget each meeting comes at a price ($15M worth annually in some cases)

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Secret to Effective Meetings

Improved Dialogue

Better Decisions

Effective Actions

Better Results!

• Follow the 40/20/40 rule:

Meeting Preparation(Invitees, Agenda)

Conduct Meeting

Meeting Summary / Execution

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

• Get the right people.– Who cares? Determine who is impacted.– Who knows? Determine who has the expertise.– Who must agree? Determine how agreement will

be reached.– How many people is it worth involving? Keep it

lean and mean to avoid side conversations and opinions.

Meeting Preparation(Invitees, Agenda)

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

• Keep people on track.– What are we discussing? Create an agenda and

stick to it.– Who will be attending? Tailor your message to the

audience.– Who is listening? Actively listen and take notes.– Who is not listening? Squash side conversations.– What’s the bottom line? Start with your last slide.

Conduct Meeting

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Meeting Summary / Execution

• Now take action!– Who? Assign tasks to specific people. There is no

such thing as group accountability.– Does What? Spell out the deliverables. The fuzzier

the expectations, the higher the likelihood of a missed goal.

– By When? Assignments without deadlines create guilt but not action.

– Follow Up: There is no accountability if there is not an opportunity to account for action.

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Alliances Summary

• Being able to communicate and hold effective meetings is a key to building strong working ties and organizational credibility.

• Build a reputation for keeping meetings to the point, making clear decisions, and executing the actions to closure, and you’ll find many people who will be looking to work on your project teams.

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Be the Tribe Leader• Chances are, you will be placed with a team

of people you don’t know and you will be expected to deliver results – no matter what

• Mastering a few important skills will allow you to build rapport quickly:

– Understand how people behave

– Learn how to influence

– Continuously build credibility

• If you aspire to be a manager, you need to learn how to lead people

• Even if you want to remain an individual contributor, you still need to demonstrate leadership capabilities

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

So What Does It Take?

• Situational Leadership® II is based on the principle that there is no best leadership style

• Effective leadership occurs when the appropriate leadership style is matched to an individual’s development level on a specific goal or task

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Leading Your Tribe

• There are 2 basic leadership style behaviors:– Directive Behavior

• Telling and showing people what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and providing frequent feedback

– Supportive Behavior• Listening, encouraging, praising, and involving others in

decision making

• Understanding how to integrate and apply these behaviors will make you a great leader

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Choosing the Appropriate Leadership Style

High

High

Low

Low Directive Behavior

Supportive Behavior

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Leadership Summary

• There are many effective leadership models, but the key to getting things done in any organization requires the ability to:– Motivate

– Influence

– Lead

Skills – Alliances – Leadership

ENGINEERING

Keeping Your Torch Lit

• For any career goal, you should have a sense of:– Direction: a view of the long-term position you hope

to create

– Discovery: an understanding of how to differentiate yourself and keep your skills fresh

– Destiny: the emotional edge and passion for winning

ENGINEERING

Winning the Reward Challenges

• To get to the top tier, you need to put your time in at the bottom.

• Don’t think your path to organizational success is a clear, obvious, and straight path – most organizations want to see both breadth and depth.

ENGINEERING

Closing Thoughts1. Get the job done – if you can’t do this, don’t worry about

the rest. Consistently get results Meet commitments

2. Make people happy that you are on the team. Work for others’ success Build relationships

3. Prioritize You can’t do everything, but you have to get the critical few things

done well.

ENGINEERING

Closing Thoughts4. Continuously learn and network

New experiences, skills, work processes, outside resources, co-workers, bosses, business units, etc.

Get feedback on your impact and performance

5. Drive and embrace change Look for opportunities to improve the process and your organization

6. Have fun!

Use these tools and you will manage to Outwit, Outplay, and Outlast throughout your entire

engineering career!

ENGINEERING

Questions?