Engineers are generally known for being straigh-forward.  Our assessments are based on numerical data, in-depth analyses, or advanced research.  It’s kind of like “Here are the facts.  Enjoy.”  The problem in this is that engineers aren’t well known for having people skills or for being able to adequately market their products.  (That’s why they got an engineering degree and not a marketing one.)  For instance, if a customer pays for some research, we not only need to give them a good product, we need to wrap it in a pretty package as well.  My boss’s boss (who was originally my boss, but she’s now moved up…speaking of the boss’s boss there, not the boss…got it?) is very good at this.  She says “John, you have to take off your engineering hat sometimes and put on your selling hat.”

So, I’ve started trying to work on the balance between truthfulness, diplomacy, and selling my company as the best thing since smoked cheese.  (sliced bread does nothing for me)  In a meeting today, one of my customers asked me to modify our proposal to include supporting evidence for “spiral development.”  Not wanting to appear as ignorant as I am, I nodded, agreed, and gave a hearty “harumph”.  After I got back to my office, I jumped on the googles and here’s what it says:

Spiral Development
A process for implementing evolutionary acquisition within which the end-state requirements are not known at program initiation but are refined through continuous user feedback, demonstration, and risk management so that each increment provides the user the best possible capability.

football

For those who don’t like fancy-speak, let me break it down.  (“Break it down” as in “make it easier to understand”, not like MC Hammer.) You start a project and have no idea where you are going with it.  So, you try some stuff, see what people think, implement some changes, try again, more thinking, more changes, etc.  You continue this cycle until somebody says “Ah, HA!  I think we’re finished!”  And, since no one knew where you were headed in the first place, they all agree that you must be there and then you pat yourselves on the back.

It’s odd.  When I do my projects like that, my boss says that it’s “aimless wandering” and “poor planning.”  But now I’ll have the advantage.  I’ll put on my selling hat and demand that they recognize how innovative I am for implementing spiral development into our workplace!  I might even require that they give me a raise for my keen grasp of this developmental concept.

…and then I’ll put my selling hat in a box with my engineering hat and other belongings as security excorts me off the premises. I guess that’s the “feedback” part they’re talking about.