A couple of decades ago, I was working for a software company that provided a software solution for managing the engineering change process. The software was like a blank spreadsheet – we needed to tell it how we wanted it to function.
We had implemented an engineering change control solution at a couple of large companies. Someone in the marketing department thought we should provide a turnkey solution for engineering change control.
Even though at the time, I was the salesman, I performed the initial analysis of their engineering change process. Since we had implemented a few engineering change control solutions, I thought I could tell them how to do engineering change control. As you might imagine, I soon discovered that they didn’t want to hear that – they believed that their process was unique.
My biggest discovery
From company to company, the engineering change process tends to be similar. However, add the corporate culture and ‘real’ people to the mix and that is a different story. Each engineering change control process is unique.
I also learned to mitigate the impact of change, the implemented engineering change process should function similar to the way your company functions. The process steps/activities should be in your company language.
The Takeaway
Listen. Listen. Listen. The analysis is an exercise in listening…
