engineering
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Over the years, I have enjoyed studying topics, like the Civil War, that are not directly related to my career as part of my approach of seeking to improve. Shelby Foote once said “The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things…” Lincoln’s speech…
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My father’s recent passing has me reflecting on some of the things that he taught me that I am only able to begin to fully appreciate as I get older. He owned and managed a plumbing, heating, and air conditioning business for decades. On breaks and during the summer, I worked in various jobs for him until…
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Years ago, I decided to accept a position that led to me transitioning from a high-volume industry with frequent product changeover and intense market forces to a low-volume industry with greatly reduced connectivity to market dynamics. My boss at the time provided me a bit of perspective and advice that has stuck with me over the…
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Real systems are messy, noisy, difficult to measure, and can be a challenge to control. Organizations and organizational dynamics often exhibit analogous behavior. In control systems, it is common to analyze linear single input single output systems. There is a lot that can be done with those tools. However, applying these tools comes with accepting some compromises. Addressing complexity…
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Organizations, like spacecraft, rockets, and airplanes, rely on guidance, navigation, and control systems. Recently, I have been thinking about the similarities between guidance, navigation and control (GN&C) systems, the management and leadership systems in organizations, and how learnings from one type of system might be useful to the other type of system. At their core, GN&C…
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Years ago, my first boss after I finished graduate school shared his beliefs that “all learning applies to everything else” and that “more brains are better for every job.” I learned more from him than I have probably learned from any of my subsequent bosses. Maybe that was him. Maybe that is because of where I was then…
Musings of an Analyst 