The 30-Year Design Lesson: It's All About the Big Picture

After 30 years as a Design Engineer, I've realized one fundamental truth that could eliminate countless headaches, revisions, delays, and bugs. Too often, we focus on our component, our checklist, and our immediate deliverables. But this narrow focus leads to friction. When the requests come, it’s more often seen as an annoyance, not a necessity for overall quality design delivery.

The core issue is a lack of End-to-End Design Flow Visibility.

If every engineer, from concept to launch, understood the reason why behind the requests from every functional and domain team, we could drastically reduce issues and streamline our processes.

• Impact on Checklists: Knowing the why allows an engineer to proactively incorporate requirements, cutting down on the reactive items added during later design reviews.

• Impact on Efficiency: It minimizes "throw-it-over-the-wall" design iterations, leading to faster time-to-market.

This isn't just about better communication; it's about Engineering Empathy—designing with the full lifecycle and all stakeholders in mind.

What methods has your team used to successfully integrate this "end-to-end" perspective? Share your insights!

Originally published in https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/30-year-design-lesson-its-all-big-picture-mary-yeoh-9m5gc/?trackingId=tBlRE%2FdHOvQc5OXQAAOlCw%3D%3D