Sometimes it is much better to entrust another company that has the experience, machinery, and manpower for a project component with it. It usually costs less to outsource things like this instead of having to create, test, and validate a…   Read more»

It never hurts to have a checklist. Especially once a few design meetings have passed and you stat to understand exactly what documentation is required of the meetings and the way that managers like the information being presented. Before you…   Read more»

For me, it depends on the project and the rest of the team. Sometimes you need someone very familiar with how a specific process works, then you need the specialized skills. Sometimes you have a team full of specialized members…   Read more»

With teams with varying skills, where for example each member may have a different specialty, I believe it is a good idea for those specialists to explain their ‘tips and tricks’ to the group during the project. This way the…   Read more»

My older internship used Microsoft teams. My current job uses slack. I like slack more as I find it has more flexibility in how it is used. For school projects, I’ve learned that the most useful platform will be whatever…   Read more»

Slack is important because there are almost always delays that happen during the course of a project. It is necessary to include slack in your project so that your scheduling timelines are not impossible to achieve. If I go over…   Read more»

One mostly unavoidable reason is unexpected delays or failures. The best way to avoid them is to be prepared and prepare project parts as soon as possible to try to be ahead of schedule. I’ve run into supplier delays, which…   Read more»

I agree not compiling lessons learned is a significant loss of opportunity. My coworkers and I have started a little ‘what did I learn this month’ lunch group where we sit and talk about new tricks we learned. This little…   Read more»

I do believe that the peeling labels are a bigger issue than they seem. Labels hold a lot of important information about a product. In this case the two more cantankerous points of information to loose is the material makeup…   Read more»

At my old job, we had a shared cloud service where all the documents were available. For projects where there are many iterations of these documents, we kept them in their own folders, so that you can see all the…   Read more»

To ensure everyone is properly contributing, I like to heard updates from everyone on my team. I also like to know how they help each other as well as that also counts as contributing to the project. Though, especially when…   Read more»

Determining spec depends greatly on the usage case for a product. Imagine you are selling packages of latex gloves. These packages are usually sold by weight to determine how many are in the package without having to count the gloves…   Read more»

I tend to prefer working in smaller teams of 5-10 if I am managing them. I feel as though this range perfectly allows you to keep up with the updates of each team member and still be involved and available…   Read more»

As technology continuously evolves at an ever increasing rate, any medical device that is being designed to rely on technology is going to have a limited product life cycle. Older medical devices and monitors do not work with newer phones….   Read more»

I feel like schedule risk is the most present in a project. It is so easy to fall behind on your project plan, as there tends to be many moving parts, there are many places to go wrong and cause…   Read more»

I try my best to go through all my emails as soon as I clock in, to keep up with any updates. However, there are always updates during the day, which are easy to miss as they come in. I…   Read more»

Hello everyone,
 
I am Jessica Maffei. I am currently a master’s student in Materials Engineering at NJIT. My undergrad was biomedical engineering. I look forward to connecting with all of you.
 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-maffei

Please ignore the odd formatting on the second section of my post. I am unsure as to why that paragraph is aligned to the right side.

First, communication should be a priority. Both the team member and the project manager should explain all their reasoning as to why they feel a particular way. The PM may have some company data that the team member does not…   Read more»

I think it is important for the project manager to have interdisciplinary experience themselves, or at least a good understanding of the disciplines required for the project. I also feel like it is extremely important to know the background of…   Read more»