Enjoying one’s work is key to employee retention. While salary/benefits provides a very practical reason to leave or stay, from what I’ve seen in the workplace, factors such as interpersonal relationships, company culture, and engaging work carry a lot of…   Read more»

I think a big component to overworking is peer pressure and desperation for a job. Especially for recent grads entering into the workforce, you already likely had to struggle and fight for a job, especially in this job market. That…   Read more»

A project manager’s mindset greatly impacts the team. As others said above, a lack of motivation can spread like a virus. In my experience, good project managers I’ve had have come in early and are often the first ones on…   Read more»

I have experience working for a CRO, so I feel I can provide some insight on that point. We have had many clients who are far from small pharmaceutical companies, and I suspect it might honestly look better for these…   Read more»

I have experience working for a CRO, so I feel I can provide some insight on that point. We have many clients who are far from small pharmaceutical companies, and I suspect it might honestly look better for these companies…   Read more»

I chose to go with the two sources rather than the three because it is important to have the backup coating supplier, but I think having a third supplier introduces too much time and cost to the project without providing…   Read more»

Unless people are working heavily across teams in a cross-functional discipline, I think each group needs a base understanding of what the others do. As seems to be the consensus on this thread, skipping steps, especially when it comes to…   Read more»

I do see the point about the different coatings from the same supplier being risky, but for the earthquake part, that would depend on the company and which branch locations manufacture which components. I think a concern leading to the…   Read more»

I think a valuable tool, as a previous post mentioned, is categorizing changes based on level of severity or work needed. Minor changes don’t require an entire team meeting as an email would likely suffice. That way, the team can…   Read more»

I think that, as in the minisim, facilitating a conversation between both parties is a key first step. In my experience, project managers have a very holistic view of the project and are more sensitive to pressures from upper management,…   Read more»

As many have said, rushing a medical device product means cutting corners, which can have severe ethical and health concerns down the line. There will be an understandable push to rush to be first to market, but from an engineering…   Read more»

As many people have pointed out in this thread already, rushing the animal experimentation opens up the project to extra risk later down the road. Animal testing takes a significant amount of time. I’ve done a lot of work in…   Read more»

Gantt charts are useful tools to help you keep track of what tasks are on schedule, behind schedule, or ahead of schedule as well as providing an estimate of how long tasks should take. Medical devices are complicated projects with…   Read more»

To prevent scope creep, eliminating vague statements when outlining the scope of the project, establishing an agreement with the customer about how changes can be implemented, and ensuring clear communication are all critical. For scope verification, the same strategy of…   Read more»

I second what yg385 said. Team members should be aware of the time and energy requirements of a project and plan accordingly. In the case of major life events that would shift their ability to complete tasks or put in…   Read more»

Hello! Nice to meet you all. I’m a senior undergrad in the biomedical engineering BS/MS program (biomaterials concentration) at NJIT. https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghan-kinkade-4b6054252/