Possible Postures for Managing Up Here’s some good news about diverse communication skills,...
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Learning Objectives Enable Flexibility in STMicroelectronics Training
It may seem, when searching for training solutions, that the options are either Do It Yourself,...
Why it’s hardest to communicate when it matters most
See also this video. Communication has special challenges when it comes to science and technology....
Anna Karenina and Client Encounters
Anna Karenina and Client Encounters All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. This, the first phrase of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, is remarkable for how it sticks in the memory. In complex relationships such as with families or...
Best practices Exchange for Engineering Team Leaders
I recently setup a Best Practices Exchange (BPXchange) as an experiment in learning through sharing for busy Engineering Team Leaders working in different companies. The challenge was to find a format that would allow added-value exchanges in a reasonable time, taking...
Best Practice Exchange outcomes
The rubber duck image is inspired by a software development "best practice" of sharing difficult problems with a rubber duck. The act of explaining brings clarity and so this technique accelerates software debug. It also follows that a rubber duck learns many best...
Engineering Support Beyond Do, Doc, Done
Do, Doc, Done captures a way of working that is popular among support engineers and which often works well. For example : a case comes my way in the issue tracking system. I fix it (Do), send an email or write a comment when I close the case (Doc)...
Engineers Add More Value with a Balanced Problem Solving Approach
A multi-million dollar chip production line is halted, but it's not clear where the problem is coming from. An independent consulting engineer is called in. She walks all around the production floor looking at the screens, the indicators, the dials, the cables, the...
Helping Engineers Maximise the Positive Impact of their Expertise
It's well known that many professionals have difficulty communicating with people outside their speciality and it's not unusual for start-ups to be frustrated by an indifferent world – "why does nobody appreciate our great idea??"! Ironically, this problem exists...