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Freedom from Project Surprises Newsletter |  |
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Dear Subscriber, As designers, we are frequently battling trade-offs between quality and schedule. We all have faced many situation's where we found ourselves late in meeting a tapeout date and needed to do “whatever it takes” to get back on track. We frequently ask ourselves “why does this occur repeatedly project after project?” This issue focuses on the topic of “Why are we late?” Jeff
You did a great job of breaking this project down, things were moving along nicely and then the closer you got to tapeout, the frequency of unexpected work picked up. At some point your parent organization comes in to “help” you get back on track. The schedule gets pulled up and you start getting creative with resources, paralleling tasks and cutting steps out. You need to put in more time and your personal life has evaporated. How many times has this happened to you on projects during your career? It's a painful period of time and you want to improve so you can avoid going through this on the next project, right? I have found that it is possible to find relief from this recurring tapeout crunch. This reprieve can be found if you're willing to consider expanding the boundary of design responsibility. The role of design must move beyond writing specifications, schematic capture, RTL coding, timing closure, simulations and layout/design reviews. You must also expand the management of the inputs and outputs of the design process. What comes in, what form is it in, when does it come in and how does it come in to design? What does design deliver, in what form must it be delivered, how does it need to be delivered and when will it be delivered? Think about what you must have to be successful and manage towards that. You think I've lost my marbles, don't you? Design negotiates
a spec and tapes out a design. That's the end of story, right? Let's
take a look beyond what many consider the normal design activities.
Below are some thoughts on design process inputs that you may want to
consider managing in more detail on your next project: These ideas identify a few items that you might consider to expand the scope of design. There are many more to be identified for your particular team. If you spend some time with out of the “design box” thinking, I am sure you could easily add to the list. What I have been discussing is the management of the design processes. If design process management is not being accomplished within design, odds are high that it is not happening at all.
The previous article exposed you to a way of thinking that pushes beyond what some believe are the normal activities usually done in design organizations. Making things better takes planning and planning is additional work. My kids posted a quote on our refrigerator that sums this up nicely: “A goal without a plan is a wish”. The scope of design needs to move beyond the normal design activities and out into the project planning and program management area to realize improvements in execution. That may be an uncomfortable territory for some, nonetheless a necessary step if improvement to schedule is the end goal. Venturing into the planning area may require a skill set that does not currently exist in design. If you do not have this talent in design, I recommend that you need to find a resource to cover this role. When searching to fill this ability it is essential that the role not be filled by a person skilled in planning while being void of a working design background. This role requires an individual who knows the details of design. They know how things get done, what tools are necessary, what designers need to be successful and have the ability to identify holes in the flow. These are must have attributes for someone who is going migrate the design team from a group of bright designers to an equally intelligent group that delivers quality, innovative design solutions as planned. Expanding the scope of Design. It's about looking beyond the current norms and perceived boundaries for design. It's about innovative ways to manage the way design interfaces with the rest of the organizations that they support. It's about the development of a plan that will let you attain the desired goal(s) for design.
Are your tools providing for the objectives of your projects? In most cases the answer to this question will be a resounding “No!”. What allows this to be the case? In my opinion it is because we don't ask for what we must have; or we do not ask to the level of detail necessary to get what we need. We tend to become complacent with the status quo when it comes to design tools and their capabilities. Designers design and when it comes to tools they will tend to “quietly” work with what they have and make the best of it. The amount of energy designers expend on getting things working correctly, to adequately validate their design, far outweighs the energy they put into designing it. This is much more the case for analog than it is for a digital design. You may want to do your own research on this point; I am sure you will find the results very unsettling. What can you do about this? At the beginning of every project you must map out the tool requirements, find the holes in the tools themselves or the technology specific personalization of the tools, and build your project plan to incorporate tool development to meet your requirements. In my experience most of the tool issues tend to be more about “productizing” of the tool for a specific technology than the baseline capabilities of a tool. The productizing of a tool is usually supported internal to your company. For this reason I would take this a step further in your planning and ensure that a CAD resource is part of the team and that the designers are actively seeking out this resource for help.
If you have any specific questions that you would like to see answered here please send me an email and I will address them here anonymously, unless you indicate differently.
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