{"id":2487,"date":"2016-11-02T10:16:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T15:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/?p=2487"},"modified":"2020-12-16T18:58:31","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T00:58:31","slug":"engineering-mindset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/old-house\/engineering\/engineering-mindset\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineering Mindset"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!--\nPlus\n-->\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/VSTMKYI-2xcWFtc-HYDpUiVHoGJwihc4e2tbcRzvHnHa-ZmJAf0-DqtoVSK3i_zy8RIhxvcFmCKnRYl7EXvjDsf3JrYcnniM04IWPmsHA4tLQLZJSymtLgSfDnYxHtb7aZBaNob0_Y-uWOiZGJK1oNoPthjEuFeepCN_eelExfcuxV63djfcHFPCH9YWTl34D68qW9ep_vJbXxl0mF2dVFXCxNhKmz6xPy-HlWxlTYc8vPUjoJPLo6moTuJZ-ldUxAekOiE8uTJ1wj4L2KAu0c7WMXl03G0FiJUbmVqPxxleXvmi4Sd4jClz-szjUMTL_aVKI-MBg_HGNUaeOJHDH5iPWXoc-cnHwyl4nLROBDbQHv2uTefCATSx2FlGM7bjqVr9vpjFaWWV7PBc-JLbFkQzfLEd_9o9-s8hhRBYKUy_kUGkWj-m9Hh1BpySIXCM9jvP27oYXkgpg0MQv4y8xEqLm5soqRWJCFM4fnVBZNDmchsNUSSuBOEnV62IjI8G9KflnCWaNRw5pKqRfAgsjlCUD5efToeWO7RKQYFHBttrjROMvDIg41Dkhynu-L5VVcHkD4i6hvbXj8N_0pnbBUbKL8n_vYJ4YJ_b42umcqA01jHTlgBi2RcMv3dYEURu9Z8bEQlYFV4oVuPfBwb1rosP1gwE-cQMrsCpm1jLmWHaR8nBxYUtUBhxvfwkT7g=w480-h635-no?authuser=0\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe because I read Rex Robert&#8217;s &#8220;Your Engineered House&#8221; when I was 13, the purposefulness of the title was lost on me. I never wondered what other approach there might be. I never considered what exactly was an &#8220;engineered&#8221; house, and in contrast to what? Rex Roberts just talked common sense. When you made something you analyzed your requirements; you designed to fulfill those requirements; you focused on functionality. Most importantly, you always looked for ways to improve. Wouldn&#8217;t it be better if\u2026?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"cont\">Having grown up in a variety of houses in multiple countries, I already knew that there were many possible solutions to the basic human requirement for shelter. I understood that one size did not fit all and that context played an important role in determining what was best fit for purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"cont\">Whether I was designing a course, or laying out a page in technical documentation, or writing programming standards documents, I always took that same approach: analyze requirements, design, implement, test, improve, iterate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"cont\">Not until last summer, when I came across <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farnamstreetblog.com\/2015\/06\/the-engineering-mind-set\/\">this article about the book Applied Minds: How Engineers Think<\/a>, did I realize that I (who am not an engineer) had an &#8220;engineering mindset&#8221;. I felt like I had found my tribe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"cont\">I was especially pleased because, despite loving systems, modules, and breaking things into components, I see myself more than a mere deconstructionist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"cont\">Having an engineering mindset goes beyond that; as Shane Parrish says in his article, &#8220;&#8230;it&#8217;s about the understanding that in the ebb and flow of life, nothing is stationary and everything is linked. The relationships among the modules of a system give rise to a whole that cannot be understood by analyzing its constituent parts.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"cont\">So what distinguishes the &#8220;engineered&#8221; house? The difference is primarily in approach. Most home building magazines, builders, and realtors ask you to consider what style of house you want and what size (4 bedroom, 3 bath) and what amenities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"cont\">The approach in an engineered house is to first ask, &#8220;What do you do?&#8221; and then to design a house that enables you to do those things comfortably and well. When I recently took the Austin Energy Green Building Workshop, I was pleased that this was the first question that they too asked. Their philosophy is &#8220;Green by Design&#8221;. Rex Roberts and his ilk would probably respond &#8220;Everything by design.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"cont\">The book Applied Minds uses this example, &#8220;&#8230;by George Heilmeier\u2014a former director of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), who also engineered the liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that are part of modern-day visual technologies. His approach to innovation is to employ a checklist-like template suitable for a project with well-defined goals and customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.<\/li><li>How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?<\/li><li>What\u2019s new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?<\/li><li>Who cares? If you\u2019re successful, what difference will it make?<\/li><li>What are the risks and the payoffs?<\/li><li>How much will it cost? How long will it take?<\/li><li>What are the midterm and final \u201cexams\u201d to check for success?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Whenever I get in a rut, I review those questions.<\/p>\n\n\n<h4>GPlus Discussion<\/h4>\n<p>\nHidden until I can reformat it. But a lot of good discussion posts so worthwhile to do it sometime.<br>\n<!--\n\n\"What are you trying to do?\" I believe most would answer with, \"I don't know\". What's required is \"awareness\" of your surroundings, and your place in those surroundings. Taking home building as an example, most modern home builders do not take into consideration their surroundings. They are built the same way in Ohio as they are in northern California. House too cold? Turn up the heat. House too hot, turn up the A\/C. \nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nDrew McCarthy's profile photo\nDrew McCarthy\nAlso, building designs are constrained by available labor, materials, and costs.  And these are often not aligned as you might expect, and tend to be resistant to change.  Plus, most houses in America have been built on spec, to a lowest common denominator (which is another way of saying building code requirements).  I've seen more recent discussion where buildings are thought of as things that should be malleable and disposable, rather than built for the ages.  It certainly seems to reflect many folks desires.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nM Sinclair Stevens's profile photo\nM Sinclair Stevens\n+1\nI'm not sure what we're discussing at this point. Is it Heilmeier's project definition checklist? Or AEGB's and Rex Robert's advice to think of a house in term of its functions: that is, what do we do when at home and what will improve that experience?\n\nI guess my own project outline follows a why-what-how to process. Heilmeier's question expand on the why. Why do it? What, if anything, will it make better. Roberts expands on the what. Figure out what you need by looking at what you do.\n\nThat reminds me of the early days of personal computers. People used to ask me what kind of computer to get. I'd answer, \"It depends. What do you want to do? Play games?. Write a novel? Manage personal finances? Make presentations? Layout the church newsletter?\" Once we figured out what they wanted to do, we could make a list of the software they wanted to run. Then we could make an informed decision on the kind of hardware they needed to run it.\n\nOf course, we also had to leave a space for future needs...especially as new software was popping up on the scene rapidly, making it possible to do things you never knew you wanted to do...until you saw it.\n\nHuman requirements for shelter are a bit more stable. Maybe too much so. Most people don't argue about the functionality of their houses in the same way they argue about the functionality of their smartphones. A house is just something that's there...they adapt to it and customize its surface appearance. But they don't think of a house as something that works for them...or fails to.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nDrew McCarthy's profile photo\nDrew McCarthy\nI guess that part of it is that the majority of folks I know couldn't really tell you what the best use of a computer would be for them, especially in the early days.  And they would find it frustrating that there were so many competing requirements and pitfalls.\nCustom\/experimental building is like that, only worse, and more expensive.  Only the well off, or those with design\/build skills, tend to veer off the common track much, and they aren't often rewarded by the market for it.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nEdward Morbius's profile photo\nEdward Morbius\n+Trey Pitsenberger The idea is that activities and designs have outcomes and that you should be aware of your own goals such that you're building something that furthers these.\n\nThe insight came to me, if you'll pardon the digression, in a period in which I was very actively pursuing physical fitness.  Mind:  I'd been active and athletic most of my life, and though I didn't reach Olympic levels, I know many people who have, or have accomplished similar feats (ultramarathons, trans-oceanic rowing, Channel swims, Everest summits, etc.).  Despite that, I had a really poor idea of just how it was that athletic training furthered athletic performance -- it was something that my coaches and informal research really hadn't turned up.  And for which there's a tremendous amount of disinformation.\n\nThe key is in realising a few points:\n\n1. Training is a stimulus that provokes a response.\n\n2. You don't get better during workout, but after them.  The old \"burn fat and build muscle while you sleep\" line turns out to be absolutely true (but you've got to do the training).  Key to this is recovery which allows the adaptive response you're seeking.\n\n3. There are different training modalities.  Each has specific impacts.  Generally there's the concept of specificity.\n\n4. Strength, power, stamina, coordination, and injury prevention\/recovery are all distinct trianing modalities, with specific impacts, goals, limits, and interactions.\n\n5. Rather critically:  if you're starting from an untrained ground state, virtually anything you do will produce improvements.  This leads to the One True Religion mentality, where the novice thinks that their specific initial method is the only one that works.  Closely related:\n\n6. As you achive the low-hanging fruit and easy gains, tuning your training to squeeze out extra performance, toward your specific goals, becomes necessary.  Both to achieve further progress and to avoid injuy, breakdown, burn-out, etc.\n\n7. You cannot optimise everything.  Endurance athletes generally minimise muscle development.  Strength athletes are often quite good in sprint events (but not distance).\n\n8. Your fundamental morphology and body mechanics impose limits.  Kenyan marathon performance is tied to both low body-weight and long limbs.  Powerlifters benefit from short levers, but also short pulls (hence:  long arms == better deadlift, but worse prress).  Gymnasts require the high power-weight ratio of small body sizes, etc.\n\nSimply going to the gym and \"putting in time\" doesn't produce fitness.  Unfortunately that's the approach many people seem to have learnt.  Rather, a program generally integrating strength, cardio, and coordination\/skill is what's best.  Mind:  the basics aren't complicated, and again, in the beginning, virtually any approach works, so long as you're not sitting on your ass.\n\nBut the key is to recognise that a goal implies methods and a specific program of achieving them.\n\nThe distinction between a crap trainer and a good one is to tease out for the trainee what their goals are even if they cannot articulate them.  Very often, simply focusing on raising the overall level of fitness is a good first step, and the program can be iterated from there.  \nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nEdward Morbius's profile photo\nEdward Morbius\n+1\n+Drew McCarthy All engineering must reflect constraints, including those of available materials, costs, labour skills, codes and requirements, cultural frames, etc.  But that doesn't deny the fundamental truth:  that engineering is design to achieve goals.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nM Sinclair Stevens's profile photo\nM Sinclair Stevens\n+2\n+Drew McCarthy I guess the point is that I don't really care what everybody else does--especially as most people seem to bumble through the world using things without thinking much about them--using them thoughtlessly. However, it was not until I reread a book read in my youth (Your Engineered House) and the more recently Applied Minds: How Engineers Think) did I begin to understand that my approach was peculiar to a certain group of people who spend their lives designing and redesigning the world.\n\nYou only have to look at years of my G+ posts to notice that I'm also interested in working backwards, to analyzing what design means and what behaviors it elicits from us. Are we using the tools or the tools using us?\n\nWas the computer question really so hard? What about transport? How do people decide what kind of car to buy?\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nEdward Morbius's profile photo\nEdward Morbius\n+1\n+M Sinclair Stevens An excellent post and observations.\n\nOn breaking things down -- I'm increasingly applying an informal graph theory to my understanding.  Yes, you break things down to fundamentals to identify the nodes.  But you're also realising that those nodes don't operate independently, but are interconnected.  Hence the second step:  identifying the edges between the nodes.\n\n(Nodes == dots on a graph, edges == the lines between them.)\n\nThis also helps you identify key nodes (the ones attached to many others) and the independent ones (those with few connections).\n\nIt's a process of both analytic decomposition and synthetic formulation.\n\nThe problem with this approach, and I give +Trey Pitsenberger's comment fair credit, is that people often cannot articulate their goals well.  That's where the skilled architect or designer is most useful:  through conversation, examples, discussion, quick trials, and their own experience and familiarity with the problem domain and possible solutions, can suss out the most critical elements, avoid pitfalls, and suggest solutions which do address the client's needs.\n\nI've filed your references here for further reading.  Thanks.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nPeter Strempel's profile photo\nPeter Strempel\n+1\nThe aesthetic house\nFor the longest time I have been seethingly annoyed that the principal tools of my trade are presented to their students as knowable in a finite time, and capable of rendering outcomes to address all needs.\n\nBusiness process analysis would reveal to any half-way competent practitioner the needs and essential features of the desired product, and project management would break down into convenient parcels the steps that would need to be taken to realise the product in splendid homage to the ingenuity of man as god: the intelligent designer and artificer.\n\nBut in time I came to know the lie of it.  The tools are a means only of fashioning the crudest solutions to crudely defined wish lists.  Like the endless candy desired by spoiled brat children.\n\nTo make a master of the craft of me I had to recognise the things not taught: how pleasing my solutions would be beyond the cost and jargon of the design and artifice.  The aesthetic qualities that set apart my offerings from those of mathematical savants and slide-rule barbarians.\n\nSo when I first came across this book, I was hasty to dismiss the central premiss as yet another smug piece of reductionist determinism.  That one person can know all there needs to be known to create not just a suitable solutions, like a housing project condemned to smell of urine and despair before it is complete, but to be able to create a masterpiece, sans odour and depression.\n\nIs it smug of me, then to have realised you need a master craftsman to do better than urine and despair?  That it is my job to be that master craftsman, and to recognise in every job my shortcomings, and with them the lessons yet to be learnt about creating beauty as well as function?  Is it not also elitist to suppose it must be me to educate the client about beauty, because the client will always choose urine and despair, confusing it for thrift and pragmatism?  In the age of Trump, that strikes me as less elitist than an increasing necessity.  Too many adults acting like spoiled children, choosing bad candy.\n\nIf you have found in this book what took me decades of professional practice to recognise and work with, it was indeed a precious find and a treasured touchstone for your projects yet to come.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nM Sinclair Stevens's profile photo\nM Sinclair Stevens\n+2\n+Edward Morbius  and +Trey Pitsenberger  I understand that people have difficulty articulating their goals. I have been a designer all my life and so I've spent more time on the other side of the fence ...as the person trying to understand what someone else wants me to build.\n\nI am also aware that people frequently say they want one thing when, in fact, they want something else. They tend to start with an imagined solution rather than really examining what they require. Moreover, sometimes they don't know they need something because their imagination is constrained by how they do things currently.\n\nI'm getting ahead of myself (for this Collection is a series of discussions on design and, I hope someday, implementation) but I also recognize that most people don't want to spend time thinking about these things that so engage me. I had lunch with a friend who looked at me with a puzzled expression as I articulated my design goals and principles. He said, \"Why don't you just find a builder, pick out the model you like, and tell him what color carpet to put in?\" I was aghast. This is the single most expensive purchase I will make in my life...and I will probably have to live with it the rest of my life. In some ways, the commitment is scarier than getting married. But that's how he got his house built and he's happy. \n\nI thought he missed the point and he thinks I make life more difficult than it needs to be.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nM Sinclair Stevens's profile photo\nM Sinclair Stevens\n+2\n+Peter Strempel The ability to manipulate a toolset is frequently confused for expertise and craftsmanship...and that's been more true in the last 30 years of my life during which software supposedly  \"democratized\" so many arts. Typewriters didn't turn us all into novelists but anyone with a copy of PageMaker suddenly fancied himself a master of layout and typography.\n\nWe learn how to run a program but a programs only manages the mechanics of the task. Maybe this goes back to our discussions of quantitative versus qualitative measures. Knowing how to use a tool is important. I've always regretted that in my upbringing that teaching technique was downplayed because the thinking was that knowing too much would impinge on childlike creativity. However, technique is only step 1. We have to move onward from simple \"how-to\" to \"why and when\". Context and judgement matter.\n\nAs you said, \"...tools are a means only of fashioning the crudest solutions to crudely defined wish lists. Like the endless candy desired by spoiled brat children.\"\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nEdward Morbius's profile photo\nEdward Morbius\n+M Sinclair Stevens A quote (mis)attributed to St. Francis of Assisi (it's actually a 20th century creation):\n\nHe who works with his hands is a labourer.\nHe who works with his hands and head is a craftsman.\nHe who works with his hands, head, and heart, is an artist.\n\n\nThis leaves off a few other options:\n\n4. Hands and heart (but not head).\n5. Head and heart (but not hands).\n6. Head (but neither hands nor heart).\n7. Heart (but neither hands nor head).\n\nAttributing roles to those (or accepting the original ones) is fraught, but 4 strikes me as the dilettante -- earnest but lacking skill.\n\n5 As perhaps the academic or inspired administrator.\n\n6 As the uninspired administrator or despot.\n\n7 I'm not so sure, though spiritual or religious roles might fit.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nM Sinclair Stevens's profile photo\nM Sinclair Stevens\n+1\n+Edward Morbius  I like your variations. I think #4 is a meddler, or busy-body.\n\nTo amend: 7 are  those Internet do-gooders who sends a Tweet with prayers after every disaster to show they're nice people in their timelines, but who never take any actual action.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 3, 2016\ue5d4\nPeter Strempel's profile photo\nPeter Strempel\n+M Sinclair Stevens Which MB variants do you see there?\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 2, 2016\ue5d4\nM Sinclair Stevens's profile photo\nM Sinclair Stevens\n+1\n+Peter Strempel On the T-F gradient, the head either rules the heart or the heart rules the head. Like all things MB, the more balanced you are between the two extremes, the easier it is to adapt to various situations and to work with those who are inclined to either extreme.\n\nOn the N-S gradient, the intuitive Ns are the idea-folk and the long-range planners. They are the conceptualizers: architects, artists, and project managers. The sensing types are good at working with their hands: craftsmen and implementation. They may never \"think outside the box\"; however, if they are motivated and caring about their work, they will always be figuring out stepwise improvements.\n\nOn the P-J gradient, you definitely want both a general contractor and builders who lean J (toward closure): people who show up on time and follow through, people who love lists and timetables and who feel uncomfortable if the job isn't finished.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 3, 2016\ue5d4\nDrew McCarthy's profile photo\nDrew McCarthy\n+2\nI'm certainly of the tribe that prizes design and functionality, and hopes to satisfy aesthetically, when it is possible to do so.\nI used to think that good (successful, satisfying) residential design was more quantifiable (and functional) than it actually is.  I started learning the error of my ways when I realized that most modern houses are not built with any particular concern for maintenance.  The assumption is generally that you'll tear out whatever you need to, in order to get to the problem, and fix it back.  Which is inelegant and inconvenient, to say the least.  There is also little interest in redundancy or zones of control, except as required by the minimum standards of building codes.  From a functional standpoint, these are serious errors, but they are persistent enough that one must adapt to them.  The other interesting thing I've noticed, is that although many homes are fitted out almost like theater sets, they never have an \"offstage\" to move things to, when a disaster or change of scene is needed.\nREPLY\n\ue800\nNov 3, 2016\ue5d4\nM Sinclair Stevens's profile photo\nM Sinclair Stevens\n+2\n+Drew McCarthy Designing for future change, including ease of maintenance, is certainly one of my design principles. And yes, like so much in our current throw-away society, objects (including houses) focus on what's cheap to build, and push the maintenance costs downstream.\n\nI got a big boost in that direction from Avi Friedman. I mention his books in a future post in this Collection.\n\nOne of the driving forces in building a new house is to enable me to live out the remaining years of my life in it. So long-lasting and easy-to-maintain materials and design are  important elements in the design decisions. I've lived in this old (1940s) house for over twenty years. Constant upkeep...I'm so over it.\n\n--><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The approach in an engineered house is to first ask, &#8220;What do you do?&#8221; and then to design a house that enables you to do those things comfortably and well. <\/p>\n<div class=\"belowpost\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/old-house\/engineering\/engineering-mindset\/\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[335],"tags":[349,348,333],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2487"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4595,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions\/4595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}