Re: Best practices, revisited

[ack]

Every now and then, it seems that the Monestary just aligns with my daily struggles at the office and I get to see the wonderful depth of thought and experience in the Monestary. All ELISHEVA's writing and all of the wonderful responses to her posting are such a joy to read and to think about.

As the central "grey beard" Senior Systems Engineer at work, I have, over the last 12-14 months, been asked by senior management to put together our "Small Satellite Systems Engineering 'Best Practices'". In that endeavor I have experienced (far more times than I care to remember) all of what all of you, especially ELISHEVA are talking about.

My single biggest struggles are to (1) get everyone to understand that these are NOT rules, they are mentoring "lessons learned" from 3 decades of successfully building satellites, (2) they are and never must be "static"...they have to evolve and change and shift as technology and new challenges emerge, and (3) they are there to make everyone think rather than just do "checklist engineering" (i.e, engineering by checklist/rules/cookbooks) as it is not-so-affectionately known at work.

I am so in debt to all who have posted on this topic; you have crystalized and succinctly captured everything that has been swirling around in my head (and on paper) for over a year now.

Thank, you all fellow Monks.