This is the second in my new series on troubleshooting – a very important skill for all consultants. The next several posts are from a magazine article for my engineering colleagues, which I have broken into several smaller easy to digest pieces. Early in my electrical engineering consulting career, a client asked me to explain […]
This post was inspired by a favorite story of my late business partner. It captures the essence of troubleshooting. As a young man, Bill’s nephew was a radio technician in the Air Force. Which was pretty amazing, as he knew very little about electronics. Nevertheless, he was quite successful as a primary troubleshooter. When an […]
Warning: This is a quick rant combined with a lesson on troubleshooting. No, this post is not about some quack fix like drinking Clorox or Lysol — the simple technology is MASKS! But in order to work, EVERYONE must use them. The generic masks are not meant to protect YOU — they are meant to protect […]
As consultants, we are often called on to diagnose and troubleshoot problems. This is particularly true of my technical colleagues. Here is a technique learned many years ago the has served me well. Is it called the “Five Whys” and the goal is to find the “root cause” of a problem, rather than just applying […]
This post was inspired by a recent post from fellow AZ blogger (and person I have long admired) Pamela Slim. She started off with this quote, which I borrowed: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” ― Shunryu Suzuki It got me thinking about our roles as […]
When troubleshooting, common sense and experience go a long way. Here is a story of my great-uncle, a country doctor in Nebraska. I often think of him when trying to diagnose and fix a client problem. This story appeared in my first book, written twenty years ago. While it was aimed at my engineering colleagues, […]
