[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>> Exactly. Being goal-directed means that you have already decided the   
   >>> direction to go in.   
   >>   
   >> Goal-directed means that you have decided where you want to end up, not   
   >> how you are going to get there.   
   >   
   > That's already restrictive. If you allolw yourself to think freely   
   > about X, you might accidentally invent Y.   
   >   
   > And if you allow your competitors' features, or your marketing or   
   > someone to define a product, you will likely miss designing something   
   > even better.   
   >   
   >   
   >>   
   >>> Maybe the best design is in the other direction.   
   >>   
   >> A goal is a destination, not a route-map   
   >>   
   >>> Our policy is to always stay confused for a while early in a design,   
   >>> and not latch on the the first idea (probably in a textbook) that   
   >>> might work.   
   >>   
   >> Being confident about where you are need to end up but relaxed about how   
   >> you are going to get there isn't being confused - just being open-minded.   
   >   
   > Confused is even better. Most engineers and even more managers are   
   > uncomfortable with uncertainty and want to lock down a design as soon   
   > as they can so they can fire up some project management software and   
   > make budgets and schedules with colorful presentation graphics.   
      
   This is a well-known problem. Project management course tend to see   
   virtue planning the course of a development project before you know you   
   know exactly what you want to develop - it gives management something to   
   do before the engineers have made up their minds. It's also a waste of   
   time, and runs the risk of forcing the engineers to make premature   
   decisions.   
      
   > It takes a lot of confidence to deliberately stay confused.   
   >   
   > That line belongs in my collection of great quotes.   
      
   It would. You do seem to have a talent for remaining confused. Stupid   
   people are permanently confused, and your prescription would encourage   
   engineers to drink a lot, all the time.   
      
   >>> The techniques of exploring the greater solution space can be taught,   
   >>> but not simply explained. Like I can't tell you how to play tennis in   
   >>> an email.   
   >>   
   >> You aren't great at explanation at the best of times. Your capacity to   
   >> explain what you have done isn't great, and your incapacity to lead the   
   >> reader through the solutions spaces that you claim to have explored does   
   >> suggest that you do more flailing about than exploring.   
   >   
   > As I said, it can't be simply explained or taught in textbook form. It   
   > has to be done.   
      
   It probably can, by somebody who finds the right way of looking at the   
   problem. Tom Peters thought that he had   
      
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Excellence   
      
   but while he may have got some of the way towards asking the right   
   questions, there's still quite a way to go   
      
   > I think academic EE education is fundamentally hostile to idea   
   > generation.   
      
   Academics get status by publishing interesting new ideas in the   
   peer-reviewed literature. They do have to generate them for themselves -   
   plagiarism is a crime. They do get snooty about people who claim to have   
   invented new ideas when the idea have been published elsewhere, even if   
   the claimant is too unsophisticated to have found them for themselves.   
      
   You would have treated that as hostility if it had happened to you.   
      
   --   
   Bill Sloman, Sydney   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)