I’m vulnerable to occasionally losing hours of my most productive time “spinning my wheels”: working on sub-projects I later realize don’t need to exist.
Elon Musk gives the most lucid naming of this problem in the below clip. He has a 5 step process which nails a lot of best practices I’ve heard from others and more. It sounds kind of dull and obvious to write down, but somehow I think staring at the steps will actually help. Its also phrased somewhat specifically to building physical stuff, but I think there is a generic version of each. I’m going to try implementing on my next engineering project.
The explanation is meandering (though with some great examples I recommend listening to!) so I did my best attempt to quickly paraphrase them here:
The Elon Process:
“Make your requirements less dumb. Your requirements are definitely dumb.” Beware especially requirements from smart people because you will question them less.
Delete a part, process step or feature. If you aren’t adding 10% of deleted things back in, you aren’t deleting enough.
Optimize and simplify the remaining components.
Accelerate your cycle time. You can definitely go faster.
I’m vulnerable to occasionally losing hours of my most productive time “spinning my wheels”: working on sub-projects I later realize don’t need to exist.
Elon Musk gives the most lucid naming of this problem in the below clip. He has a 5 step process which nails a lot of best practices I’ve heard from others and more. It sounds kind of dull and obvious to write down, but somehow I think staring at the steps will actually help. Its also phrased somewhat specifically to building physical stuff, but I think there is a generic version of each. I’m going to try implementing on my next engineering project.
The explanation is meandering (though with some great examples I recommend listening to!) so I did my best attempt to quickly paraphrase them here:
The Elon Process:
“Make your requirements less dumb. Your requirements are definitely dumb.” Beware especially requirements from smart people because you will question them less.
Delete a part, process step or feature. If you aren’t adding 10% of deleted things back in, you aren’t deleting enough.
Optimize and simplify the remaining components.
Accelerate your cycle time. You can definitely go faster.
Automate.
https://youtu.be/t705r8ICkRw
(13:30-28)