Sharing this quick interview with my fellow Ortho Engineers. There is great wisdom in here from Elon, and many Engineers (like myself) have wondered what went wrong when we reach the final design. I wish I had these 5 on my wall when I was a young Engineer at S+N.
1/ The Biggest Mistake
The most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize the thing that should not exist. Why would you do that? Well, everyone’s been trained in high school in college, that you got to answer the questions convergent logic. So you can tell the professor your questions, they will get a bad grade, you have to answer the question so everyone’s basically without knowing it. They got like mental straitjacket on we’re gonna optimizing the thing that you should simply not exist.
2/ Question the Requirements
Make your requirements less dumb. It does not matter who gave them to you. It’s particularly dangerous if a smart person gave you the requirements, because you might not question them enough. No matter who you are, everyone’s wrong some of the time then try very hard to delete the part or process. This is actually very important. If you’re not occasionally adding things back in, you’re not deleting enough. The bias tends to be very strongly towards lets add this part or the process step in case we need it. But you can basically make in case arguments for so many things.
3/ Delete a part or process
Just make your requirements less. Your requirements are definitely done. It does not matter who gave them to you. It’s particularly dangerous if a smart person gave you the requirements, because you might not question them enough. No matter who you are, everyone’s wrong some of the time
4. Optimize or Simplify
Then try very hard to delete the part or process. This is actually very important. If you’re not occasionally adding things back in, you’re not leaving enough. The bias tends to be very strongly towards adding part of the process step in case we need it. But you can make “just in case” arguments for so many things.
4/ Accelerate Time-to-Learning
Finally you get to step four, which is accelerate cycle time. You’re moving too slowly. Go faster, not until you have worked on the other three things first, and then the final step is automate.
5/ Automate
The final step in Musk’s framework is automation. While automation can enhance efficiency, it should be implemented strategically. Musk himself admits that he has made the mistake of automating prematurely. Automating a flawed process only magnifies the issues it contains. Ensure your project is optimized, lean, and efficient before you introduce automation. Automation should enhance, not compensate for, a flawed process.