The Devil is in the Details

If the devil is in the details…are your engineering professors agents of the devil?

Why else would we make up picky rules about what type of paper you use, the format you use in headers on homework and emails, the times of day you can submit homework, the days of the week when you can work on projects… and on and on?

We love paperwork!

No, really, that’s not it. Think about this for a moment: Have you ever ordered something and gotten the wrong item? Have you ever been told one thing by someone like, say, an airline agent, about how a process was going to go, and then experienced something very different from what the agent described? Have you ever had someone promise to fix something, and it never gets done? Have you ever been confused about what you’re supposed to be doing when given a task?

In the infamous words of Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Good documentation of our work is the solution to many of these problems. As engineers, we have a duty to do excellent work, and to back up that work with solid principles and data. But that process isn’t worth much if no one knows where to find it when they need it, or how to use it (or read it) once they do find it. Rules about how to create titles for your work and how to document what you have done help you get into the habit of communicating what you do to everyone else. Documenting your work clearly provides that bridge between your ideas and the real world.

If you need more convincing that documentation and details really ARE important to engineers, check out Engineering Documentation Control Handbook by Frank Watts (William Andrew Publishing, 2000) at http://www.knovel.com/web/portal/basic_search/display?_EXT_KNOVEL_DISPLAY_bookid=62 . In the book’s introduction, the author states that engineers are cautious and analytical, following the “READY-AIM-FIRE” model rather than a “FIRE-AIM, FIRE-AIM, FIRE-AIM” model.

Documenting your work shows that you are ready, and that you have developed your aim. Then it’s up to you to FIRE!