Lynne started her career as a process engineer with W.L. Gore then moved to Edwards Lifesciences as a staff engineer. Over the years her role grew to principal engineer, engineering manager, and finally engineering director overseeing R&D and new product development programs. In between her aerial acrobatics sessions (yes, really) she finds time to mentor young engineers, organize development programs, and contribute to critical design reviews.
The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.testfixturedesign.com and www.designtheproduct.com
About Being An Engineer
The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.
The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us
Lynne started her career as a process engineer with W.L. Gore then moved to Edwards Lifesciences as a staff engineer. Over the years her role grew to principal engineer, engineering manager, and finally engineering director overseeing R&D and new product development programs. In between her aerial acrobatics sessions (yes, really) she finds time to mentor young engineers, organize development programs, and contribute to critical design reviews.
The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.testfixturedesign.com and www.designtheproduct.com
About Being An Engineer
The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.
The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us
Hello, and welcome again to the Being An Engineer Podcast. Our guest today is Lynne Shwed. After earning a degree in chemical engineering and a master's in material science, Lynne started her career as an R&D Process Engineer at WL Gore then transitioned to a Senior Manufacturing Engineer at Edward Life Sciences where she has been for the past 10 years. At Edwards, Lynne moved into a principal engineering role than a managerial role and currently serves as a director of engineering for r&d and new product development. Lynne, welcome to the show.
Lynne Shwed:Thank you.
Aaron Moncur:All right, first question that I usually ask everyone is, how did you decide to become, well, I was gonna say engineer, but chemical engineer, I guess is where you started and then a process engineer. So was that always the plan ever since you were a young kid? Or how did that develop? How did you get there?
Lynne Shwed:Oh, no, I was I have never been one of those people that that knew exactly what I wanted to do the whole time
Aaron Moncur:Throw caution to the wind, whatever happens
Lynne Shwed:Yeah, throw caution to the wind and you end up in chemical engineering. No, I am, I come from a I come from a family of doctors, both my parents are physicians. You know, so I think I think science was always loomed large in my life. But I started into college thinking that maybe I go to med school, right? And so, science, science was never like, 'Oh, my God, I love it.' But it was okay, 'I really loved math, I was always a big lover of math.' So I think that, that that path started to make sense. But I went into chemical engineering initially, as a, a freshman I applied to for chemical engineering, because I figured if I want to go to med school, I, it'll get me pretty pretty far on the way there as far as, as far as prereqs are concerned. And if I didn't like it, well, then it's, I've got an engineering background, so it'll be good. And I learned pretty quickly, like, definitely before the end of my freshman year, I don't like to memorize things. Is, is just not how my brain works. memorization is really just not how my brain works. And so I realized really quickly that med school was probably not a great option for me. So, so I stuck with chemical engineering, and I, honestly, through school, I loved it. I had a lot of friends who were in other disciplines. And, luckily, I picked well, not knowing all that much going into into school, because I think chemical engineering, the the scale of the problems that you're looking at, just just seemed to fit really well with me.
Aaron Moncur:I had, I think just one chemistry class in college, going the engineering route, you have to take at least one chemistry class. And I did terrible I think I got a C in that class. It just didn't click with me, I didn't get it. But moving into industry, what was one of the first real chemical engineering problems that you got to solve?
Lynne Shwed:I think my, my, my only job really, as a, as a very traditional chemical engineer was in it was a coop, I did my junior year of college, and I worked for, or for Avery Dennison making pressure sensitive adhesives. So basically, we made the glue on stamps and band aids and that kind of stuff. And these were big, 8000 gallon reactors. You this was like traditional chemical engineering.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. And then fulfill all your wildest dreams.
Lynne Shwed:It was fun. There's a sitting in a medical device position right now it's, it's really fun, too funny to say that my first experience and something I loved all my co-ops, my internships, my cops in school were places where I needed to wear steel toed boots and hard hats. So it was it was a very traditional chemical engineering type of experience, which is not where I landed. So that is a little bit ironic, but I loved it. But that was true. I mean, that was true chemical engineering, that was that was playing with formulations and working with the R&D guys there. As well as the production guys to understand what, what knobs you can turn to change the properties. It was it was it was very, very cool. It was a very cool experience.
Aaron Moncur:That's great. Very cool. So let's talk about where you landed, which right now is director of engineering. That is, I mean, that in and of itself is a pretty cool title right comes along with some nice business cards, I'm sure. What what is your day to day, like, as Director of Engineering at a relatively large and established medical device company?
Lynne Shwed:I, day to day, my, my day to day job, and my responsibility is really about making sure my teams are successful and making sure my teams have what they need to be successful. So so I think it's from a daily basis, it's probably not all that exciting, because if you look at my calendar, it's just solid meetings on project meetings or, or one on ones with my employees, making sure they have everything that they need.
Aaron Moncur:Give me a specific example of that, if you could, maybe over the last week, what are one or two really specific things that you've done. Um,
Lynne Shwed:I mean, we have design reviews, I have four different products that I'm responsible for product families that I'm responsible for right now. So design reviews, or technical reviews are probably a pretty big chunk
Aaron Moncur:Okay
Lynne Shwed:At this point, and it's, it's, that's really about making sure that the project is on track. And that can be that can be anywhere from, from literally digging through data and very detailed data with the team to make sure we're confident in what we're doing. All the way up through our more formal phase gate reviews that are just check the box, did we do we actually do everything that we needed to do?
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, yeah.
Lynne Shwed:So it's, it's, it's the tech reviews, and then design reviews, can can run the whole, the whole spectrum, depending on where the project is, and what the what the technical problem is in front of us or
Rafael Testai:Okay
Lynne Shwed:Tech hurdle is in front of us. So that's a, that's a really a probably a big part of it from, from the project standpoint, is really just helping provide direction and making sure that we are, we're we're staying on track, both directionally and timewise.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, yeah. I imagine that at a director level, you're being pulled in a lot of different directions, and there's probably a fair amount of stress associated with that particular role. What are some strategies that you use to mitigate or just deal with that stress?
Lynne Shwed:I'm on a, on a larger basis, I am very careful to make sure that I don't, I don't take it with me. You know, I think I like to do things, I hobbies wise, and try to do them right after work, do stuff right after work that lets my brain separate
Aaron Moncur:Oh, okay
Lynne Shwed:My work day from, from from life.
Aaron Moncur:So you have this like transition period that it takes the form of some kind of activity, a hobby.
Lynne Shwed:Yeah. I have random random fact, I have been training in aerial arts for a number of years. And so
Aaron Moncur:Arts, what, what, hold on a second now, aerial arts, what, tell me about that, what are the aerial arts?
Lynne Shwed:I'm think more like Cirque du Soleil type of background.
Aaron Moncur:Really, that is so cool
Lynne Shwed:It's, Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a lot of fun, it's a, it's a lot more fun than than going to the gym, and just sitting on a weight machine for, for a few hours. But the important thing about that, and the reason why that's relevant to this conversation, is that it it really takes my concentration. And so I like I can't, I can't not focus on what I'm doing. And I cannot turn my attention to it. Because I fall on my face. It's kind of important.
Aaron Moncur:Kind of, yeah.
Lynne Shwed:When I, when when I can't do that, right after work, in the summer, I like to mountain bike, and I'm, I'm only so good at it, even though I've been doing that for many, many years as well. And so again, that takes my like, full concentration because if I don't, again, I am likely to land on my face.
Aaron Moncur:And so I think start thinking about work
Lynne Shwed:I love, that's exactly what it is. My mind starts wandering and I start and I start just just turning on the problem of the day.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah
Lynne Shwed:I obviously a lot of situation I could I could end really badly for me, so I overtime to to deal with stress. I really I like to find activities that can that have to take my concentration somewhere else. Really and break my, break just to turn on the problem of the day because I think if you
Aaron Moncur:Yeah
Lynne Shwed:if I don't know for me personally, if I don't find that activity to take my concentration or change my focus. You know, I will just my my brain will just I will focus on something and I will just turn on it and you usually not with good results.
Aaron Moncur:So that's a really succinct answer, or a clear way of putting it finding an activity that requires a lot of brain power or mental concentration. So that you're, you're forced to not think about work. Right? That's great.
Lynne Shwed:Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think I think it's, it's, it's a clear head type of thing. I mean, a lot of people will say they do something to clear to clear their mind. You know, and I've, I've just found that, you physical activity, and particularly ones that can really change my focus, just have been a huge help for me over the years.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. For my own experience, I know how important it is to keep my finger on the pulse of what my engineering team is doing. But at the same time, not getting sucked into the granular details right of their day to day operations. Otherwise, I never have time to focus on what I'm supposed to be focused on, which is building a business. And for you, of course, it's directing the engineering team, are there any rules or best practices that you've implemented for yourself and for your team, that that help you strike that appropriate balance?
Lynne Shwed:That was probably my biggest learning curve. You know, moving through through management, honestly, I think, I think it's, I think any good engineer struggled with it. I, I would still love to be in the lab, you know, be the one making reference and generating the data, I would love to, that's not, that's, that's not my, that's not what I'm asked to do at this point. You know, but I think, I think it's, it's any, any good engineer moving into a management type of, you know, or more business type of situation, I think you're gonna, you're gonna want to be there. You know, I think over time, it was really about just learning how to trust people. You know, and, and trusting that they have it, that they, that they're, whatever experiment they've designed, is going to be good. Show me the data when you're done. And we'll talk about it if I have any questions. You know, and I think as making clear with my team to that, if they felt like I was in their face too much, like, don't be afraid to tell me to back off, which, which they've all learned to do, and very, in very polite ways. You know, but but I also, I think it's also about being aware that I, I, I do have a tendency to, to want to be in the details and having to not take it personally, and people are like, 'Back off, sure, got this, we'll talk to you when we're done.' It feels like you're you're hovering. That actually doesn't happen very often, more often, what happens is that I will agree to take something on that everybody knows, I don't actually have the time to do. And they'll come to me afterwards be like, 'Yeah, I got this, you don't, you're not really gonna get that done.'
Aaron Moncur:Terrific. You have a a fantastic team.
Lynne Shwed:I do work with some fabulous people. And I feel very fortunate. I, I have built some of it, some of it has come to me through through reorganizations and stuff. And I really have, I really do have a fabulous team that works for me. So I have zero complaints.
Aaron Moncur:I love what you said about being able to trust your team, right. And then also creating a culture in which your team feels very safe or comfortable telling you, 'Hey, we got this, probably in more polite words, but back off, we got it.'
Lynne Shwed:Yeah
Aaron Moncur:I was on a call just a day or two ago. And I am not the project manager on this call. I have an engineering manager, Michael, who is in charge of that. And so he was there on the call and and I just kind of popped in just to see how things were going and just just observe for a little bit. And I was only planning on being there for 20 minutes, it was an hour long call. And maybe 10 or 15 minutes in, Michael messaged me in the background says, 'Hey, I'm not feeling well, I need to I need to bail, can you can you handle the rest of this?' And I said, 'Sure, I can do that.' And but I had something else, 10 minutes I needed to go to. And I thought, I can either cancel my other thing and be here and finish and take in Michael's place. Or I can, quote unquote, pass the buck to one of the engineers that is on this project and is here on the call and knows everything about the project.
Lynne Shwed:Yeah,
Aaron Moncur:It was really hard for me. I mean, it seems like an obvious choice now. Right? It just let let the other engineer handle it. They're perfectly capable of doing this. But it was hard for me to step back and say no, I need to go do what I'm supposed to do and let my my engineer do what they're doing. But anyway, great, great advice that you gave there. If if you were given a magic wand, and allowed to change one or two things about the way that you're your engineering operations are managed, what do you think they would be?
Lynne Shwed:Oh, boy. I think, I think one thing that we struggle with and it's it's been, it's been my whole time here. I never it's but I and I think it was it was the same while we were at gore when I was like harder finding a good way, a more efficient way to share knowledge across teams. I don't I don't know what the answer is. And it's always it's always frustrating when you find out that you've been struggling with a problem. And there is a, a team that literally sits, 100 feet down the hallway. That that's run through the same problem. Right, right. And, and the feeling of the feeling of reinventing the wheel. Like there's, there's, there's relief when you're like, 'Okay, somebody else might have'
Aaron Moncur:Right, yeah
Lynne Shwed:But there's also that it's frustrating to feel like you've you've even almost wasting time on something because somebody else already knew. You know, and I think as as as we get bigger as this company gets bigger, that becomes even more and more of a challenge. So I think if there was if there was a magic wand, where we suddenly had the information, we had that information at our fingertips. And we didn't have to know somebody who happened to know that somebody else worked on this at some point, five years ago, kind of thing. If I could solve that with a magic wand, I would love to.
Aaron Moncur:That's a great topic for a magic wand. Absolutely. You've mentioned that you enjoy teaching and mentoring younger engineers. Can you think of maybe what are a few lessons or skills or like mindsets that you commonly see the need to improve in young engineers?
Lynne Shwed:So I think one of the one of the things that that is not a skill you get out of school, that I often have to work with my under engineers on is, is understanding why. Right? And, and a lot of times, you say, 'Okay, well, this worked, right, I did this test I got, I got the numbers that I wanted, it worked. Great. Okay, but why? Why did that work? When Why would you turn that knob? Or when you turn the temperature up? Or you turn the pressure down on that machine? Or whatever you did? Why did that work? What physically happened to, to the party you're trying to make? And and that mindset, and asking that question, why, and trying to understand what is the what is the mechanism behind what you're doing? I think I think that's something I often work with young engineers on. That's not an innate skill that comes out of school. I think what comes out of school is, hey, ran this test, I got the number I liked, great, we're done. We're good. Right. But if you don't understand why it works, you are not going to understand why it stops working. And eventually it will stop working whatever the thing is, so I think I think trying to get that mindset into people is something that that is often something I work with my younger engineers on.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, that's huge. And I think it promotes ultimately, I don't know if clarity is the right way to put it. But you can give an engineer a task, and the engineer might perform that task and come back to you with the answer. And if you weren't really clear on why you need that answer, the engineer might have noticed something during the process of going through that task that could be beneficial to the project that the higher level scope of the project, rather than just within that little tiny scope of this individual task. So I love that understanding was super important. Simon Sinek ready to read his book? Starts with Why
Lynne Shwed:Yeah, great book. Yeah, I actually, early in my career, and this, this has just stuck with me on the first handful years of my career. You know, we actually held a product launch because we got some test data. That was way better than it should have been. But it was great. It was good, right? Like it was it was good. The strength had gone up at, we tested it a body temperature, which is like, totally not what should happen. But it was like, 'Oh, great. We passed our spec flying colors. Okay.
Aaron Moncur:Someone waved a magic wand.
Lynne Shwed:It was a magic wand. And nobody could explain why. And we put the technical team together and it was like, this is what I was like, or like we we literally have the world's experts in EP TFP sitting in this building, right or sitting within this company. None of them can tell us why this happened. Like this doesn't feel right. And, so so we all eventually agreed that I mean, there was certainly certainly quite an argument, but we're discussion I should say, 'But we, we all agree that we should, we should really look into this a little bit more.' Turns out, we had a testing error. And the the results were still acceptable. But we fixed the testing error, it behaved the way we expected it to, and then everybody was like, okay, so we still have a good product where you can we can move forward. But that could have just as easily been a testing error that said, like, none of this is gonna fail. Right? And so that, that that experience has stuck with me that once. If you don't understand why something is happening, why it's behaving the way it is, I mean, it, it really could have, you could really be hiding something that could bite you later.
Aaron Moncur:It's a great experience. Thank you for sharing that. And on that, that note of testing, this is probably a good place to take a short pause, and share with the audience that the being an engineer podcast is powered by Pipeline Design & Engineering, where we work with predominantly medical device engineering teams who need turnkey custom test fixtures, or automated equipment to assemble, inspect, characterize or perform verification or validation testing on their devices. And you can find us at test fixture design.com. We're speaking with Lynne Shwed today, who is a director of engineering at Edwards Lifesciences in California. Lynne, can you share with us if you can come up with one I'm kind of putting you on the spot here a little bit. But hopefully something comes to mind. Can you share with us either a major success or failure that you or your team have had? What you learn from it, and just generally how engineering teams in general can apply it to their own programs?
Lynne Shwed:Well, we had a, we had last year was a little bit of a rough year for my teams. All right, I guess my business units R&D team, we had two products, we decided to discontinue, that that had a lot of people's blood, sweat and tears built into them. but when, when it came down to it, they were not performing the way we we intended. And one of the one of the benefits and the pitfalls, I guess, of being in a medical device engineering rate is that you're, when you're wrong, there's there's consequences. You know, and there are real people on the end of those devices. And so when something isn't performing the way you expected, when you realize that there is a, an interaction, whether it be like an anatomical, it was an anatomical interaction that we just we just didn't foresee. When you realize it's not performing the way you intend, it's, it's, it's hard. I think it was I as a leader, I mean, it was hard personally, for me, one of them was, it was hard personally, for me, because I was project I had worked on for a number of years that I had been very involved I've been very hands on with. So it was, I think, when I started, when I started with a project, I think I was principal engineer. So it was something that I hadn't done for a number of years. And, and worked on. So I had a lot of personal investment into it. But I also had a team to hold together through it as well. And I think, I think, in medical devices, particularly, if you keep your focus on the fact that there is there's a person on the other end of those devices, it's not a, it's not just a collection of specifications, right? I mean, there's that there is somebody at the end of that device that is really going to care whether or not you did your job well today. I think if you keep that in mind, I think that's how you how you push through those things, I think of how you, you put aside your, your, your ego, or and, or your personal feelings on how how hard it can be to feel like you've got a failure unfolding in front of you to to get to a point where it really is, we're really doing what's best for our patients. I think that's, that's, that's the only way I found to get through those when when you have big mistakes like that, and we've had plenty of other technical failures that are not nearly as exciting. Or haven't been in hindsight, weren't as meaningful. You know, but I think that was probably that was probably one of the ones I learned the most from and took the most from was was when you actually get to the point where you release a device is not performing the way you want. Yeah, I think you just have to focus on on, 'Okay, this isn't, this isn't doing what it needs to do, but we need to fix this fast.'
Aaron Moncur:And it's It's not like any engineering team can anticipate everything that's going to happen in the future, right, we do our best, we anticipate 90, 95, 98% of what's going to happen. But at the end of the day, the stakes failures are inevitable. And they're maybe it sounds harsh to say it this way. But it's, I think, very legitimately part of the process. Every now and then something's just not going to go, right? I really like what you said about identifying that human connection right at the other. At the other end of this requirements document, this specification sheet, there is a person that whose life you're going to be impacting, there's a company called Menlo Innovations. They're a software development company that I follow, and they just have a phenomenal culture. And I continue enjoying learning more about them. The CEO wrote this book called Joy Inc, and he's written another book as well. But anyway, great company, their their motto or mission statement is to, to end human suffering as it relates to technology, which I thought was just so wonderful, and it perfectly embodies your statement of keeping that that personal touch right humanity, I guess.
Lynne Shwed:Yeah, I think it's actually something that Edwards does a really good job of reminding people about is that, that, that there are real people, we are associated with real people. And I think a lot of it's motivation. Right. And that, like, your your work has purpose. You know, but I think, on the other side, it's, it's, your work has consequences, too. And, and so we can't, we can't get lacks in what we're doing. Because there's, there's, it's both right, we have the ability to help. But there's also, you know, if, if we, if we miss this, it's always very good.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. Well, you are in a unique position to, to study engineering teams, what what do you think engineering teams are not doing enough of these days that the they should be?
Lynne Shwed:I think a lot of it comes back to that asking why? I think, as things get faster and faster, I think that pushes on on things like organizational efficiency, and all those kinds of business II buzzwords that they're trying to turn things out faster and cheaper, and all that kind of wonderful stuff. I think, I think what fails is or what falls down, when you're focused on those types of things, and those types of agencies really is, is a deeper understanding of how and why things work. I think, I think a lot of times you, that's the first thing to go, right? I mean, it's super easy. Like, we'd like to talk to a port, super easy to say, I got passing results, let's run. And I think, again, I think that just it's a very dangerous path to go down. You know, but it's a very easy one to roll down.
Aaron Moncur:Sure, yeah. I'm sure that you are pulled in a million different directions every day. What are some of the tools that you've found or developed over the years to keep you and your teams organized?
Lynne Shwed:I am actually I am not the most organized person. I love a little bit of like organized chaos.
Aaron Moncur:Okay. Tell us more about that. Yeah, how does organized kids help you,
Lynne Shwed:If you if you go through, like a disc profile, and the type of I, it is, is in my personality that I don't love structure? Right.
Aaron Moncur:Okay.
Lynne Shwed:Which is, which is super hard when I have, I have, I have very different programs underneath me. So so I mean, my brain really is compartmentalize at this point between different programs I'm working with, I keep looking over to my side here, because I have my I have my notebook that I can't live without now that was actually a it has become a crutch for in two ways. Number one, just why always have a reference of I have written things down, I have a reference of it, but I actually really need to write things down to internalize it.
Aaron Moncur:Okay
Lynne Shwed:You know, even through college I was I was the kind of person that would like rewrite my notes or take notes on like the chapter that's supposed to be reading or whatever, because that's how I would like internalize information. So that's become a that's become a big crutch for me is having that having that physical, having my physical notebook to try to keep try to keep track of what's going on. But I also had to learn to I had to learn to trust people. I think it comes back to trust and being being willing to let go of those details. I was always a person that was always on top of details and I had them I had them ingrained in my head And I could recall at a moment's notice what was going on and on any of our projects, you can ask me and I would have the nth degree of detail. Learning to let that go, was also how I learned to manage all of the things that I was being asked to do better. And realizing that I don't have to have a detailed because the person who needs that detail has it, and they're fine. So I think it again, a lot of it just comes back to trusting the people that you, the people that you, you work with.
Aaron Moncur:I, maybe sometimes the simplest techniques, or the most powerful ones, and you mentioned your notebook, I have also found I don't, I don't have a physical notebook I keep but I have a digital notebook that I keep, I use one note, there's also a great application, a cloud based application called Air Table that I use, and I just make lists in these things and their lists that I refer to, I mean, all the time, and they're living growing lists, it's, who do I need to follow up with next week? Or what are some new product ideas that we can work on, or what are some better ways that we can arrange the team to be more effective or whatever, and I have these lists, they've been so useful to me. And I have my, almost all of us have a smartphone these days, and it's so nice to be able to just I have it with me all the time, right. So I can pull that out. I mean, it's a double edged sword, right that I have.
Lynne Shwed:Yeah
Aaron Moncur:But as far as keeping organized, and it's less than just pull it out, and I opened up one note, I opened up air table, and I add to my list and, and then it's there, and I can access it on my desktop or my laptop, or wherever any device. And it's just been hugely, hugely beneficial. So making lists, I think, is just such a great tool. So pipelines business model is, is that of a service provider, we make money when a customer has a project that either they don't have the bandwidth for or the skill in house to do. So they outsource it to us. And that being the case, probably the most significant business metric that we try to track his engineering hours, right? How many how many hours that we've spent or build towards a project, you live in a very different business model where you're not selling engineering hours, at least not directly, you're you're selling a product? And I wondered, what are some of the critical business metrics that you need to track to be successful in that model?
Lynne Shwed:You know, in a product development world, there's there's a launch timing, there is the ultimate is the ultimate metric, right? Like, are we, we want to hit whatever, because of market, because of the market needs or, or timing or other products in the portfolio and that kind of stuff. So, we have a launch timing that we want to hit. So that is only so much that is in our control, because sometimes regulatory approvals take longer than you should. So you can you can ballpark that as best as you can. You know, but along the along the development cycle we have, we have milestones that we look for, as far as concept selection and design freeze. I always feel like we've hit our, our stride and feel like the project will have a lot more predictability. Once we once we start process validations. Once we get past our design verification, we can start cross validation. So I always feel like we are, that's by no means are we out of the woods yet, but it's, at that point is a bit more predictable, and the project's become a bit more predictable. We are still working on specifically within my, within my group, we're trying to find the right I'm actually having meeting next week where we're going to try to find better metrics for us that we can actually.
Aaron Moncur:Okay, well, that is going to be thinking about it.
Lynne Shwed:Yeah, it's hard. It's hard when you look at, when you look at the product development process. When you look at say, say even you have to correlate to your your billable hours, basically on an engineering project, right. How long does it take to get through each phase of the project? Well, really depends on the complexity of the project, right. And so it's, we have stuff that is that that are very simple devices that are just iterations on a very simple device versus an entirely new heart valve and catheter system. Aand the complexity of those is, is vastly different. And so trying to figure out, how do we set how do we set metrics for ourselves that are useful across projects? And those are some ongoing discussions? Because I think it is, I think, I think as engineers you want to measure, right?
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. The more data the better.
Lynne Shwed:Exactly, exactly. But I am a very big believer in data for data's sake is not very helpful. And there's no point in collecting data if you don't know what you're going to do with it. So
Aaron Moncur:So going back to your original question, For launch date, right, ultimately, I'm going to also pick up something you mentioned earlier, which is why, why do you think the launch date is the critical metric against which an overall program is measured?
Lynne Shwed:A couple of reasons. One of the practical ones is, depending on how big the project isn't the impact of the project, we have made commitments, we have made public commitments, as a public company to to for timing, so there's, there's that, which is, is the really big answer to that.
Aaron Moncur:Got it. Okay.
Lynne Shwed:But I think when you, when you look at it, and when we, it's, it's a, it's a combination of delivering the right thing at the right time. You know, and, and, depending on what, what the timing, the relative timing of different things in our portfolio versus the anticipated launches of some competitive products and such. There there certainly a timing to things where, if you, if you miss that timing, it may not even be worth it anymore. So I think that's why that ultimately is a big deal. I think market timing certainly plays a role in our in our development portfolio.
Aaron Moncur:That makes a lot of sense. What are, what are, what are the one or two of the biggest challenges that you face at work?
Lynne Shwed:Um, well, I mean, there's, there's certainly always the technical challenges, right. And I think, one of the biggest technical challenges we face is that we talked about before, you can't design for 100% of situations. And so trying to trying to decide where you draw the line, right, what do we do we look to, to design for 95% of the population and think is going to use this 99% hanging out? 5%? What do you what do you leave out? Who do you leave out? Right?
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, that's hard? because like you said, right, at the other end of it, there's a person that we're talking about, and someone's gonna get left out.
Lynne Shwed:Yeah, I mean, we have a we have a device, we have a device right now. It's in the it's in clinical trial for it's been for a congenital defect, and it's actually it's actually a repair for repair of congenital defect. But some of our patients are is, I think, the youngest we read, it was 10, or 13, I can't remember, I can't remember the exact age. So I don't want to I don't to be too specific on that. But it's in that it's in that realm. And our device right now treats so many, and then, you know, we're looking at potentially some some, do we expand that to different sizes to be able to treat more? And and what's the, where do you draw that line? of? How many sizes do you offer to cover your population? So I think those are probably some of the most difficult, like, technical challenges is, is is trying to figure out where do you Where do you draw that line? Yeah, I think from a management standpoint, probably the hardest thing is, the biggest biggest challenge is keeping people motivated and engaged. Everything gets, everything gets routine after a while, right? When you can think about medical devices, and we are talking about that there are people at the other end of these devices, but even that has the ability to get routine.
Aaron Moncur:Sure.
Lynne Shwed:And so, I think keeping people motivated and engaged is is, is really one of the bigger challenges. Because that everything, everything flows from there, right? If you if somebody is really enjoying and really loving what they're doing great work just follows. I really believe it's not a, it's not a question of, at some question of how hard can you make yourself work because when you love what you're doing, you just you just do, you are just going to work hard when you're motivated. So I think that's, that's something I'm always on the lookout for, with my teams, and even peripherally with other engineers that don't necessarily work for me that I mentor or I have more informal relationships with
Aaron Moncur:Are there any I don't know, tools or strategies that that you have found to be helpful and helping your team to stay motivated, including yourself?
Lynne Shwed:Man, myself? That can always be, that that can be hard sometimes. But I think some advice that I give to people is, is this was given to me once I, I, it just rang so true with me, that I share this with with most of my engineers, especially when you're not sure what you want to do is is really to pay attention to your energy level. You know, there are things that are going to that are going to take energy and And things are gonna give you energy, right. And it's not an easier or hard thing, there can be an exhausting, exhausting things. But at the end, you're, you're, you're really energized to be really pumped about it, versus things that are much more mundane, that at the end of it, you're, you're just mentally exhausted. You know, and I think paying attention to those things, to the point where if, if you're if you're not feeling, if you're not feeling particularly motivated, pay attention to those things to the point where you write them down, you keep a list on your phone, whatever. You know, paying attention to your energy level hasn't has always been a big thing for me, to help guide me where, to what I what I really enjoy, and what really gives me energy versus what is is just kind of a chore. And I share that with you, I really do share that with my teams, because if they they realize that this is, when I do this, like this, this I really don't like to do? Well, let me let's see if we can find a way that you don't have to do that more often. Because it doesn't, it doesn't, there's always work you don't want to do, there's always going to be if you don't want to do, but it doesn't, it doesn't help anybody to to keep somebody position they don't want to be in. I really think it's it's important to let people play to their strengths. Everybody wins when when people are playing to their strengths. So I that's how the advice I give to most people that work for me.
Aaron Moncur:That's that's very sage advice. And it sounds to me like, what you're advocating is just personal reflection, right. And I love that you gave a plug to the lists, right list keeping. I actually had an experience just this morning, where I have a list where I write down things that just like you said, things that energize me, I actually haven't really tracked the things that don't energize me, and maybe I should start doing that also. But I have a list of the things that like when I do them, I just get happy, and I'm energized and I want to keep doing them. So I can engineer my environment in a way that allows me to do more of those things. And just this morning, we were talking on the phone with, we did a virtual tour of another company and they were sharing with us their processes and how they run their operations. And the thought occurred to me that what really energizes me, one of the things that really energizes me is not so much focusing on the engineering work. It's building systems around that engineering work that allow it to occur in a very productive and efficient manner. And I wrote it down on my list. And I have now probably a dozen of these things. Right that I probably would not remember at this point in time.
Lynne Shwed:Exactly
Aaron Moncur:Had I not written them all down. Yeah.
Lynne Shwed:Yeah. I mean, it's it's, I'm sure people think about it during, yeah, you think about during the day, but Oh, man, like, like, like, that was awesome. Oh, man, that was terrible. I don't want to do that.
Aaron Moncur:Right. Right.
Lynne Shwed:But being conscious enough to to write it down so that you can think about it later and say, 'Okay, I definitely see a pattern here.'
Aaron Moncur:Yes
Lynne Shwed:I think that's I think it's so important.
Aaron Moncur:I agree. 100% It's huge. Well, Lynne, let's say before we go, is there anything I haven't asked you that you think I should have?
Lynne Shwed:I yeah, I don't I don't know. I nothing comes to mind that I am dying to tell you.
Aaron Moncur:Okay, fair enough. Well, in that case, how can people get a hold of you or your company?
Lynne Shwed:Probably the easiest way to get ahold of me is through LinkedIn. Give me,I do answer my messages. Sometimes it takes a while. I am not, I am not on there every day, but I do. I do check in there. So that is probably the best way, the best way to get a hold of me.
Aaron Moncur:Okay, terrific. Well, Lynne, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate your time and sharing with us all this wisdom.
Lynne Shwed:You're welcome. Thank you. This is great.
Aaron Moncur:I'm Aaron Moncur, Founder of Pipeline Design & Engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please leave us a positive review. It really helps other people find the show. To learn how your engineering team can leverage our team's expertise in developing turnkey custom test fixtures, automated equipment and product design, visit us at testfixturedesign.com. Thanks for listening.