S5E41 Jim Gabriel | How to Accelerate the Speed of Engineering, Episode 5

In the fifth episode of How to Accelerate the Speed of Engineering, host Aaron Moncur interviews Jim Gabriel. Jim shares his insights on overcoming common bottlenecks, effective decision-making, fostering psychological safety, cross-functional collaboration, data-driven performance improvement, and lessons learned from attempts to expedite engineering processes.

Main Topics:

• Identifying and addressing bottlenecks in engineering projects
• Empowering teams to make effective decisions
• Balancing autonomy and guidance for engineers
• Failing fast and failing cheap to drive innovation
• The role of leadership in creating a culture of acceleration
• Strategies for enhancing cross-functional collaboration
• Leveraging data and metrics to improve team performance
• Introducing new technologies and tools to streamline engineering
• Unconventional approaches to expedite engineering
• Enhancing communication and meeting effectiveness
• Lessons learned from attempts to accelerate engineering

About the guest: Jim Gabriel is a seasoned engineering leader whose most recent expertise lies in the medical device industry. As the Associate Director of Engineering at Abiomed, he played a crucial role in leading teams focused on the development of cutting-edge heart pump technologies that save lives. Jim holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering from Western Michigan University and a Master’s degree in Engineering Management from Northeastern University.

Links:
Jim Gabriel - LinkedIn
Archangel Operations Website

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

Chapters

• 0:00 Bottlenecks in Engineering Projects
• 2:41 Decision-Making Challenges
• 8:48 Failing Fast and Failing Cheap
• 12:10 Leadership's Role in Accelerating Engineering Projects
• 14:11 Creating Psychologically Safe Environments
• 19:01 Best Practices for Cross-Functional Collaboration
• 22:06 Measuring and Improving Team Performance
• 26:34 Introducing New Technologies and Tools
• 29:37 Unconventional Approaches to Expedite Engineering
• 32:56 Enhancing Communication and Meeting Effectiveness