It's been a day.
A lot of you have heard the stories I’ve told of being responsible for a major product launch (less than two months now, and counting, if we ever get our QE back). Most of you that know me personally also know that I'm pretty even-keeled. Our head of BD told me I'm too "smiley." My boss, in fact, told me last week that I don't get mad enough.
Today, I was all over the emotional spectrum. It was interesting to see our team react to my excitement about first pieces off the mold, my frustration about losing my Quality Engineer to another project for another week, and my stubbornness in taking a stand about the scientific analysis we have to perform to release a new product.
Anyone that works in product development will tell you that they don’t learn nearly as much from the things that go right than they do from the ones that go wrong. We’ve had plenty, over the past 15 months, go wrong on this project. Today, I let some of that bubble to the surface.
A lot of people are afraid to let their feelings be known in the workplace. I think we're afraid of confrontation because we mistake confrontation for conflict. Even in our personal lives, we don't necessarily want to show our excitement in case we're disappointed later.
But sometimes, we need to embrace how we're feeling. I've spent three weeks being incredibly mad about having a team member pulled at a critical point in the project. I was exhilarated to see a design that we have been refining and iterating for months, finally make its way into a part. And I was exhausted to see that despite all the progress we've made, we've still got a long way to go. The trick is being able to channel those complex emotions into momentum for action. To use those emotions as constructive motivators, as lessons learned. The last 10% to get a product out the door is the toughest 90% of the work. I'll be down in Mexico in two weeks building parts for the first time.
But today, some vindication. First shots off the mold look stellar, and more importantly, they WORK. It's rewarding to come full-circle and see a functional part nearly a year and a half after first starting down this road. I'm sure it will be even more rewarding to see a design that I contributed to and filed IP for, finally being used on a patient in a few short months. Talk about hope made visible, in the form of polycarbonate injection-molded parts.
A lot of you have heard the stories I’ve told of being responsible for a major product launch (less than two months now, and counting, if we ever get our QE back). Most of you that know me personally also know that I'm pretty even-keeled. Our head of BD told me I'm too "smiley." My boss, in fact, told me last week that I don't get mad enough.
Today, I was all over the emotional spectrum. It was interesting to see our team react to my excitement about first pieces off the mold, my frustration about losing my Quality Engineer to another project for another week, and my stubbornness in taking a stand about the scientific analysis we have to perform to release a new product.
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| An artsy (and purposely ambiguous) photo of first shots. |
A lot of people are afraid to let their feelings be known in the workplace. I think we're afraid of confrontation because we mistake confrontation for conflict. Even in our personal lives, we don't necessarily want to show our excitement in case we're disappointed later.
But sometimes, we need to embrace how we're feeling. I've spent three weeks being incredibly mad about having a team member pulled at a critical point in the project. I was exhilarated to see a design that we have been refining and iterating for months, finally make its way into a part. And I was exhausted to see that despite all the progress we've made, we've still got a long way to go. The trick is being able to channel those complex emotions into momentum for action. To use those emotions as constructive motivators, as lessons learned. The last 10% to get a product out the door is the toughest 90% of the work. I'll be down in Mexico in two weeks building parts for the first time.
But today, some vindication. First shots off the mold look stellar, and more importantly, they WORK. It's rewarding to come full-circle and see a functional part nearly a year and a half after first starting down this road. I'm sure it will be even more rewarding to see a design that I contributed to and filed IP for, finally being used on a patient in a few short months. Talk about hope made visible, in the form of polycarbonate injection-molded parts.
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