Over the last 10 months, RHEA’s concurrent design team has been sharing insights into how using this methodology can accelerate the early stages of complex engineering projects. They have been applying collaborative design for nearly two decades for projects as varied as space programmes, defence systems, factory design and luxury yachts.

Here we offer an overview of their advice and tips, with links to our blog posts for more details.

By Gwendolyn Kolfschoten, Concurrent Design Expert

Overview: What is concurrent design?

Concurrent design is based on a series of sessions where the client, experts from various domains and system engineers work together to develop an integral, consistent design based on shared understanding and rigorous design decisions.

The method is mainly applied in the early phases of design and aims to identify key trade-offs and challenges early in the project. It emphasizes a quantitative, fact-based approach to increase the quality of decision-making, despite the uncertainties and interdependencies that are characteristic of these early design phases.

How do we make this work? These are 10 of the key points that combine to make concurrent design projects successful.

1 – Create shared understanding

woman standing by a large screen showing automotive parts leading a meetingThe concurrent design approach requires a high level of shared understanding among the team of experts regarding the requirements, system and various elements. This shared understanding needs to be based on a holistic perspective because the individual elements and subsystems are linked to the system as a whole.

Such shared understanding requires clear, focused explanations, openness about risks and challenges in each domain, and good listening.

Those participating in a concurrent design project have to develop a shared language to understand each other’s domains. This has to be at a level whereby they can comprehend how the domains are interrelated and also understand the consequences of any changes in related subsystems. We use ‘visualization’ techniques because this helps participants to understand elements and relations, and see how each change has an impact on the overall system.

2 – Create team bonds

Concurrent design is a team effort, but often a ‘team’ is assembled specifically for each study, made up of people who otherwise may not work together often or at all. To ensure collaboration works well, it is important that this group of experts becomes a real team – and this, in turn, means developing a strong team bond is a critical success factor.

Getting to know each other is vital to develop ‘common ground’. When we get to know each other person to person, we are more likely to find out what we have in common and discover shared interests than when we approach each other based on ‘role’ and/or ‘rank’. Within a concurrent design study, we try to create an atmosphere that is as informal as possible to create space for team members to discover and develop common ground. This is one reason why we believe that for concurrent design to work well, face-to-face meetings are best.

3 – Be driven by data

RHEA Group banner image of woman engineer and globeEarly in any concurrent design study, the team has to identify what the key trade-offs are in the design. These trade-offs become clear when we base our work on facts, as far as possible. By focussing on the most critical and challenging requirements of the design, and quantifying these early in the study, the team becomes aware of key choices, explicit design challenges and important risks and uncertainties.

However, in this preliminary phase, precise metrics and values may not be available. So instead, the team has to rely on realistic estimates and well-reasoned assumptions. The good news is that by using these across several iterations, we can progress from assumptions to facts.

4 – Assign ownership

In concurrent design, participants are invited as ‘mandated experts’. This means that they have expertise or experience relevant to the design challenge and can make decisions that are within the scope of their expertise and/or related to all or part of the project. Importantly, being ‘able’ to make decisions does not just mean they are capable, but also that they have been authorized to make decisions without having to consult their department or manager.

By treating participants as experts, and calling upon their advice and contribution based on their experience and expertise, concurrent design encourages ‘ownership’. We ask experts to share ideas about solutions, as well as their key concerns and any identified risks for the project. But in order for concurrent design to be effective, once we have positioned the stakeholders in our concurrent design ‘arena’, they need to fully embrace their role.

5 – Gain a holistic view through a cyclical approach

Concurrent design supports (technically) complex problems. To approach these problems logically and productively, it is important to regularly zoom in to look at specific subsystems and then zoom back out again. This is a cyclical process, with the team focussing on a key subsystem in each iteration and then assessing how any changes will impact the overall system.

Through these cycles, we work the solution out in more detail and the design gets more comprehensive. The initial requirements and the designed solution start to ‘grow towards’ each other, closing the gap between them. Furthermore, the ‘chain reactions’ in the system – the interdependencies that have the most impact on the whole – are revealed and better understood.

6 – Promote commitment

People-success-congratulationsIn concurrent design, solutions to a problem should always be based on facts. But it is also important that the team supports the solution. This commitment ensures that solutions endure over time and that stakeholders cooperate in implementing them.

Commitment is an indication of how sustainable the results will be. When participants in a concurrent design project indicate that they support a particular result or decision, we can use it. Any result that has a high level of commitment from stakeholders will be more likely to stand the test of time because individuals are less likely to withdraw their support and disregard the outcome.

7 – Motive your team to foster ‘flow’

Working efficiently requires effort and hard work from everyone involved. This is particularly true of concurrent design, which works in a ‘battle rhythm’ of weekly or biweekly sessions

This approach creates a cyclical process in which feedback and following up on tasks is fast and frequent. It needs to be clearly organized and aligned to ensure the process is interactive, keeps a high tempo and has the effect of ‘riding a train’; once on board, you have to keep up the pace.

Together, these factors create more cohesion in the group. Participants experience ‘flow’ and get drawn into the team effort, which usually results in them having more fun and joy in the work they are doing. But in many cases, they are being asked to make a significant extra effort for the concurrent design study on top of their regular job. At RHEA, we address this by motivating participants to work for the study and to take responsibility for their tasks.

 8 – Efficiency

One of the objectives of concurrent design is to speed up the process of the early phases of multidisciplinary projects, not just in lead time, but also by saving overall work-hours. We enable this gain in efficiency through a number of factors including:

  • Team members working in parallel on the solutions
  • Identifying key challenges and trade-offs, and solving them in an integrated manner
  • Using guidance and an integrated design model to create structure and focus
  • Rigorous documentation and management of actions.

Together, these and other elements ensure overall progress is efficient and effective.

9 – Take an iterative approach

staff working at a computerAn iterative approach is central to concurrent design. This means working from high level overviews to increasingly finer details in short cycles in order to arrive at a rigorous solution.

In these cycles, we first explore the solution at a high level of abstraction. It is then decomposed into smaller, sub-system level ‘chunks’. For each of these chunks, we identify, examine and elaborate upon functional solutions to specify the system to a level where we can evaluate it with respect to the key requirements. In the next cycle, the team further develops and scrutinizes the solution to resolve key design challenges. In this way, the design is specified in detail until everyone is satisfied that all critical interdependencies are covered.

10 – Treat the team as a ‘super-brain’!

One vital factor in the success of concurrent design is treating the team as a ‘super-brain’. Together, we know more than each stakeholder does individually. And by exploring different angles to a problem, solutions emerge that are both innovative and integrated. This approach creates room for new ideas and perspectives, and ensures that solutions are challenged by those with different areas of expertise.

Further, we can extend the team’s super-brain with an online memory. Using appropriate IT systems and support, we enable the team to share knowledge and give stakeholders access to different sources of information that can be integrated in a way that allows rigorous analysis. We tap into different perspectives, resulting in both synthesis – the integration of different perspectives – and synergy.

Find out more

Contact us to find out how RHEA’s concurrent design solutions can work in your organization.