The design spiral is an engineering design tool used to reconcile apparently conflicting demands and develop a ‘best fit’ solution that is acceptable on all fronts. We use it to help us through the decision points of life, particularly those that come with retirement: involuntary or otherwise.
It’s great to apply techniques developed for one environment in another. The design spiral is an engineering design tool used to reconcile apparently conflicting demands and develop a ‘best fit’ solution that is acceptable on all fronts.
Taking an example from ship design, the carrying capacity of a ship, and its stability improve as the width of the ship increases, yet the power needed to move it through the water also increases, quite sharply at the same time. Ships are normally limited by the depth of water in one of the ports they must visit, but a long, shallow ship will need a very heavy construction and thus be heavy, and sink lower in the water.
Most design projects will suffer in this way with dozens of inherent conflicts: so what does the designer do.
Well he visualises the final solution as a spot in the centre of his paper with the issues radiating from this spot towards the edge like the spokes of a wheel. Direct conflicts, like those above, radiate in opposite directions. He then guestimates the values of all but one issues and uses these guestimates to calculate the value of the last spoke. And then progresses round the wheel, spoke by spoke, using the current values, guessed or calculated, until he gets back to his starting point.
Of course, each successive calculation is based on better information as guestimates are replaced by calculation, and when he returns to the first spoke he calculated he can recalculate it based much better data. Going back to our diagram with the solution at the centre and the radiating spokes, he is out on the same spoke but significantly nearer the centre than he was before.
Someone invented the concept and called it the design spiral so that he could sell lots of books.
So he can repeat the process however many times it takes to get as close to the centre as he deems necessary – that distance being fixed by the degree to which he is willing to compromise.
Here, strictly for convenience, and at the price if a compromise over political correctness we have used the masculine – he – as compared to she or it. The compromise related to clarity and sexism, in this case opposite spokes of the wheel.
So what, I hear you say.
Well so a lot. As we approach any of the major decision points in life we are faced with conflicting requirements and retirement is certainly one of them. Should we
1. Continue working or settle down to enjoy retirement with the resources we have;
2. Should we downsize our housing and be cramped when the children and grandchildren visit or have the cash resources to travel whilst our health allows.
A business start up offers the same conflicts:
1. Do we start a microbusiness based on existing resources we can afford to loose or do we borrow and invest to give our business the chance to expand and prosper
2. Do we trade exclusively on the internet or set up in premises
3. Do we do what we enjoy or what will turn a profit.
The list goes on and of course the design spiral does not provide the answers, on a discipline to help us find those answers.
Ponzis and Pyramids
Fraudsters prey on the gullible and the greedy but all too often that includes you and me. Looked at dispassionately both are transparently dishonest, but when we are confronted with the chance to make 'real' money how many of us are truly dispassionate.
Ponzis and Pyramids - words to the wize
Fraudsters prey on the gullible and the greedy but all too often that includes you and me. Looked at dispassionately both are transparently dishonest, but when we are confronted with the chance to make 'real' money how many of us are truly dispassionate.
Watching the Pennies
Retirement changes everything, and retirement in a recession where interest rates are non existent and dividends a joke means we have to look after the pennies, the cents, the annas.
