The Design Process - Medical Device Design: Innovation from Concept to Market - page 46

Need

Customer Develop specification

Secure
web-based
information
warehouse

Conceptual design

Initial embodiment

Detailed design

Casing team Power pack

team

Chuck team Drive unit

team

Implementation

Figure 3.19
Holistic model.

time difference makes synchronous communication for a sensible period of time difficult.
Here asynchronous collaboration becomes prevalent. All this model does is put a delay into
the system. Using Figure 3.18 as the basis for the discussion, the casing team puts a suggested
design into the data store; China begins office hours and the drive team passes comments and
gives suggestions. The communication is not immediate - it is asynchronous.

Asynchronous communication will always be with us. But even office hours across the world
can be changed to allow for synchronous work, if deemed necessary.
3.3.1.5 Holistic 13 Models
One last model merges the boundaries of a collaborative model. The collaborative model
still allows one person to develop a specification in isolation. This is patently ludicrous. One
person cannot fully understand the demands of a whole system and this inherently makes a
good, strong, robust specification impossible to produce. It relies on people modifying the
specification down the line - this is not good for a right first time ethos. Holistic models bring
the teams higher up the development chain ( Figure 3.19 ) and suggest that they, too, should be
involved in the development of the specification.

13 Holistic is from the Greek and means whole - or in our case include everyone. A search of holistic design on the
web or in the library will result in sources discussing what color shirt you should wear, where to put that plant,
or how to do feng shui. Let us recapture the term for the design fraternity.