Choose It: Making Decisions Beyond Gut Instinct
Your Quality during Design Digest
Welcome to the December edition of the Quality during Design Digest!
With Phase 3: Choose It underway (our final segment of this arc), we’re exploring ways to make decisions beyond gut instinct. After framing our design challenges and investigating them with strategic testing, December brings us to the critical question: How do we decide between viable options when we’ll never have 100% confidence?
This month features frameworks for making high-stakes design decisions, the launch of the Concept Quest card deck, and insights into how AI is reshaping engineering workflows.
Dianna
Quality during Design has been brought to you since 2021 from Deeney Enterprises and Dianna Deeney. This is the monthly digest sent on the first Friday of the month: gain insights, podcast highlights, and resources for engineering design professionals.
This month’s highlights at a glance:
Choose It: Making Decisions Without Perfect Information: December culminates our three-phase arc with frameworks for deciding between viable options when you’ll never have 100% confidence, moving beyond gut instinct to strategic choice.
Concept Quest Card Deck Launches: The physical companion to Pierce the Design Fog arrives on Amazon by December 15th. It’s your facilitation cheat sheet for guiding teams through concept development without losing your way.
AI Is Rewiring Engineering Workflows: Native AI in CAD programs and cross-platform tools are shifting engineers from modelers to managers. Learn how to adopt these probability-based tools while maintaining engineering precision.
What’s Actually New in Manufacturing: Insights from the Design 2 Part Event that I attended in November reveal what’s genuinely changing in the manufacturing landscape, and what’s just repackaged hype.
This month in December: Phase 3 - Choose It
In December, we’re culminating our Phase 1 Frame-It and Phase 2 Investigate-It into ways to make a final decision: Do we need to continue testing, or should we move forward?
Free for all: Podcast episodes on Phase 3 topics.
Builder Tier+: AMA Dec 9-16, Strategic Insights Dec 23, new templates
Strategist Tier: Live chat (date TBA)
On Substack - November 2025: Choosing the right path
November dove into the critical stage of design testing: moving beyond “risk theater” to tests that truly shift your confidence needle. Here’s what you might have missed:
Free Content
🎙️ Podcast Episode: Raise Your Confidence by Strategically Stacking Evidence We walk through a clear, repeatable method to investigate unexpected failures and make high-impact decisions with confidence. Listen → https://deeneyenterprises.com/qdd/podcast/raise-your-confidence-by-strategically-stacking-evidence/
🎙️ Podcast Episode: Confidence Is a Dial: Turn It with Evidence, Not Guesswork We show how to work backward from a system test to cheaper steps that drive faster, clearer decisions. Listen → https://deeneyenterprises.com/qdd/podcast/confidence-is-a-dial-turn-it-with-evidence-not-guesswork/
Paid Content (Builder Tier+)
📋 Monthly AMA: Investigate It: How to design tests that actually move your confidence needle, and when to stop. We want to do activities that actually move our confidence needle and know when to stop. Comments were open Nov 11-18 for Q&A on your specific situations.
🔍 Strategic Insights: Beyond the Perfect Test: Building Confidence Through Strategic Testing Industries with high consequences (medical, aerospace, automotive) have evolved sophisticated testing strategies that balance regulatory requirements, budget constraints, and time-to-market.
New in the Swipe File Vault: Investigate It Framework
Conversations
Read & listen to get a different perspective and learn next steps.
Next week: New podcasts
Join Fred and I on two new episodes of “Speaking of Reliability”. We talk about testing and value - two topics that relate to our theme this month.
Changing engineering design workflows
Engineering design workflows are shifting. AI Copilots are becoming fully integrated, full-time assistants. Engineers may become more manager than modeler.
Major CAD program vendors embed features like Sketch Assist and Automated Mesh. That’s native AI. Cross-platform AI is designed to read, check or optimize files from multiple CAD programs. Engineers may let AI manage the mechanical design fundamentals while they focus on more high-value decisions. Read more from folks at MechanicalEngineering.com → AI Copilots Are Rewiring Mechanical Design: What Engineers Need to Know Right Now
A shift in thinking we must make when adopting these tools: AI output is based on probability. Engineering focuses on precision.
We need an engineer’s eye to evaluate design aspects like feasibility and assembly. There are complex, real-world constraints that can’t be addressed by AI.
The AI used must be specialized, not generic. It needs domain-specific knowledge from specialized engineering standards.
It’s a new tool, so adopt it! Just approach its use with the discerning eye that engineers are trained to use. AI doesn’t “think”. Engineers do. Use the AI as extra information/analysis to make better decisions.
Concept Quest: Design Discovery Card Deck
Coming in December on Amazon: the companion card deck to Pierce the Design Fog! Perfect for design team leads, facilitators, and anyone implementing Pierce the Design Fog methods
Implement the Pierce the Design Fog Methodology. This essential companion deck acts as a practical physical cheat sheet, supplementing the methods and frameworks found in the book.
Eliminate Facilitation Anxiety. Stop worrying about losing your way. Use these cards for planning and during live meetings to ensure you guide your team effectively through new concept development skills.
Step-by-Step Concept Suites. Each suite of cards guides your team through the exact steps needed to develop powerful concepts, ensuring high-quality design inputs from start to finish.
Expert at Your Elbow. Cards are discrete, easy to read, and serve as a constant reminder of the next step, allowing you to focus on your team rather than your notes.
Solve Prioritization Roadblocks. Includes specific cards designed to help teams rate, prioritize, and align on critical impacts and use steps when concept development stalls.
High-Quality, Durable Design. 52 professionally printed, durable cards measuring 3.5 x 5 inches, packaged in a sturdy tuck box for easy transport and storage.
Drive Meaningful Design Inputs. Together with the book, this deck ensures you are well on your way to generating concept development and design inputs that truly matter for your product success.
Here’s an unboxing video if you want to see more of it.
Want to know a secret? I actually built the card deck BEFORE I wrote the book!
Check Amazon for the Card Deck, available by December 15th. It ships right from the printer!
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The card deck "Concept Quest: Design Discovery" is now available! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G75HYRQJ