Defining Kill Criteria, Using Expected Value, and Our Full 3-Phase Arc (Now Open to All)
Your Quality during Design Digest
Happy New Year! This is your January edition of the Quality during Design Digest.
New year, same problem: teams still building the wrong thing. Let's fix that in 2026. This month we dive into a critical topic: Why Your Team Builds the Wrong Thing and How to Fix It Early. Stay tuned for podcasts and articles related to that theme.
A note on access: everything is free now. I ran a three-month paid subscription trial with extra perks, watched 1,400 people engage with the content but not opt in, and realized I'd built the wrong thing: a paywall that blocked the people I'm trying to help. So, I'm killing it. (See what I did there? Kill criteria in action.) The full 3-phase arc and all future content is now open to everyone. Fewer investigative posts, less availability, but no paywall. Better trade-off.
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:
January Theme: Learn why your team might be building the wrong thing and discover strategies for fixing the problem early in the design process.
Catch Up on December: Review the final phase of our 3-month arc, “Choose-it,” focusing on defining Kill Criteria to avoid zombie projects and using Expected Value for sober decision-making.
Podcast Deep Dive: New episodes of “Speaking of Reliability” discuss the critical need for engineers to quantify value and how to maximize results when selecting tests.
Audiobook Update: The Pierce the Design Fog audiobook is in the final production stages and will be available on Spotify and other platforms soon.
New Tool Available: The companion Concept Quest: Design Discovery card deck is now available on Amazon, perfect for team workshops and facilitating design discovery.
In January
At the beginning of a year, we’re usually looking for fresh starts or doing things a bit differently or better. That’s why we’ll be covering this topic: Why Your Team Builds the Wrong Thing and How to Fix It Early.
Free for all: Podcast episodes and blogs on deeneyenterprises.com.
What you get as a subscriber:
Substack articles + Q&A participation
Free guides, templates, and vault downloads
Everything organized in the Substack app
December recap: The Complete Choose-It Phase (now unlocked)
In December, we covered the decision phase. Which option will we choose? Do we go for that one last test, or is it overkill? Here’s what you might have missed:
Free Content
🎙️ Podcast Episode: Define Kill Criteria to Avoid Zombie Projects We review to define kill criteria and why they’re just as important as “go” criteria. Listen → https://deeneyenterprises.com/qdd/podcast/define-kill-criteria-to-avoid-zombie-projects/
🎙️ Podcast Episode: Expected Value Makes Uncertainty Manageable We unpack a simple way to make those calls with more clarity: using expected value to connect confidence, upside, and downside into one sober view of net benefit. Listen → https://deeneyenterprises.com/qdd/podcast/expected-value-makes-uncertainty-manageable/
📋 AMA: Choose it: How to Decide Between Viable Options When You’ll Never Have 100% Confidence We explore ways to compare option: against each other to meet criteria. We also introduce expected value as a test of whether an option is a good business fit.
🔍 Strategic Insights: The Kill Criteria: How Tesla Decides Which Battery Innovations to Pursue (And Which to Abandon) We use our AMA methods and the publicly available information we know about Tesla’s battery innovation in a case study of decision making.
New in the Swipe File Vault: Choose It Framework
That’s a wrap on our 3-phase arc.
We finished our arc about late-stage decisions. If you missed any of them, go back to visit them (all are 100% open and free).
Together they support decision making in engineering. What you learn in Phase 1 informs phase 2, and phase 2 feeds into phase 3.
Must you use them together? Absolutely not. But I wanted to show you how these individual decision methods can work together to help you in your work.
If you didn’t catch it, that’s alright. Subscribe and view them anytime. Easily get to the instructional Ask Me Anything (AMA) posts and the Strategic Insights posts on homepage of the Substack channel (see the pic, below). They’re there when you need them. Got questions about it? Leave a question in the comments section or reach out to me.
Conversations
Speaking of Reliability
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 in December.
SOR 1130 Capturing Value
Join Dianna and Fred as they discuss the often-overlooked necessity for reliability and quality engineers to quantify value, document the cost of unreliability, and speak the language of management. https://accendoreliability.com/podcast/sor/sor-1130-capturing-value/
SOR 1131 Selecting Tests
Join Dianna and Fred as they discuss selecting tests, maximizing value while avoiding the common pitfalls of over-testing or testing the wrong parameters. https://accendoreliability.com/podcast/sor/sor-1131-selecting-tests/
The Audiobook is in final production steps
After Pierce the Design Fog was released, I started recording the audiobook. My office doubles as my recording space, so where I record podcasts is where I did the audiobook. But, with a whole different approach to editing!
Since I needed to modify content a tiny bit to fit a listening experience, I decided to do it “old school” without using AI, like ElevenLabs. It is going through final quality checks, including the companion .pdf, then will be processed by providers in just a couple of days.
It will be available on your preferred platform soon! Look for it first on Spotify, then everywhere else you get your audiobooks (including Audible and more).
Concept Quest: Design Discovery Card Deck
The companion card deck to Pierce the Design Fog is now available. Concept Quest: Design Discovery is perfect for design team leads, facilitators, and anyone implementing Pierce the Design Fog methods. Get it on Amazon.
How to engage with me
🎉 Quick Poll: What’s on Your 2026 Event Wish List? 🎉
I’m planning ahead for 2026, and I want to know:
✨ Which conferences or events are you most excited to attend?
🚀 Or which one’s been on your “someday” list?
Drop your top pick below, whether it’s a global summit, niche tech meetup, or that dream industry gathering. If your pick is not on the list, share a comment!