Awkward Engineer - Blog

The Awkward Engineers Uses Bits of Wax to Make His House Better

by Sam Feller

The Awkward Engineers Uses Bits of Wax to Make His House Better

As winter approaches, I am 100% still geeking out about some old school mechanical technology I installed in my home that let me move from a single...

The Awkward Engineer Makes Laundry Better with Lean Manufacturing Principles and Pop Psychology

by Sam Feller

The Awkward Engineer Makes Laundry Better with Lean Manufacturing Principles and Pop Psychology

I have a personal household Nirvana of sorts that I'm currently questing after (and I also think my wife is questing me to quest after) where laundry and dishes are no longer burdensome unpleasant chores, but rather, are transformed into pleasant activities that can bring a sense of satisfaction. Of course, to my wife's great satisfaction, this means I do a lot more of them.

The Awkward Engineer, Trello, and Love of Physical Paper

by Sam Feller

The Awkward Engineer, Trello, and Love of Physical Paper

This post is about a dream I have to develop a perfect tool that marries the physical with the digital. In this case, I'm just talking about tools to manage my to do lists and notes. Things that I love about pen and paper include that:

The AwkEng Explores Information Design

by Sam Feller

As a technical program manager, I spend a fair bit of time these days compiling and collecting status, hence the need for better tools.

The Awkward Engineer Reviews a Book About Kanban

by Sam Feller

The Awkward Engineer Reviews a Book About Kanban

If you haven't read Lean MVP, I'd recommend that first over Product Development Flow as it's more digestable. If you're interested in applying Kanban to non-software processes, or getting into more technical detail of why Kanban works, then I recommend picking up a copy

Book Report: Toyota Production System

by Sam Feller

Book Report: Toyota Production System

I recently finished Toyota Production System, by Taiichi Ohno, who developed and implemented the system company wide at Toyota. Taiichi Ohno readil...

Competing Against Amazon and Big Box

by Sam Feller
Here are some of my ideas for what I've been calling the "Better Bodega" or the "Micro Store of the Future." It's written in response to trends I'v...

My Ideas for Saving the Movies (or maybe just movie theaters)

by Sam Feller
I love the movies. We've all heard that Hollywood is hurting and movie theaters along with it. Here are my ideas for how to save them. (The movie ...

Scrummish Notebook Update

by Sam Feller

Scrummish Notebook Update

I've been continuing to make progress on the notebook... this time, with dry erase magnets! -Sam  

How to use a personal SCRUM board

by Sam Feller

How to use a personal SCRUM board

I've been working on getting offline more often and for me, that also meant moving some of my favorite tools offline. I've been using www.trello.co...

SCRUM-ish Notebook

by Sam Feller

SCRUM-ish Notebook

I've been trying to cut down on my internet habit in general. I really liked using Trello.com to manage a sort of scrum-ish to do list, but Trello,...

Working with Designers

by Sam Feller
Seth Godin's guidelines on working with designers are so good that I've copied them here verbatim. -source Here are four postures to consider in wo...