00:00:00What Design Fog Really Is
00:02:05Holding the Not Knowing
00:03:17Three Engines Behind the Jump
00:04:31Arc Roadmap and Upcoming Guests
00:06:09Practice Question and Wrap Up
OM DENNE EPISODE
When a project goes off track, we usually look back and say, “We didn’t define the problem, and we jumped.” That sounds like a process breakdown, as if one good checklist or gate approval would have prevented it.
But design fog runs deeper than missing process. It’s what’s happening in us.
Over the next few episodes on Quality During Design, we’re exploring a quieter question: When we jump to a solution, why?
Before we understand the problem, we start building. We skip questioning and investigating, jump the peak of the design diamond, and reach for a solution that feels like progress, but is really an emotional shield against the discomfort of not knowing. It’s the "Ta-Da Flop" waiting to happen.
In this Season 7 opener, Dianna Deeney introduces the roadmap for this season's arc:
- What the "Anti-Jump" looks like: Staying in the fog on purpose to uncover the design inputs that actually matter.
- Why the jump is so hard to resist: In the moment, jumping doesn't feel like failure—it feels like forward progress.
The Three Internal Engines:
- Speed: When additive manufacturing, digital twins, and AI make building cheap, jumping gets easier.
- Certainty: When we’re convinced we already know, we stop checking.
- The Deeper Engine: A more human driver running underneath both, saved for our season finale.
The Roadmap: How upcoming guests like Ashley Roach (on the "tweak loop" and one-way vs. two-way doors) connect directly into this framework.
Your Practice Question for the Week:
When you catch yourself jumping this week, don’t judge it. Just ask:
"Did I jump because it was easy to build, or because I was certain I already knew?"
Resources Mentioned:
- Featured Book: Pierce the Design Fog: Develop High-Quality Products Faster Through Team Innovation by Dianna Deeney. Learn more at piercethedesignfog.com.
- Double Diamond Diagram: Check out the accompanying graphic in the blog post at deeneyenterprises.com/qdd/podcast/s7e1.
Subscribe to Quality During Design so you don't miss an episode in this season's arc!
Other podcast episodes you may like:
- Predictive Analytics, Machine Learning, AI, and VR in Design Engineering
- Stop Being a Witness to Decisions That You Should be Helping to Shape
- Foundations-Exploring the Problem Space, A Key Principle for Robust Product Design and Project Success
- The Design Fog is Derailing Your Project
Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not late when it's expensive and painful.
Book a 20-minute discovery call with Dianna's calendar. Whether you're navigating the "fuzzy front end" of product development and want to explore a workshop or advisory partnership, or you'd like to be a guest on this podcast. You'll leave with a summary, relevant resources, and a clear path for next steps within 24 hours.
Pierce the Design Fog (piercethedesignfog.com): my book on aligning cross-functional teams, defining clear design inputs, and accelerating product success. NIEA Finalist Award, reviewed by PDMA. "Great for fans of Tony Fadell’s Build, David H. DeWolf and Jessica S. Hall’s The Product Mindset."-BookLife Reviews (Publishers Weekly)
Connect with me: I'm most active on LinkedIn.
Free Resources for Subscribers Subscribe to the Quality during Design digest — https://newsletter.deeneyenterprises.com — for monthly actionable highlights, plus access to the Strategic Quality Integration Checklist (a free self-assessment download) and my Swipe File Vault.
Engelsk
USA
VIS NOTER 🔗
UDSKRIFT 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:00.150 --> 00:00:02.650
Design fog isn't a single thing.
00:00:03.060 --> 00:00:08.211
When we talk about it, we usually mean we didn't define the problem and we jumped.
00:00:09.250 --> 00:00:18.111
That sounds like a process breakdown, like one good checklist would fix it, but the fog runs deeper than the process.
00:00:18.560 --> 00:00:21.381
It's also what's happening in us.
00:00:22.670 --> 00:00:27.681
The next few episodes are going to be an arc where we explore a quieter question.
00:00:28.650 --> 00:00:31.260
When we jump to a solution, why?
00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:36.451
Not what's missing in our process, what's happening in us?
00:00:37.631 --> 00:00:40.060
The answers aren't one thing.
00:00:40.151 --> 00:00:41.110
There are several.
00:00:42.091 --> 00:00:46.191
We're zooming in on three of them, three that live in how we think.
00:00:47.040 --> 00:00:56.831
There are other reasons we jump, how we run and rush team meetings, how information gets lost in the handoff, the assumptions we never stop to examine.
00:00:57.600 --> 00:00:59.820
Those live and pierce the design fog.
00:01:00.371 --> 00:01:09.938
This arc is about the three internal engines Here's the thing that makes it worth our time to study this.
00:01:10.778 --> 00:01:13.959
The fix isn't just see it and willpower.
00:01:14.838 --> 00:01:19.668
Deliberate structures can help us hold the not knowing instead of jumping.
00:01:20.498 --> 00:01:23.769
A structure can help us train the reflex.
00:01:24.888 --> 00:01:29.049
Let me introduce this arc a little more after the brief introduction.
00:02:08.224 --> 00:02:14.375
Design fog is what happens when we cross from the problem space into the solution space too early.
00:02:15.025 --> 00:02:17.865
Before we understand the problem, we start building.
00:02:18.495 --> 00:02:27.715
We skip the questioning and investigating, jump the peak of the diamond, and reach for a solution that feels like progress, but is really a shield.
00:02:28.435 --> 00:02:30.854
It's the ta-da flop waiting to happen.
00:02:32.205 --> 00:02:40.134
Check out the blog post associated with this episode, and I'll attach an informational graphic that best describes this.
00:02:41.835 --> 00:02:45.634
So that's the design fog and jumping too early.
00:02:46.585 --> 00:02:53.754
Now, what the anti-jump looks like is that we're staying in the fog on purpose.
00:02:54.395 --> 00:02:59.985
We're holding the not knowing so we can question and investigate before we build.
00:03:00.935 --> 00:03:02.284
That's not stalling.
00:03:02.634 --> 00:03:09.181
That's where the good design inputs come from Here's the thing about the jump.
00:03:09.890 --> 00:03:12.390
It doesn't feel like failure in the moment.
00:03:12.471 --> 00:03:14.040
It feels like progress.
00:03:14.371 --> 00:03:16.390
That's what makes it hard to resist.
00:03:17.070 --> 00:03:19.191
So then why do we jump?
00:03:20.221 --> 00:03:26.652
The FOG has more than one engine We're going to be covering three.
00:03:27.603 --> 00:03:29.383
One engine is speed.
00:03:30.362 --> 00:03:37.103
It is easier than ever before to start building things and to build them cheaply.
00:03:37.893 --> 00:03:46.143
We have digital twins, we have AI, we have additive manufacturing and cheaper prototyping.
00:03:47.312 --> 00:03:50.742
When the building gets cheap, the jumping gets easier.
00:03:52.592 --> 00:03:54.402
Another engine is certainty.
00:03:54.953 --> 00:04:00.353
When we're sure we already know, we stop checking and we just move forward.
00:04:01.212 --> 00:04:04.842
This is also a problem in classical problem-solving.
00:04:05.953 --> 00:04:11.552
If we don't properly define the problem, we may miss out on the root cause or the real solution to it.
00:04:13.552 --> 00:04:24.504
And the third engine runs deeper And the third engine is the deeper one running underneath the other two.
00:04:25.605 --> 00:04:29.305
We're going to be covering these engines in one arc.
00:04:29.884 --> 00:04:32.954
So one arc, three different faces or engines.
00:04:33.615 --> 00:04:53.470
This episode is a map, and the upcoming guests to the show are going to fill in the stops Now, there's a reason that I'm starting this arc with an introductory episode, because naming the faces now means each upcoming conversation lands inside a framework that we're already in.
00:04:54.279 --> 00:04:55.790
They're not a random guest.
00:04:56.160 --> 00:04:59.579
We're building one idea with a pattern spotting approach.
00:05:00.579 --> 00:05:06.230
And in this arc, I'll keep pointing you to one place to practice it: pierce the design fog.
00:05:06.910 --> 00:05:21.442
Because the reflex may be human, but the way we train against it can be structural In the upcoming episode that releases in a couple weeks, Ashley Roach joins us to talk about speed.
00:05:22.641 --> 00:05:34.961
He talks about when making building things cheap and fast, the hard part stops being can we build it and becomes should I stop tweaking and put it in front of real users?
00:05:36.182 --> 00:05:49.961
He'll show us the trap of falling in love with a prototype, the loop of I could just tweak this one thing, and he gives a way through it, the one-way, two-way door, the test for whether a decision is safe to ship and learn from.
00:05:51.221 --> 00:05:55.862
Then another guest is going to be joining us to talk about certainty.
00:05:56.562 --> 00:06:01.812
When we're confident we already know the customer and problem, we may commit before we check.
00:06:03.422 --> 00:06:08.572
And if speed is the tool and certainty is the excuse, what's underneath both?
00:06:09.161 --> 00:06:11.531
Why is the fog so hard to sit in?
00:06:12.512 --> 00:06:28.281
There's a reason, and the most human one, and it's the last conversation of this arc So I ask you to subscribe to the podcast so you'll get each new episode as it drops I'll leave you with a quick question.
00:06:29.071 --> 00:06:33.461
When you catch yourself jumping this week, don't judge it.
00:06:33.721 --> 00:06:45.930
Just ask,"Did I jump because it was easy to build or because I was certain I already knew?" Start there, and then we'll add the third question over this arc.
00:06:46.649 --> 00:06:53.137
I look forward to exploring this topic with you This has been a production of Deeney Enterprises.
00:06:53.427 --> 00:06:54.338
Thanks for listening
00:00:00.150 --> 00:00:02.650
Design fog isn't a single thing.
00:00:03.060 --> 00:00:08.211
When we talk about it, we usually mean we didn't define the problem and we jumped.
00:00:09.250 --> 00:00:18.111
That sounds like a process breakdown, like one good checklist would fix it, but the fog runs deeper than the process.
00:00:18.560 --> 00:00:21.381
It's also what's happening in us.
00:00:22.670 --> 00:00:27.681
The next few episodes are going to be an arc where we explore a quieter question.
00:00:28.650 --> 00:00:31.260
When we jump to a solution, why?
00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:36.451
Not what's missing in our process, what's happening in us?
00:00:37.631 --> 00:00:40.060
The answers aren't one thing.
00:00:40.151 --> 00:00:41.110
There are several.
00:00:42.091 --> 00:00:46.191
We're zooming in on three of them, three that live in how we think.
00:00:47.040 --> 00:00:56.831
There are other reasons we jump, how we run and rush team meetings, how information gets lost in the handoff, the assumptions we never stop to examine.
00:00:57.600 --> 00:00:59.820
Those live and pierce the design fog.
00:01:00.371 --> 00:01:09.938
This arc is about the three internal engines Here's the thing that makes it worth our time to study this.
00:01:10.778 --> 00:01:13.959
The fix isn't just see it and willpower.
00:01:14.838 --> 00:01:19.668
Deliberate structures can help us hold the not knowing instead of jumping.
00:01:20.498 --> 00:01:23.769
A structure can help us train the reflex.
00:01:24.888 --> 00:01:29.049
Let me introduce this arc a little more after the brief introduction.
00:02:08.224 --> 00:02:14.375
Design fog is what happens when we cross from the problem space into the solution space too early.
00:02:15.025 --> 00:02:17.865
Before we understand the problem, we start building.
00:02:18.495 --> 00:02:27.715
We skip the questioning and investigating, jump the peak of the diamond, and reach for a solution that feels like progress, but is really a shield.
00:02:28.435 --> 00:02:30.854
It's the ta-da flop waiting to happen.
00:02:32.205 --> 00:02:40.134
Check out the blog post associated with this episode, and I'll attach an informational graphic that best describes this.
00:02:41.835 --> 00:02:45.634
So that's the design fog and jumping too early.
00:02:46.585 --> 00:02:53.754
Now, what the anti-jump looks like is that we're staying in the fog on purpose.
00:02:54.395 --> 00:02:59.985
We're holding the not knowing so we can question and investigate before we build.
00:03:00.935 --> 00:03:02.284
That's not stalling.
00:03:02.634 --> 00:03:09.181
That's where the good design inputs come from Here's the thing about the jump.
00:03:09.890 --> 00:03:12.390
It doesn't feel like failure in the moment.
00:03:12.471 --> 00:03:14.040
It feels like progress.
00:03:14.371 --> 00:03:16.390
That's what makes it hard to resist.
00:03:17.070 --> 00:03:19.191
So then why do we jump?
00:03:20.221 --> 00:03:26.652
The FOG has more than one engine We're going to be covering three.
00:03:27.603 --> 00:03:29.383
One engine is speed.
00:03:30.362 --> 00:03:37.103
It is easier than ever before to start building things and to build them cheaply.
00:03:37.893 --> 00:03:46.143
We have digital twins, we have AI, we have additive manufacturing and cheaper prototyping.
00:03:47.312 --> 00:03:50.742
When the building gets cheap, the jumping gets easier.
00:03:52.592 --> 00:03:54.402
Another engine is certainty.
00:03:54.953 --> 00:04:00.353
When we're sure we already know, we stop checking and we just move forward.
00:04:01.212 --> 00:04:04.842
This is also a problem in classical problem-solving.
00:04:05.953 --> 00:04:11.552
If we don't properly define the problem, we may miss out on the root cause or the real solution to it.
00:04:13.552 --> 00:04:24.504
And the third engine runs deeper And the third engine is the deeper one running underneath the other two.
00:04:25.605 --> 00:04:29.305
We're going to be covering these engines in one arc.
00:04:29.884 --> 00:04:32.954
So one arc, three different faces or engines.
00:04:33.615 --> 00:04:53.470
This episode is a map, and the upcoming guests to the show are going to fill in the stops Now, there's a reason that I'm starting this arc with an introductory episode, because naming the faces now means each upcoming conversation lands inside a framework that we're already in.
00:04:54.279 --> 00:04:55.790
They're not a random guest.
00:04:56.160 --> 00:04:59.579
We're building one idea with a pattern spotting approach.
00:05:00.579 --> 00:05:06.230
And in this arc, I'll keep pointing you to one place to practice it: pierce the design fog.
00:05:06.910 --> 00:05:21.442
Because the reflex may be human, but the way we train against it can be structural In the upcoming episode that releases in a couple weeks, Ashley Roach joins us to talk about speed.
00:05:22.641 --> 00:05:34.961
He talks about when making building things cheap and fast, the hard part stops being can we build it and becomes should I stop tweaking and put it in front of real users?
00:05:36.182 --> 00:05:49.961
He'll show us the trap of falling in love with a prototype, the loop of I could just tweak this one thing, and he gives a way through it, the one-way, two-way door, the test for whether a decision is safe to ship and learn from.
00:05:51.221 --> 00:05:55.862
Then another guest is going to be joining us to talk about certainty.
00:05:56.562 --> 00:06:01.812
When we're confident we already know the customer and problem, we may commit before we check.
00:06:03.422 --> 00:06:08.572
And if speed is the tool and certainty is the excuse, what's underneath both?
00:06:09.161 --> 00:06:11.531
Why is the fog so hard to sit in?
00:06:12.512 --> 00:06:28.281
There's a reason, and the most human one, and it's the last conversation of this arc So I ask you to subscribe to the podcast so you'll get each new episode as it drops I'll leave you with a quick question.
00:06:29.071 --> 00:06:33.461
When you catch yourself jumping this week, don't judge it.
00:06:33.721 --> 00:06:45.930
Just ask,"Did I jump because it was easy to build or because I was certain I already knew?" Start there, and then we'll add the third question over this arc.
00:06:46.649 --> 00:06:53.137
I look forward to exploring this topic with you This has been a production of Deeney Enterprises.
00:06:53.427 --> 00:06:54.338
Thanks for listening
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