Social Dynamics within Engineering with Yakira Mirabito (A Chat with Cross-Functional Experts)

Dianna Deeney interviews Yakira Mirabito about social dynamics within engineering and how it affects decision making. The episode focuses on improving design reviews and making them more inclusive.

Yakira explains how things like personalities and power dynamics can really affect decisions made by design teams. She gives advice to engineers on how to prepare for these reviews, such as how to give presentations effectively and encourage helpful feedback from team members. She also highlights useful tools, like the “Identity Wheel,” to help people understand each other's backgrounds and avoid biases when making decisions. The episode is a great resource for anyone who wants to improve teamwork and create better products!

Yakira Mirabito is a postdoctoral researcher at MIT whose work falls within design theory and engineering management. Her research examines how sociotechnical factors influence design decisions using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Her research interests include design behavior, cognitive biases, and social dynamics within engineering contexts. Yakira's work enhances current design methods and tools, empowering engineers to build more innovative and equitable systems.

Visit the Quality during Design podcast blog for more.
And visit www.yakiramirabito.com for Yakira's resources and ways to contact her about collaborating.

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ABOUT DIANNA
Dianna Deeney is a quality advocate for product development with over 25 years of experience in manufacturing. She is president of Deeney Enterprises, LLC, which helps organizations and people improve engineering design.

Transcript

Dianna 0:00

You've just left a design review that sort of went sideways, and now you're even more confused about what you're supposed to be doing and what the decisions are. What's going on? It may be personality power dynamics. Let's talk with Dr Yukira Mirabito about this and more after the brief introduction. Hello and welcome to Quality During Design, the place to use quality thinking to create products others love for less. I'm your host, diana Deeney. I'm a senior level quality professional and engineer with over 20 years of experience in manufacturing and design. I consult with businesses and coach individuals and how to apply quality during design to their processes. Listen in and then join us. Visit qualityduringdesigncom.

Dianna 0:50

Welcome back to this special episode of the Quality During Design podcast. This is a special episode because I'm interviewing Akira Mirabito, somebody that I met was presenting at the ASME conference, and I thought I had something really interesting to share and I wanted to bring her research and to talk about ways that we can apply what she's learned to make our engineering lives and careers a little easier and a little better. If you're a repeat listener of the Quality During Design podcast, welcome back. If you're new to the Quality During Design Podcast, welcome. We talk a lot about product development and engineers working to create new products. Quality During Design is a philosophy that emphasizes the benefits of cross-functional team involvement in design. It's also a methodology that uses quality tools to refine design concepts early. So if you are involved in designing stuff and want or need to know how to do it better, if you want to avoid surprises during tests, design what your customers really want and have a shorter design cycle, and also if you feel like you need to do more with less and still create the best, we have some resources for you. I invite you to visit and bookmark the website qualityduringdesigncom. On that website, you can access and search through the podcast library. There's also additional training links and other offerings available that you can access for free. If you want to stay on top of what's the latest and greatest, then please sign up for our monthly newsletter. All of this can be done at qualityduringdesigncom.

Dianna 2:31

This interview is part of our series a chat with cross-functional experts, and the focus is speaking with people that are typically part of cross-functional teams within engineering projects. In this case, yakira is an engineer and a researcher and studies cross-functional teams and teams in product development. Yakira Mirabito is a postdoctoral researcher at MIT whose work falls within design theory and engineering management. Her research examines how sociotechnical factors influence design decisions, using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Her research interests include design behavior, cognitive biases and social dynamics within engineering contexts. Yakira's work enhances current design methods and tools, empowering engineers to build more innovative and equitable systems. She received her BS in material science and engineering from Northwestern University and her MS and PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California Berkeley.

Dianna 3:36

Yakira and I had a fantastic conversation and there's some actionable steps that you can take for yourself and for your business. Stay tuned to the end of the episode where Yakira has an offer to help you and your team. Let's start talking with Yakira to get some ideas about how we can do better. So, yakira, it's nice to see you again. We were talking about that. You just got your PhD, which is a big deal, thank you. You are in mechanical engineering, but you study some particular things about mechanical engineering more around behavioral research. Can you tell us a little bit more about what it is that you're studying? What your interest is with mechanical engineering and people working together? Yes, of course.

Yakira 4:21

My background is actually. My undergrad is in material science and engineering. I did a good amount of design work in my undergrad and that's where I fell in love with just working with people, designing products for people, and for the PhD I wanted to continue within that realm, which led me to mechanical engineering and looking at design research as a way of okay, instead of necessarily working in just like one niche of how to improve that product for a specific set of users. How can I help the range of designers and engineers do that? So in order to do that, I need to study people, which involves human subject studies, and I use a range of different methods, so qualitative research, and I use a range of different methods, so qualitative research quantitative research, interviews, controlled experiments, observations, because people are interested, yeah.

Yakira 5:27

So what industries have you kind of gotten to observe or get into? All sorts of industries? Is there anyone you really like For my work? The most recent project I was able to observe across three different industries. One was related to manufacturing, the other was more of a consumer product focus and then the last one was kind of a technology large tech company. Previously I sampled different participants from across various engineering industries because I really just want to look at their decision making processes, so I haven't really been too niche as to one or the other. Yeah, so pretty open. But if there's folks ever interested or industries that would love to have me and kind of observe and work within that industry, I'm certainly open to that.

Dianna 6:02

I guess you do. You focus on mechanical engineering stuff. So the teams that you're observing, they're mechanical engineers, but they're also, I'm guessing, other kinds of engineers too. Is that right?

Yakira 6:14

Yes, for the most recent project, a range of kind of designers, design engineer type of roles, kind of design leads a range, and also kind of a range of products, some very technical and some kind of more, looking at the broader launch of that product which includes maybe some of the less technical components.

Dianna 6:37

So all along the product development lifecycle too, you've been looking at teams and how they work together.

Yakira 6:44

Correct, yeah, and I think especially on smaller companies where roles are a bit more kind of they blend into each other and people have to wear a little bit more hats. That's generally the case. But for some of the controlled studies that I run, I'll focus on something very technical or kind of very traditionally mechanical engineering and kind of go back to our basics. So, like one of the projects I'm working on, we're looking at how people set up a kind of a 3D print and looking at the different infill densities and kind of some of the intuition behind that. So that's a bit more on the additive manufacturing side.

Dianna 7:22

Oh, that's interesting Now when I met you at the ASME conference and you were giving a talk about design reviews but it was leaning toward giving engineers tools to be able to have better design reviews. Sometimes with these design reviews we kind of get ready we're creating a presentation, we're inviting the right people, and then we're also a little bit nervous because we need to present, which is not something we're always used to, and sometimes we present, we don't get a lot of communication or feedback or whatever happens in the meeting, something happens differently later outside of the meeting. So your research and your work that you presented on, I found was very interesting because it looked at the interactions of people at design reviews and what kind of effect that has. Is there anything else that you would add to some of the problems that you've been seeing during design reviews that your research addresses?

Yakira 8:26

about how hierarchy or power and status are kind of influencing the meeting dynamics and then ultimately having some impact on the design decisions that are made. I think there's definitely I think in the broader sense of my work or future directions, there's other dynamics and kind of biases that we can look at and kind of think about. If we look up cognitive biases, there's like a pretty long list and just thinking about what those are, so being increasing our awareness on one hand and then kind of taking action to kind of improve or really minimize those negative impacts that we might see in the meetings.

Dianna 9:21

Does a lot of this thought process go into if I'm an engineer doing a design review or preparing for one? Does a lot of this thought process go into if I'm an engineer doing a design review or preparing for one? These are a lot of the things that I would think about when I'm setting up the presentation, also during and after, is that right? So it's just all the interactions all the time. So what sort of things can engineers do to help them prepare?

Yakira 9:55

for some of the things that you've been seeing in your research. What are some of your recommendations you have that people have in these meetings? So the presenting designer right can choose what information to include on those slides, which angles of the design to be showing and simply, by the way we set up a presentation, can really moderate what type of feedback is solicited. And even if we need feedback on one component, we can focus more of our effort on that. Or maybe we don't want that feedback and it's quickly brushed over and just that design can move forward. So there's ways that just the person presenting has a good amount of influence in terms of guiding the conversation, as well as the facilitator, which sometimes can be the presenter as well, or it might be somebody else in the room who's kind of guiding feedback, soliciting feedback from the team in a round robin format or if it's just open floor.

Yakira 10:52

There's some dynamics that come into play with that as well. If everybody's offered the opportunity to give feedback, it's more inclusive. There's way more opportunities to say someone's kind of piece. It's more inclusive. There's way more opportunities to say someone's kind of piece. But if it's more of a free for all and depending on the dynamics of the team. If there's only one or two people who speak up and that's kind of a consistent pattern, meeting over meeting, there's ways then improvement could also happen. And then I think, also the attendees, like anybody who's sitting in that room and giving feedback, to think about how you're delivering that feedback. Is it in a constructive way, in a helpful way, or, if there's a problem, how you're describing or kind of raising that concern or issue, and then kind of either offering a solution just in all these dynamics, right. Kind of either offering a solution just just in all these dynamics, right, the words, the delivery and knowing the existing relationship between you and that presenter. Yeah, so there it's.

Dianna 11:52

It's really an interesting space that I'm excited to continue looking into I'm remembering now during your presentation, realizing the need to identify your role in the design review. So you mentioned three the presenter, the facilitator and then, if you're an attendee and I've been all three in design reviews and normally the facilitator in my experience has usually been the lead design engineer, the project manager that's responsible for getting this design review done, and then the engineers are tasked with creating the presentation and presenting whatever information that they have to share. But I liked your approach in first identifying who you are in this design review meeting. You also mentioned that the words that we choose matter and our delivery matters. Like you said, how you set up the presentation is a different power dynamic. And then I like your thought about existing relationships with people. What kind of activities could engineers do if they've identified that they're the presenters? What are some of the things that they can do to address some of these biases ahead of time, before heading into the design review?

Yakira 13:15

Yeah.

Yakira 13:15

So I think in terms of the dynamics or the relationships between folks, those are kind of already existing, but I think kind of coming at it with an open mind. So I know there's some work, um, and even in some of the interviews from my work, the design direction or kind of the next steps in the presenting designer's mind is almost sometimes made up or they have like a really concrete idea of what's going to happen next, based on conversations that they've had before they even enter that design review. So then they're presenting these designs to kind of get the like okay, as in like I'm already going to do these things next. So some of that willingness to even hear other feedback is a little bit more closed than I think we might expect. So I think, keeping in mind maybe the structures or the ways engineers are getting some of that feedback, or maybe being more honest in the presentation of the feedback that's already been received prior to presenting I like that idea a lot because I have seen some times where there's pressure to move on from the design review.

Dianna 14:28

You have to have it because it's in your new product development process but it's sort of seen as a checkbox and you want to get through it successfully with no hiccups so you can keep moving on with the project, and that is a mindset that you need to shift if you want to have a design review. That's more meaningful, especially for the cross-functional team, because in the background, engineering might be making decisions and not having marketing or manufacturing involved in those decisions. But really that's the whole purpose of a design review. So I like that you call that out and I also like that those conversations are going to happen, but in the design review, just being upfront and honest about it.

Dianna 15:16

This is our recommendation. This is what we've been talking about and how we got there, and I like that approach. As far as facilitating, you mentioned that sometimes if we just ask for feedback and we kind of get crickets or the same people are always giving us feedback. I found that if you have a plan for how to get feedback from a group, that it's a little easier to do it in the design review. What are some of the ways that you found work best for facilitating, or some of the gotchas to watch out for for facilitating, or some of the gotchas to watch out for.

Yakira 15:55

I think definitely having a plan, kind of leaving it too open for folks and kind of silence, I mean it all really depends on the team. But I know, like kind of leaving it very open, just drawed out the design review to just be very long, where folks were going over time and it was kind of happened regularly. But I've seen another team do kind of round robin style and I think that gave everybody an opportunity to participate, even if all they said was looks good, because they either didn't have the expertise to give more of a comment or generally they felt like it was OK and they didn't need to say anything but they had to. With that round robin aspect, those are kind of different dynamics that I've seen and it depends on the team and firm and what kind of process they have in place. But having something in mind to kind of keep the meeting moving along.

Yakira 16:53

There's ways some research is showing right keeping it anonymous.

Yakira 16:57

I'm not entirely sure how that can pan out in real life without it slowing down the process too much. If maybe some of the slides or the report is presented beforehand and people can kind of comment beforehand some of their feedback. I don't have a best solution on how that can be carried out in a kind of efficient and timely way, but those are ways to kind of start thinking like how can we get this feedback to be more anonymous? Or for designers to kind of consider these feedbacks without maybe seeing kind of direct like their boss or whoever's kind of making their decision on that person. Because sometimes people will look to them like okay, what are they kind of liking? What is that person kind of shaking their head to, nodding, to seeing like oh yeah, I like that because they're kind of looking for these external validation of somebody who has a higher power position and kind of is their boss or has, like, the really high expertise and something which is allowing these kind of social dynamics to then guide that decision process.

Dianna 18:05

Do you find with these design reviews that it's not really clear how a decision would be made, or is everyone pretty clear about that?

Yakira 18:14

It depends on kind of the scope of decision up for review and how certain they are for that to just move forward. If it's a team where it's kind of the confidence behind the build is there, it's just a matter of kind of a checkpoint to get things moving to the next step, or is it? They're coming to this and they're kind of stumped, like I think we should do this, but I genuinely don't know. And then that becomes more of a conversation, work session, brainstorm, as opposed to okay, let's talk. Talk about like, what is the strengths of that, what are the kind of the weaknesses, and then give some ideas and then revisit this design review in the future. Because I know one of the teams that it turned more into a brainstorming session and work session. People were just like thinking on the fly and it wasn't the most productive for the like the design team sharing their product.

Dianna 19:17

Oh, so it wasn't productive for the design team and it didn't really help the group make decisions.

Yakira 19:22

Some of them were seeing this challenge for the first time and then kind of just like Googling and trying to share kind of like spur of the moment ideas. So some of I think attendees likely thought they were all being helpful. But in the conversation afterwards some folks were like we've been looking at this problem for weeks and like a lot of what they've said like we know. So it was kind of challenging to kind of just like sit there and have our part be like just talked about and kind of a lot of stuff that we already knew, knew, but we had like really concrete, we needed to get back to the requirements and kind of just the focus of the conversation needed to shift and I think they had some struggle with getting the conversation that way or just moving the design review to the next person who was up to share something so it's.

Yakira 20:10

It's sort of like everyone in the design review wasn't on the same page with where they were in the process, the more relaxed anybody can say anything design feedback structure. So it wasn't a clear end of when should we stop, kind of like a strict time agenda. Yeah, so some of those dynamics were able to play out just based on like the way the meeting was set up.

Dianna 20:46

Yeah, so that could be part of the planning too Understanding the meeting setup and making sure that everybody is on the same page with where you are and what kind of decisions need to be made.

Yakira 21:00

If a designer or an engineer right, we're stuck with this problem and maybe we don't have an idea of how to go about it. I think coming up with structured questions or kind of what components you really need feedback on this, but not these other things. Or I've thought really deeply about this already and these solutions don't work for this reason, anybody else have something else. But I think, just being clear with kind of what's been done and what is the challenge, that you're seeking feedback on this. This way it's more concrete. I think, across the desire review, sometimes feedback is given that they've already considered, but it wasn't communicated that. You know these different directions were considered, because it's challenging to give a summary of all the things you've done in the weeks coming within.

Dianna 21:50

You know, 30 minutes an hour, yeah, I mean even shorter because yeah, along the lines of getting everybody on the same page with what's been done, because, like you said, the engineers are off thinking through things, designing things, coming up with ideas, and they have gone through a lot of the stuff on their deep dive thinking but it's not getting communicated to the rest of the team. Is the design reviews really the proper place to communicate that, or are engineers and the other team members looking for getting more of that information or sharing that outside of the design reviews?

Yakira 22:31

I think this is really unique to the team and I think, the firm and how they set up, whether it's something that a small group can kind of meet in the spur of the moment and handle, or if they wait for some of these problems to kind of pile up and then have a weekly meeting or kind of every two-week meeting to go over these challenges.

Yakira 22:57

I think it's very unique to just the way different meetings hold purpose within a firm. But I think in terms of communicating it, one I know engineers struggle, like I struggle also sometimes communicating my work and my research, even just. But being able to kind of summarize what's been done, where you're at and where you think you might go. But yeah, I mean even just setting up meetings before the design review or trying to make the most of the design review. If the project isn't ready to even go up for that review point, it might not make sense. You might need to cancel it and kind of go back to some of the smaller within team meetings without having, you know, all these other members of the company or external stakeholders be present. But I think it's really up to the like what's at hand. There's all these nuances, so I can't really give the best answer for that.

Dianna 23:55

Yeah, that was a tough question, but that is something that I guess engineers can consider where they're working and what it's like. So what kind of team are you working on now? Do they stay in touch and are people being updated with all the different changes and iterations as you're coming up with concepts? Or are they um? Are they holding it all for the design review? And, depending on the answer to that, will depend on how you want to best plan your design review, what you want to get out of it and and what kind of things you have to prepare. Is that right?

Yakira 24:34

Yes, I think just there's different meeting types within a company and it depends, yeah, how much individual ownership or kind of ability somebody has the power within their control to even make decisions on certain components before needing kind of some higher approval before those changes are made.

Dianna 24:54

Yeah, the decision making and approval takes a big part of that too. Definitely yeah, so it's really knowing a lot about the dynamics of your workplace. What is something that engineers can do that you've discovered through your research that can help them with all these nuances, with this part of design, with design reviews and communicating with other people?

Yakira 25:17

So I think two aspects One, really communication standpoint. There's always so much more we can be doing in terms of improving our own communication abilities, what we document and help communicate about the product or system that we're working on this way. Right, if someone's not at that meeting or you kind of want to update somebody on the problem, it takes practice to be able to write that kind of cohesively with right what's been done, where's the problem, at what you're thinking in the future. So always opportunities to improve on that front. The other aspect is looking at the relationships and social dynamics. Starting to think about how you and your relationship with those folks within a team, whose voices do you generally listen to and why? Starting to increase that self-awareness no-transcript, been in the industry for 20 years.

Yakira 26:38

Thinking about kind of what's guiding those processes, because I think sometimes our like, our intuition is good, right, josh is an expert, but sometimes is it? Oh, just, we really like josh, but it's like, okay, is Josh's performance? Just thinking kind of more critically about whose feedback do we listen to. What kind of dynamics are at play? Right, the social dynamics, some of the biases that I talked about. Kind of like, is it expertise that's really guiding it versus you know Josh is my boss. Is it expertise that's really guiding it versus you know Josh is my boss. So I will continue to listen to whatever Josh says, even if maybe he hasn't done the calculations or been super involved in the project.

Dianna 27:36

So there's all these things to kind of start thinking about, but just increasing our awareness to it. But eventually we want to get to a state where we're democratically I guess, considering the feedback of our team, is there a better way that you would describe that that the endpoint that we want to continually work for.

Yakira 27:46

Yeah, I think being able to take pieces of feedback and try to remove or, but in order to even remove those biases is we have to be aware of it. So being able to understand okay, I think, critically right, these two pieces of feedback, like which of these are more in line with the engineering principles and the science component that's going to better serve the system or users, that kind of down the line, as opposed to whose feedback is just, is most impactful to me in this moment, just within the dynamics of my team. Right, who do I want to make feel heard?

Dianna 28:26

yeah, so I think, just keeping like increase the awareness, but thinking about just really the system and how which piece of feedback makes more sense with the problem at hand so try to take the the emotional and social aspect out of it and really focus on the particular feedback, as it matters to the project and then maybe the end customer too yeah, and I think that's where even communicating kind of goes in line with that right.

Yakira 28:56

When we're rationalizing reasoning, justifying these decisions, why is it that we're doing that Like? If we can concretely say, you know, that piece of feedback is rooted on this test, is rooted to the requirements that we're designing for, right, that serves to validate the process. But if we're seeing the feedback just like, sounds great, but we can't really tie it to some objective results or some sort of requirement that we're designing for to think why is that feedback meaningful? And if there's a reason that doesn't kind of sound rooted within the design, that's where kind of we should have some sort of light bulb going off, or we should be more critical of why we're listening to that feedback or allowing that feedback to continue through the product design cycle when we get that kind of a feedback that we've identified.

Dianna 29:46

That isn't really. That isn't justified. I can see instances where someone really wants to, wants their feedback to be implemented in this particular product At some point. Sometimes there might be some pushback or the communication extends where you have to let that person know why their feedback isn't carried through for the rest of the product. Are there ways to? I was going to ask you if there's ways to communicate that, but that all depends on the team who you're working with and who's giving the feedback and you tell your manager you know that person doesn't have expertise on this Like I know they're or they're newer to this they maybe don't know kind of where the project is coming from.

Yakira 30:44

There's ways where it's okay, like the boss is like oh, that's okay, like right, there's not that much of a pushback. But if that feedback is coming from the boss and it's kind of in direct conflict, I think that's where it gets challenging. And how to navigate that in terms of it depends, once again, on the topic of the feedback, but trying to figure out if right, if it, I think if we focus on kind of the product at hand and what makes the most sense, and maybe getting other team members, folks to see kind of what makes the most sense as well, so it's not just like one person versus this other higher power person. But I think, yeah, a lot of it depends. But it's a lot of navigating conversations, communications within the team to your supervisor, kind of within the company. So a lot of the stuff that, like as an engineer, sometimes we're just like I just want to do the engineering and just leave me to it, but now I have to tell people what I did, but it's a big part of the engineering process.

Dianna 31:43

Oh, definitely, yeah. So you talked about first being aware of these biases that we have just because we're humans, not necessarily because we're engineers and then, after we're aware of them, trying to actively remove them from the kind of feedback that we're getting about the product and then also just ensure that the decisions that were being made can be justified properly for the project and the product and the customer. We've talked a lot about communication is just hard, but is there something particular that's the hardest to master that you've seen in your research that people trip up on over and over again, like what's something that we really need to watch out for and to practice, to get better at this?

Yakira 32:34

Yeah, I think the awareness component can be some of the most challenging because I mean, we just talked about kind of thinking about expertise, which is a little bit more with status in the work I do, which is kind of like the respect and admiration folks have for you, whereas power is kind of the control of these resources, which is traditionally more in line with somebody who's a supervisor, kind of somebody who can hire, fire or kind of provide budgetary control. But there's definitely different biases and kind of the way we show up to a space In some of the work in design justice and kind of thinking about equity in design. There's ways to start thinking about our own identity and there's a tool called the Identity Wheel which was created from folks at the University of Michigan to think about different dimensions of, yeah, race is on there, but education level, kind of nationality and kind of what types of privileges or marginalizations each of those identities bring. There's a handful I only mentioned a couple, but there's others with religion, gender, all these other dimensions of our identity that we can think about and how those show up for us. Those show up for us. We may not necessarily be thinking about it, especially if folks are more on the privileged side and don't have to think about these identities as much, but just being aware. Okay, what does this identity, how does it show up for me and how does this impact the people on my team or even my users?

Yakira 34:14

So, depending on the design that's happening, especially if you're working with users who are different than you, thinking about the dynamics that happen kind of then between the team of engineers and those users or kind of what dynamics are at play? Right, are those users kind of coming to you with this problem, or is this oh, you've been set into this space and now you have to solve this problem? How much control and kind of ability does the end user have within kind of the between you and the engineers and the user themselves? Are they able to give feedback on kind of the designs and systems that are being implemented in their communities, feedback on kind of the designs and systems that are being implemented in their communities? There's quite a few dynamics that kind of, but key to that is increasing kind of our own awareness of our identities. Thinking about first really within your team immediately and then thinking about it.

Yakira 35:09

Yeah, especially if you worked with kind of end users or kind of stakeholders who will be receiving the product, thinking about the influence that your team is having on them, the identity wheel is a placeholder of aspects of people that we can think about.

Dianna 35:27

Like you said, you identify yourself first. Think about yourself and how you're showing up in the space. How is this different from some of the other personality tests that are in industry? There was one that I remember was I think it was a PDIC or there's an Enneagram personality test. Those are different than this identity wheel, right, and what's different about it? Why is the identity wheel better for this situation?

Yakira 36:05

Yeah, I'm not sure if I would say one or the identity wheel better for this situation style how you work on a team, kind of how you like to receive feedback, which can definitely be helpful for just understanding how your teammates like to kind of work and how your boss would like to work with you, vice versa. But with the identity wheel is thinking about bringing in more of the social justice elements which is really just our own understanding of. Okay, so I'm a Latino woman. Like how do I show up in a space? Right, sometimes I know for me, like what's super salient yeah, it's my gender, my race, but there's some other aspects that don't show up as often and kind of thinking about how those show.

Yakira 36:55

So, like, right, I just completed my PhD, so now I'm very privileged in the background, in my educational background I went to really pretty good schools, so now I know when I speak or even share it right on this podcast. Right, there's a bit of a halo effect in types of the information and what I say. A halo effect in types of the information and what I say. So I have to be cautious of that and kind of ground what I'm saying you know in evidence, or what I've seen or read and not just use this privilege to kind of say whatever I want. So there's different things to start thinking about.

Yakira 37:29

But I think first up is, just like our own awareness and if we're not sure what one of those identities like maybe our religion, okay, how is you know, being maybe Catholic, giving some sort of privilege versus being kind of some more marginalized religious identity, right, thinking about these dynamics because it's stuff that we're not necessarily taught within the engineering curriculum, stuff that we're not necessarily taught within the engineering curriculum. And I think, right to learn how to use the language and engage with others who are different than us, because I know in this day and age it's some things are really political and just like. But being able to learn about, kind of these different identities and know where you stand in the world and how you can talk with other folks, right, is just a good conversation starter, because all of these dynamics, whether or not we want to believe it or not, do impact our everyday interactions.

Dianna 38:26

And then I suppose once you do your own evaluation with the identity wheel, it gives you an appreciation for the other people that you're working for or working with and you mentioned customers, using this to kind of help better understand the customers of our product. I can see that influencing not just ourselves but then how we interact with others, which is your point in using the tool right.

Yakira 38:54

Yeah, definitely, yeah it just. It also gives us the vocabulary, once we become more familiar with these constructs and these different terms, to just want our own self-awareness but how we engage with others. I think it's just only helped when I've introduced this in a class people haven't grappled with these concepts before and when they have seen, they're like, oh okay, like yes, even if I'm marginalized in this sense, I hold quite a bit of power in this sense, like right, I'm an engineer, I have this expertise and yeah, when I come into this space like folks who especially could do kind of designing for marginalized communities or maybe kind of some like folks with disabilities or some sort of programming around that, but like, okay, like I need to know the privilege I'm coming in with and being able to navigate those spaces. Yeah, I think it is super key because it also opens those end users to just be more upfront and comfortable with you, as opposed to there's this like team coming in here. I don't know if they'll solve my problem, but we can try.

Dianna 40:01

Well, that's great. So I think the big takeaway from our conversation today is to find the identity wheel and start thinking about how the identity wheel would describe yourself. Is that how you would, how you would say it, and becoming more self-aware about how those things are affecting your interactions with others. Would you have any other other insights, key takeaways from our conversation that that you want to share?

Yakira 40:29

well, I think that covers it.

Yakira 40:30

Yeah, self-awareness, and especially if you're doing the identity wheel and you're not sure what those terms are or the terms have shifted, feel free to like, look it up and and definitely do a little bit of self-learning, because we want to be able to articulate those identities and conversations and feel more comfortable having those conversations with ourselves teammates, colleagues, understanding, yeah, a lot of these nuances. That's kind of the foundation and then we can start to think more right, maybe the identity role doesn't cover it, but oh, why do I keep trusting this person's feedback, like thinking critically and kind of being able to start then articulating the relationships around you and how they're guiding your experience as an engineer?

Dianna 41:17

That's great advice. Now, do you have a website or a resource that I can share on the podcast blog, on the website that people can go to for the identity wheel?

Yakira 41:28

Not offhand for the identity wheel, but I can share my website, which is yakiramarabitocom. I can share my website, which is yakiramarabitocom, and I'm trying to put a new tab on there with the revised identity wheel from University of Michigan, because that one's really specific to just kind of thinking about how it shows up in your day to day. I modified it with some questions about how does it show up within our engineering lives.

Dianna 41:51

I think a tab will include that there, as well as some of the frameworks and kind of other findings from my research that people can just start applying and this is something that you've done your research on, and I met you at a conference, so this is really an important message that you want to share with other people, to be able to use this to improve the world of engineering. Is that right?

Yakira 42:16

The identity wheel is more of a byproduct of one of the design, justice and equity course that I helped serve as a graduate student instructor for, but it was a tool that I kind of modified based on what I've already seen in some conversations with another researcher who's more in the education space space, thinking about how power dynamics between instructors and students play out. Yeah, but I think that's just one tool. I think some of the other work that is more applicable to my field or what I'm doing is the dynamics within industry, teams and teammates and how that impacts the decisions we make and the product performance and those outcomes.

Dianna 42:58

And people can learn more by going to your website.

Yakira 43:00

Yes or LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Dianna 43:06

Are there other things that you can help engineers with in their work?

Yakira 43:11

Yeah, if folks want to reach out to me, I'm happy to kind of observe or provide feedback on some of the communication and reporting practices that companies either have or looking for ways to improve on.

Dianna 43:23

So they would contact you and you would come and observe and give them next steps or things to improve based on what you've seen elsewhere.

Yakira 43:32

Yes, that's definitely an avenue. Or if they want to also contribute and be research participants in ways for some new project directions, that's also an opportunity. I'm always looking for practitioners to help advance the work and also guide. What am I missing?

Dianna 43:49

Well, thank you very much for agreeing to be on the podcast. I really enjoyed your speech and I enjoyed hearing about your research. It made me think differently about things and I'm always looking to improve as an engineer and a person, and I thought you helped guide me to be able to do that. So I really appreciate talking with you more on the podcast because I got to learn even more about it. So thank you for being a guest. Yeah, thank you for having me. That concludes my interview with Yakira. Don't forget to visit qualityduringdesigncom and yakiramiravitocom. This has been a production of Dini Enterprises. Thanks for listening.