John Larkin said:
I just finished designing another board, a waveform generator, and I
asked one of my guys, my most-recent hire actually, to look it over
before we gerber it. He said "I really don't have my head into what I
was doing, so I'll take a day or so and give it a full check assuming
that it was designed by an idiot."
What should I have replied to a statement like that?
John
You should thank him. I've designed a few things in my career and had
great difficulties getting anyone to spend the time reviewing the
design or implementation. Everyone was busy and nobody had the time
to do it. You'll find that feedback, in any form should be welcomed,
not defended against. Look at it this way. If it works, YOU are the
hero. If it's a better design as a result of peer review, then YOU
still get the credit.
How a person packages their criticism or review should not be a
consideration. Most of the people I respect are arrogant, self
centered, egotistical, tactless, demanding, and short tempered. That's
mostly a defense mechanism against getting overloaded with excessive
work. If you did your part of the design in a reasonable manner,
you'll probably get the respect you deserve. If you made a mess of
things, you'll be the first to know.
Much more important is what to do when he actually delivers a proper
detailed design review. If you go on the defensive, you'll never get
him to look at your design again. He's just declare it to be a waste
of his time as you aren't really interesting in listening to his
comments.
More appropriate would be to listen carefully, do NOT pass judgment,
thank him profusely for his efforts, and sneak off into a corner
somewhere to objectively consider his comments. Even if you don't
take any of his changes as useful, he also deserves some feedback. If
you like one of his ideas, but don't have the time to implement it,
then tell him so.
As for his rather odd statement, I suspect you may be reading it out
of context. I analyze everything based on the assumption that
everything is wrong until calculated otherwise. The most common
mistakes are the result of bad assumptions. By assuming that all the
calcs and design work was done wrong, I get to check both the calcs
and the assumptions. Most often, the calcs are correct, but the
assumption that they are based upon are wrong. If you assume that it
was designed by an idiot, the assumption float to the surface where
they can be inspected.