Are you a toilet or shower person?

Or: ​Getting all the insights from an engineering team

So what sort of person are you?

There are two types of people in this world – yes, only two.
Those who have their ideas while sitting on the toilet and those who have their ideas in the shower.
It is in one of these times of solitude and contemplation that they ponder things in their life and insights that have grown deep inside the unconscious psyche burst into the conscious mind.
It is painfully rare for anyone to be in the shower or on the toilet during any kind of review or brainstorming session. And even if they were, these sessions are group activities so there is no solitude – is it more the solitude than the place that is important.
For this reason, you are not likely to get all possible insights from an engineering team in any kind of group session. Be it a design review, a scoping activity, a brainstorming session, a risk analysis activity, basically, any activity where you want as many insights as possible to ensure long-term success.
If you are like me, then you have likely had that annoying experience where you think you have considered all issues and perspectives, documented them, assessed them, and then determined a path forward, only to have one or two people come to you with more ideas, issues, or perspectives.
You appreciate that they are sharing these, but it is still annoying that they come to you after you have done all this work.
You feel like you are going in circles and making no progress as you get dragged back each time. You might even decide to ignore them simply so you can progress – even if it is not the most optimised path you are taking.
The other thing that might occur to you is that while these are the extra ideas that are shared, there could well be other ideas that were had by people who don’t want to bother anyone – given the work that has been done.
It really would have been good to have these ideas presented earlier.
So what to do?
Factor this into the related activities.
Don’t ever assume any brainstorming session, design review, scoping party, gemba walk, risk assessment, or anything else like that will be done in a single sitting. Book one session, run it, give people a break – long enough to have been in the shower or on the toilet – say a couple of days – then have another session.
That way, you can be more sure you have conducted an exhaustive, yet not exhausting, consideration.
Don’t have time for such an approach?
Then simply accept you will not cover everything, and proceed at risk.
Best to factor these extra steps into your plans though.