Avoiding engineering solutions

[c-martinez]

As engineers, we are very good at solving problems. Every problem has a solution which can be engineered (or at least we tend to think so). But sometimes we fail to see that not every problem has an engineering solution: sometimes code is not better by being more efficient, but by being more understandable; sometimes we don't need to build something new at all.

We usually work in multi-disciplinary collaborations, and we bring our own expertise, but I consider it important that we are also humble to acknowledge the expertise of the other collaborators. We collaborate with fields in which we are not experts, and it is important that we remember we are experts in our field, but at the same time remember we are not experts in the other field (and that it has difficulties of its own, many of which we are unaware of).

I propose to have a SIG session in which we can share our experiences (positive and negative) collaborating across domains, and maybe we can share some "lessons learned" in how to be an open minded collaborator.