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72 PCB007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2023 nical document is trying to express. For exam- ple, if you are writing an instruction manual for a new hire to understand, please cut out acronyms. A new hire barely understands the depth of their work, let alone company acro- nyms. Understanding the technical docu- ment's audience alleviates questions that may be asked later, such as with a datasheet. Happy says technical writing is best when it's straightforward, and opinion and bias are le at the door. Although leav- ing bias out of a document is difficult, practice makes per- fect. It's important to con- tinually perfect your writing through peer review, he says, and having several reviews before publishing a paper not only helps the writer improve their skills, but gain a bet- ter understanding of where there may be missing links in the writing. What stood out to me in this chapter was Happy's detailed descrip- tion of his process while writing any technical paper. Happy describes how he creates a mind- map for every paper, which leads to making a presentation. en he presents his slides and uses text-to-speech to write his paper. I had never thought about creating slides based on my ideas for each paper, let alone do I rarely mind-map any concepts that will be used in the papers I write. I believe all these tips will help me organize my papers more effectively. The Skill of Distance Learning While reading through 24 Essential Skills for Engineers, some concepts genuinely sur- prised me, such as the skill of online instruc- tion and the distance learning section. Happy talks about how this not only shapes the edu- cation of future engineers, but the way orga- nizational training can be approached. When evaluating the benefits of distance learning, Happy includes equations as to why distance are caused, or at least permitted, by faulty sys- tems and processes. is means that the root cause of such mistakes can be identified and eliminated, and repetition can be prevented by changing the process." rough our team meetings on continuous improvement, we not only prevent mistakes from occurring in measurements, but we pre- vent repetition of the same mistake. However, this doesn't just happen through a team meet- ing. Documentation and effective communica- tion with your team helps ensure that the entire team is up to date as to where the problem stands. If the issue occurs again, then any- one on the team should be able to solve it, because we have good documentation. Designing for manufacturing and assembly is a skill I'm working on at Texas Instruments. My team has a continual need to improve bench measurements, and I was asked to design the PCBs. In high school, I learned just how important designing a PCB is to understanding key concepts in elec- trical engineering, though I didn't fully under- stand that, when designing a PCB, it is impor- tant to account for manufacturing and assem- bly constraints for possible rework. Rework is sometimes inevitable when designing for multiple use cases, even with team review. When designing for manufacturing and assem- bly, team reviews will help to ensure that reli- able manufacturing is possible to increase product yield. The Skill of Technical Writing When Happy brought up technical writ- ing as an important skill set for any engineer, I was ecstatic. In college, I was drawn to tech- nical writing and learned that clear commu- nication can directly impact the value of your work. Happy stresses that when writing a tech- nical document, you must know your audience because it helps the level of depth that a tech-