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60 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2025 leverage their available internal expertise related to elements such as schematics, layout, or testing and take a team approach to printed circuit design. But internal does not always mean "in the room." Members of the team may not be in the same building, time zone, or even country. Logistical challenges inherent with dispersed teams can create delays, such as the added days needed to schedule a meeting across time zones. Organizations are learning how to mitigate these challenges and realize the benefits associated with team design. Most organizations have got- ten used to hybrid and remote workforces over the past few years, so a seasoned design team should be able to overcome common logistical challenges using the collaborative tools we have come to embrace. When hitting on all cylinders, an experienced team can accelerate design cre- ation, limit iteration, and ensure a smooth tran- sition to manufacturing. Team Design Workflows and Best Practices Dispersed design teams can speed develop- ment cycles by doing parallel work, leveraging specialized expertise when necessary, and col- laborating in a more agile fashion. In general, I have found that effective team design work- flows begin with sound preparation: • Create your strategic plan by starting at a high level and working down to a more granular detail. Define success, identify potential obstacles to completion, and confirm that all necessary stakeholders have been included on the project. • Build the project plan. Here, the team lays out individual roles and responsibilities, sets project milestones, and targets a com- pletion date. • Establish how the team will collaborate both internally and with manufacturing partners. Will there be regular meetings, primary reliance on collaborative tools like Slack, and formal use of a project manage- ment platform such as Asana or Trello? • Define which design tools and technology applications are best suited to the project. Needs may vary depending on the project. Will teams be working concurrently, or will there be a series of handoffs? Does the project plan require modular design tools like Upverter? Modular design offers teams the ability to have multiple people work concurrently on a board design at one time, each focused on their own section. Designs can be partitioned and assigned to team members based on available bandwidth or area of expertise. Each module represents a small, functional block of a com- plex board design that is more manageable for the designer, and they can be developed and tested independently before being integrated into the PCB layout. Modular design increases the maturity of the whole organization. Over time, teams using modular design methods will be able to reuse modules across multiple designs, spend less time on testing and rework, make upgrades to modules more easily, create bet- ter designs, and accelerate the overall design process. As board design increasingly becomes a team sport, I encourage you to continuously hone your skills to design for the reality of manufac- turing and work hard to develop best practices for the process. DESIGN007 Matt Stevenson is vice president and general manager of ASC Sunstone Circuits. To read past columns, click here. Matt is also the author of The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to Designing for Reality and featured guest on the podcast series of the same name. " Modular design increases the maturity of the whole organization. "